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clyfford still | museum
A woman wearing a green sweater and a mask sits on the floor and points up at an abstract blue painting with a pipe cleaner and a young child sits next to her and points up with her finger at the same spot
Photo by James Dewhirst

Clyfford Still Museum announces three community-focused exhibitions during tenth anniversary year

Denver, CO – May 13, 2021 – The Clyfford Still Museum (CSM) announced the three exhibitions it will present during a year-long celebration of the Museum’s tenth anniversary centered around the concept of community.

Since opening its doors, CSM has made countless discoveries as the staff has worked to inventory and assess the Museum’s vast art and archival holdings, better understand visitors’ interests, and evaluate the artist’s legacy in an ever-changing, 21st-century world. A Decade of Discovery: Clyfford Still in Denver, October 15, 2021–March 6, 2022, will take inspiration from the Museum’s inaugural exhibition and highlight some of CSM’s most compelling revelations about the collection and its audiences discovered during the first decade. Featured discoveries include photographs of lost paintings from the 1930s, undocumented and mysterious artworks found during the collection inventory process, and the different ways in which our visitors approach Still’s artworks. The exhibition will also include expanded information about Still’s earliest years and artistic training and a few architectural quirks unearthed about the building. Exhibition text will feature various staff, scholarly, and community voices to broaden engagement and present a wide range of perspectives.

Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind, March 11–August 7, 2022, is a community-wide collaborative exhibition examining the aesthetic preferences of early learners using Still’s artworks as a basis for study. Installed in five of the Museum’s galleries and based on current research and fieldwork, the exhibition will investigate five significant themes in the visual development of infants through early childhood: high contrast, pattern, scale, recognizable imagery, and bright, highly saturated colors. Gallery text, video, and audio will reveal how children in the community responded to these themes and how Still achieved an art form that continues to resonate through time by mastering these fundamental visual motifs. The remaining galleries will be arranged in a chronological narrative and will highlight works from the collection selected with families and young children in mind. CSM’s curatorial and educational staff worked with young children (ages six months – eight years old) and teachers from partner schools and childcare centers around the Denver metro area on every level of the exhibition, including artwork selection and arrangement, object interpretation, gallery text, and programs. Though primarily created by and for early learners, Young Minds will include various levels of engagement for all ages to explore and enjoy.

In the culminating exhibition of CSM’s tenth anniversary celebration year, You Select: A Community-Curated Exhibition, August 12, 2022–February 12, 2023, the Museum will hand the curatorial reins to art lovers from the Denver community and beyond. Designed to foster far-reaching engagement and appreciation of Clyfford Still’s art and artistic legacy, the exhibition will share the curation of CSM’s city-owned collection with a broad and diverse audience. Like the artist himself, CSM believes there is valuable knowledge to gain about Still’s art and the power of abstraction from the surrounding communities and passionate individuals from around the world. Community participants will choose the exhibition’s themes and the artworks that will illustrate those themes. Exhibition gallery text and interpretive content will incorporate participants’ perspectives on their selections and themes.

Throughout the tenth anniversary season, the Museum will offer community-centered public programs and events. For information about hours and tickets, visit https://clyffordstillmuseum.org.

About the Clyfford Still Museum

Designed by Allied Works Architecture to display the revolutionary art of one of the 20th century’s greatest artists, the Clyfford Still Museum opened in November 2011 in Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District. Considered one of the most important and mysterious painters of the 20th century, Clyfford Still (1904-1980) was among the first generation of abstract expressionist artists who developed a new and powerful approach to painting in the years during and immediately after World War II. The Museum’s collection represents more than 93% of the artist’s lifetime output. As the steward of Still’s art and legacy, the Museum’s mission is to preserve, exhibit, study, and foster engagement with its unique collections; generate outstanding exhibitions, scholarly research, educational and other cross-disciplinary programs that broaden the definition of a “single-artist” museum; and be a gathering place for the exploration of innovation and individual artistic endeavor. Connect with the Clyfford Still Museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or at clyffordstillmuseum.org.

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