I just watched a great art documentary on HBO called The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale. It follows the rise and fall of a major art talent from the 1980s art world. Connelly was a contemporary of Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Though he was extremely talented with a profitable collection of work, he ended up alienating every collector and gallery owner he worked with. The documentary was shot over the course of six years and explores a painter’s passion for his work, despite being his own worst enemy.

One of the parts that I found most interesting was how Connelly rages against what he sees as profit-hungry tactics of dealers and gallery owners, who buy paintings in bulk to get the greatest return on their investment. With over 3,000 paintings in storage, Connelly could be paid a huge sum to clear out his studio and sell his entire collection. Though this would make him rich, Connelly would never agree to sell in bulk because each individual painting would be priced "dirt cheap."

The documentary also touches on how Martin Scorsese was looking for an artist who could be a model for his film, New York Stories: Life Lessons. (1989)The artist played by Nick Nolte was based on Connelly and all of the artwork shown in the film was his own works. I think that will be added to my Netflix queue quite soon.

Chuck Connelly, Self Portrait 2008, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches.

Well, it took me the day before the show closed, but I was able to go see the Jasper Johns show at the MMOCA yesterday. It was a great exhibit, showing about 100 prints spanning from Johns start in the 60’s until today. It was very interesting to see his thought process evolve with several of his major themes, such as targets, flags, and numbers/colors as well as experimentation with the printing medium. I personally liked this part the best. It had a much more textural feel and you could see how Johns was riffing on a subject. I feel like it would have complemented the Gray show that is currently at MOMA in NY. All in all, a great way to spend a blustery afternoon.

If you have time, please check out this online version of MOMA’s current exhibit “Color Chart: Reinventing Color 1950 to Today”. It has some great works shown as well as an interesting time line of how the use of color has changed in contemporary art.

I truly enjoy the genres of abstract expressionism and color field and feel that sometimes it is not always fully represented. So, it was great to see some different works than just the usual Pollocks and Rothkos. Let me know what you think.

Watch out NYC and Chicago, Madison is moving on up.

Jasper Johns has a show Jasper Johns: Gray that recently started at the Art Institute of Chicago that has now moved to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, I am not a huge JJ fan, at least not of his most well known targets and flags, but I would have loved to have seen this show, which deals more with colorist ideas, alphabets and maps. I was sorry to have missed the chance, or so I thought! Well, it might not be the same show, but the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is having a exhibition of his prints. Jasper Johns: The Prints runs through April 13, 2008. I can’t wait to go check it out. Anyone want to join me?

Jasper Johns, Savarin, 1977. Lithograph, 45 x 35 inches. Co-copyright Jasper Johns and Universal Limited Art Editions, 1977. Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY