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The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale review
:. Director: Dirname
:. Genre: Documentary
:. Running Time: 1:05
:. Year: 2008
:. Country: USA
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A neo-expressionist painter who got his 5 minutes of fame in the New York art scene in the 80's, Chuck Connelly didn't follow the same trajectories as some of his most illustrious peers — Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel (who is also the director of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Before Night Falls, & Basquiat) among others — self-destructive and falling into oblivion, a victim of his own ego and anger.
With The Art of Failure, director Jeff Stimmel offers an uncompromising portrait of the artist but also a quite sharp critique of the art world, which seems to stagnate in its own shallowness.
The filmmaker follows the painter throughout the years, letting the camera roll, whether it captures the affliction of a man who doesn't want to compromise his art or the blind — and often drunk — anger of an egomaniac who burns bridges and relationships, whether it's with his wife or fans such as filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Mr. Stimmel intertwines this real-life sequences with interviews of collectors and fellow artists as well as archive footage.
There is certainly a lot of sadness in this film, witnessing an artist who's been referred to as a genius, painting every day and stocking hundreds of pieces in his attic, rather than selling them: Mr. Connelly would rather struggle, barely surviving financially, than sell paintings that should be worth up to 6 figures for a couple hundred bucks. Whether the man is an egomaniac or not — which he is — you can certainly respect that he sticks to his guns instead of selling out. Amusingly, even when he is on the verge of selling out, asking an actor to incarnate his alter-ego Fred Scaboda to sell pieces from his more modernist Fred era, he sabotages his own scheme, switching the works and replacing them with his signature Chuck Connelly paintings when collectors come to visit his studio.
But what's even more shocking is the behavior of an art world that not only seems to have blacklisted him because he is a drunken jerk but also tries to take advantage of him because he is penniless. Mr. Stimmel interviews a succession of art collectors and gallery owners who, while supporting him financially, clearly take advantage of Mr. Connelly, buying his pieces on the cheap to later sell for hundred times more what they paid for it. Not only does the art scene — at least galleries and wealthy collectors — seem to be mostly motivated by profit but they are quite hypocritical: they have no problem judging Mr. Connelly while he is alive but certainly wouldn't mind paying big bucks for pieces from the likes of Van Gogh or Warhol, who were also far from being saints.
The success of a documentary — at least those that carry a message rather than going for a passive depiction of reality — can usually be measured by its impact: would you have had the chance to be at the screening that took place at the LA Film Festival, which was also attended by the artist himself, you would have learned that this film already made waves, waking up the art world and resulting in Mr. Connelly getting his work exhibited for the first time in decades. Whether it's to help you discover the work of an artist or to make things change, The Art of Failure is one of the rare documentaries that fulfills its premise.
Fred Thom
 Documentary Reviews: 1998 - 2011
Documentary Reviews: 2012 - present
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