{"id":2457888,"date":"2020-04-30T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=325042"},"modified":"2020-04-30T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T22:00:00","slug":"at-home-in-aspen-filmmaker-dennis-scholl-streaming-clyfford-still-doc-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/at-home-in-aspen-filmmaker-dennis-scholl-streaming-clyfford-still-doc-online\/","title":{"rendered":"At home in Aspen: Filmmaker Dennis Scholl streaming Clyfford Still doc online"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.633064516129\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-325042-733\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled gallery-container\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1024x523.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy photo | The new documentary \" lifeline: clyfford still about the reclusive abstract painter is now streaming. class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"-0.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"10\">\n<p><strong>The new documentary &#8220;Lifeline: Clyfford Still,&#8221; about the reclusive abstract painter, is now streaming.<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1024x523.jpg\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1024x523.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The new documentary \" lifeline: clyfford still about the reclusive abstract painter is now streaming.><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1-1024x550.jpg\" data-sub-html=\" | The new documentary \" lifeline: clyfford still about the reclusive abstract painter is now streaming. class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"-0.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"10\">\n<p><strong>The new documentary &#8220;Lifeline: Clyfford Still,&#8221; about the reclusive abstract painter, is now streaming.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1-1024x550.jpg\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-1-1024x550.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The new documentary \" lifeline: clyfford still about the reclusive abstract painter is now streaming.><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-2-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-2-691x1024.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy photo | The new documentary \" lifeline: clyfford still about the reclusive abstract painter is now streaming. class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"-0.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"10\">\n<p><strong>The new documentary &#8220;Lifeline: Clyfford Still,&#8221; about the reclusive abstract painter, is now streaming.<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-2-691x1024.jpg\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-2-691x1024.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The new documentary \" lifeline: clyfford still about the reclusive abstract painter is now streaming.><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-3-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-3-1024x1011.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Matthu Place\/Courtesy photo | Aspen- and Miam-based filmmaker Dennis Scholl's latest documentary profiles the artist Clyfford Still.\" class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>Aspen- and Miam-based filmmaker Dennis Scholl&#8217;s latest documentary profiles the artist Clyfford Still.<\/strong><br \/>Matthu Place\/Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-3-1024x1011.jpg\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/bstill-atd-050120-1-3-1024x1011.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Aspen- and Miam-based filmmaker Dennis Scholl's latest documentary profiles the artist Clyfford Still.\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/entertainment\/at-home-in-aspen-filmmaker-dennis-scholl-takes-clyfford-still-doc-online\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/entertainment\/at-home-in-aspen-filmmaker-dennis-scholl-takes-clyfford-still-doc-online\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Clyfford Still was Abstract Expressionism\u2019s man of mystery for decades, having retreated from the public eye as friends and rivals like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock embraced their midcentury fame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">His largely unseen paintings finally got their due with the viewing public when the Clyfford Still Museum opened in Denver in 2011, the institution resulting from the artist\u2019s dying wish that all of his work be given to a city that would preserve it and show it in perpetuity. Some 3,400 Still works are now in the popular downtown museum that helped the former cow-town transform into an art destination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But as hundreds of thousands make their way through the halls of the museum devoted to Still, the man himself has remained an enigma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Aspen- and Miami-based <a id=\"N0x1adabd0N0x1a63ed0:N0x1adabd0N0x1b01420\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/entertainment\/activities-events\/anderson-ranch-in-snowmass-to-honor-the-scholls-theaster-gates\/\">filmmaker, art collector and philanthropist Dennis Scholl<\/a> begins to unravel the mystery of the man in his new documentary, \u201cLifeline: Clyfford Still,\u201d which is now streaming.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI was always interested in Still as a psychological study,\u201d Scholl said in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Why did he walk away? Why didn\u2019t he sell his work? Why did he write in his will a demand that kept some 2,000 artworks hidden until a city agreed to build a museum worthy of them?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cLifeline\u201d finds some answers, through interviews with Still\u2019s daughters, scholars, curators along with contemporary artists and collectors, and through the revelations in 34 hours of newly resurfaced audio tapes of Still himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt showed he wasn\u2019t so much a bitter guy as an independent guy, somebody who felt that integrity was the most important thing,\u201d Scholl said. \u201cThe tapes tell you that. And he gave up so much for his integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The tapes came from the Still archive in Denver, where they\u2019d been stored away and had gone untranscribed until Scholl came looking for material.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt was just a motherlode,\u201d Scholl recalled. \u201cIt\u2019s late in his life. He\u2019s sitting on the porch in Maryland. You can hear the glass clink a little bit, so he\u2019s sipping a scotch or something. And he picks up the mic and goes, \u2018Rothko? He was a pimp.\u2019 \u2026 The tapes tell you exactly how he felt about the art world.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">If Still\u2019s judgments are harsh, the film argues, they weren\u2019t out of jealousy or competition, but out of that rare sense of integrity. Still felt that an artist should make art. He was actively antagonistic toward the commercial art world and the hype machine that propped it up \u2013 scorning galleries, museums and critics along the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz reads aloud some of Still\u2019s choicest burns on critics (he dubbed them \u201cpimps\u201d and once said \u201cI consider the fauna called art critics the least desirable of those who have gained access to the work.