July 11, 2008: Chuck Connelly

Recently Viewed: The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale. A fascinating and somewhat distressing HBO documentary about the painter Chuck Connelly, a former rising star of the New York art world, now a drunken, bloated, roarer painting in seclusion in Pennsylvania. It's hard to tell what exactly makes Connelly a failure: his "uncompromising" attitude, his rage, his refusal to schmooze, his quite self-conscious performance-art portrayal of the archetypal cantakerous painter-dude? As many in the film say, he is clearly his own worst enemy. But I can't help but feel he likes it that way. He cherishes his rage and sups off the dramatic narrative he's acting his part in. He plays it beautifully for the cameras too. He's a wonderful painter of the neo-expressionist kind, at his best when producing still lifes, self-portraits, and pictures of houses and rooms (comparisons with Van Gogh [wildly exaggerated in my opinion] abound). In the end, this film is an interesting but flawed document--like its subject (because of its subject), it seems a bit of a put-on. Interesting that the film is now being used as a tool to revitalize his career. Well, of course it is. Had it really any other purpose? Grade: B.

Here's a link to Chuck Connelly's work at the DFN Gallery in NYC: http://www.dfngallery.com/.

And here's one to the film: http://www.hbo.com/docs/docuseries/artoffailure/.

~

Here are five reasons why you might (an awfully big might!) keep yourself from bashing Glenn Beck's brains out with a crowbar, saving yourself a prison term: (1) The greatest stage-direction of all time: "Exit, pursued by a bear." (from Shakespeare's Winter's Tale). (2) The Onion. America's Finest News Source: http://www.theonion.com/content/index. (3) The brilliant final segment of Michelangelo Antonioni's film L'eclisse , in which the subjects of the film, played by Monica Vitti and Alain Delon, are eclipsed by the background--literally, the film inverts and what we see are apparently random shots of extras in the places where the dramatic action of the film took place. Haunting. (4) The Chinook Jargon: The lively, strange, ever fascinating but now extinct patois developed for commerce between whites and Indians in the early years of the fur-trade in the Pacific Northwest. (5) The ridge on a Rhodesian Ridgeback. A genetic throwback to the original Khoisan dogs that were bred with European hounds to arrive at this amazing breed--the African Lion Hound!

So long,

JBF