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Saltz is one of several interview subjects in the film that Scholl interviewed in the Aspen area \u2013 the poet Tom Healy and artist\/filmmaker Julian Schnabel were also recorded here. Schnabel, the long-reigning king of art world rebels, fondly recalls meeting Still as a young artist. Still recalls it in the film as well, on an audio tape where he tells of his encounter with the 25-year-old unknown Scnhabel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Dean Sobel, who left his post as director of the Aspen Art Museum in 2005 to become the founding director of the Still Museum, is also prominently featured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Still and Rothko had met in 1946 when both were teaching at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Rothko helped stretch paintings for Still\u2019s first show and encouraged him to come to New York. When he arrived, critics and curators in the film argue, Still\u2019s raw aesthetic became the prime mover of the Abstract Expressionist movement, changing the way the famed New York School painted, from Ad Reinhardt to Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman to Jackson Pollock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">His canvases were overwhelming and enveloping, filled with jagged vertical lines and fields of color \u2013 abstracts often reminiscent of mountain ranges or oscilloscope readings. Still himself called the lines \u201clifelines,\u201d and the film reasons they may have been inspired by Still\u2019s hardscrabble childhood on the Canadian prairies when he would be lowered to the bottom of a well on a literal lifeline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\"> \u201cWhen I hang a painting I would say, \u2018Here I am,\u2019\u201d Still says in a recording featured in the film. \u201cIf one does not like it, he should look away. For I am looking at him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Describing Still\u2019s aesthetic in the film, artist Mark Bradford says: \u201cYou saw his hand, you saw the struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">When his cohort of artists skyrocketed to fame and grew competitive with one another over shows and sales after the tectonic \u201c15 Americans\u201d exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1952, Still stepped away. In the years that followed, he refused sales and exhibitions with rare exceptions; he turned down reproduction rights and said no to inclusion in the Venice Biennale at least three times, calling it a \u201ccarnival.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">His sparse and powerful late period paintings, beginning in 1961, were largely unseen for decades \u2013 some 375 paintings that have only in recent years started to be viewed by the public and the academy in Denver.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Still thought friends like Rothko and Pollock had sold out, that they stopped growing as artists as a result. Some speculate in \u201cLifeline\u201d that Still blamed both of their early deaths on their loss of artistic purity. Unsurprisingly, he hated the Pop art that followed in the Abstract Expressionists\u2019 wake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Scholl\u2019s film doesn\u2019t touch on the current state of the contemporary art world. It doesn\u2019t ask what Still himself might have thought about how the market has soared into the billions as living artists and their work are commodified. But you can guess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">After he died in 1980, Still bequeathed his life\u2019s work \u201cto an American city that will agree to build or assign and maintain permanent quarters exclusively for these works,\u201d explicitly banning sales and loans of the work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt was a 20-year quest to find an American city that would agree to those terms,\u201d Sobel says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The film lists 26 cities that tried to get Still\u2019s wife, Patricia, to give them the collection between 1983 and 2000, when Denver finally signed a deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Then-mayor John Hickenlooper tells the story of going to see Patricia at her house in Maryland to discuss bringing the collection to Denver, and seeing the treasure trove of art there: \u201cI couldn\u2019t help but having my mind run away with, \u2018Wow, I wonder what is in all those rolled up canvases?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cLifeline\u201d premiered in November at DOC NYC, and was set for a 50-city screening tour at museums this spring, culminating in a June event in Denver. After one stop, at Parrish Art Museum in the Hamptons, the tour halted in mid-March along with most public life in America due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Scholl and his distributor quickly pivoted to a streaming release through Kino Lorber, where audiences worldwide are now finding it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe didn\u2019t know when we\u2019d be able to go back to live screenings, so we decided to put the film out on streaming and people are responding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Instead of touring with the film and discussing Still, Scholl has spent the COVID-19 quarantine period in Miami focused largely on the new artist emergency relief fund he\u2019s administering through the nonprofit Oolite Arts, which <a id=\"N0x1adabd0N0x1a63f30:N0x1adabd0N0x1b02350\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/entertainment\/anderson-ranch-hosts-14-artists-from-miamis-oolite-arts\/\">brought 14 artists to Snowmass Village for an Anderson Ranch Arts Center<\/a> residency this winter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Though he\u2019ll never own a Clyfford Still painting, the artist has been Scholl\u2019s favorite since 1979, when he saw one of Still\u2019s rare late exhibitions, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The experience began a lifelong love affair with art that led Scholl to his place as an influential collector and arts leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI\u2019m gobsmacked by the majesty and the power and the ability of the viewer to step into the paintings,\u201d he said. \u201cThat has never left me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\"><a href=\"mailto:atravers@aspentimes.com\">atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/entertainment\/at-home-in-aspen-filmmaker-dennis-scholl-takes-clyfford-still-doc-online\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new documentary &#8220;Lifeline: Clyfford Still,&#8221; about the reclusive abstract painter, is now streaming.Courtesy photo The new documentary &#8220;Lifeline: Clyfford Still,&#8221; about the reclusive abstract painter, is now streaming. The new documentary &#8220;Lifeline: Clyfford Still,&#8221; about the reclusive abstract painter, is now streaming.Courtesy photo Aspen- and Miam-based filmmaker Dennis Scholl&#8217;s latest documentary profiles the artist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 21:02:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}