Denver, CO – January 16, 2025 – The Clyfford Still Museum’s (CSM) new guest-curated exhibition, Held Impermanence (Artists Select: Katherine Simóne Reynolds), illuminates multiple competing desires held in constant tension within the Museum. Organized by award-winning filmmaker, artist, and curator Katherine Simóne Reynolds, the exhibition draws deeply on CSM’s collections. Held Impermanence opens at 9 a.m. for Museum members and 12 p.m. for the public on January 25.
According to Reynolds, the collection testifies to Still’s ambitious attempt to keep his entire corpus intact. The commitment to the integrity of that body of work allows viewers to see not only the acclaimed masterpieces but also paintings made in painful transitions and others that bear the scars of time. Artworks change over time; their materials carry the stain of what conservators describe as inherent vice. Viewers see paintings that need to rest and heal, bearing marks that suggest, through their surfaces, condition, and textures, metaphors of viscera, bile, and wounds.
In the Museum’s six largest galleries, Reynolds’s exhibition asks viewers how they view healing over time, respond with their bodies to this corpus, and how they might approach Still’s achievements from a perspective that contends with his and their own senses of mortality—and with it, a shared desire to hold impermanence.
“The exhibition is a poetic meditation on love, grief, and care manifest on the surfaces of Still’s paintings, in conservation records, and inscribed within the most personal and intimate pages written by him and his wife housed in the Archives,” says Joyce Tsai, CSM director. “Still’s art and archives are refracted here through Reynolds’s art and thought, whose work has drawn sustenance from authors Still could never have known. The exhibition illuminates new ways we might all learn to draw strength from Still’s art.”
About the Katherine Simóne Reynolds
Katherine Simóne Reynolds is an artist, scholar, and curator who investigates emotional dialects and psychogeographies of Blackness within the Black Midwestern landscape. Her art physicalizes emotions and experiences through photo-based works, film, choreography, sculpture, and anxious writing practice. Reynolds has exhibited and performed work at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Luminary, and the Graham Foundation. She has exhibited in national and international group and solo shows. She has spoken at the Contemporary Art Museum, the St. Louis Art Museum, and the Black Midwest Initiative at the University of Minnesota. She was also the 2022 fellow at the Graham Foundation. Alongside her visual art practice, she has embarked on curatorial projects at The Luminary, SculptureCenter, and exhibitions for Counterpublic 2023, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, and the Clyfford Still Museum.
Exhibition Details
Reynolds chose several paintings with condition issues to highlight the impact of conservation throughout the exhibition. She also selected a collection of archival photographs, letters, and notes to demonstrate the themes and emotions throughout the exhibition and two original archival objects. The Museum expands on exhibition content and Reynolds’ curatorial process in its free mobile guide on Bloomberg Connects. CSM also offers visitors two takeaway resources in the exhibition’s first gallery, including Essays on Held Impermanence, a companion booklet to the exhibition, and Exploring Feelings and Art: A Family Guide.
The Still will host various programs and events during the exhibition, including a performance lecture with Reynolds on February 5. Visit clyffordstillmuseum.org/events for a schedule of upcoming programs. Held Impermanence lead sponsorship is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, and additional support is provided by The Deborah Buck Foundation and UOVO. The exhibition will run until September 14, 2025.
Held Impermanence follows a chronological display of Still’s works in the Museum’s first three galleries.
About the Clyfford Still Museum
Designed specifically to display Clyfford Still’s art, the award-winning Clyfford Still Museum is home to nearly everything he created, approximately 3,125 pieces representing 93% of his lifetime of work. The Museum supports new artistic endeavors, inviting visitors to draw strength from Still’s art and life. At the Still, visitors will find a world-class collection gifted to the City and County of Denver, award-winning architecture, cross-disciplinary programs for all ages, and opportunities for visitors to explore their own creativity. Exhibitions stimulate curiosity, arouse emotions, and explore multiple perspectives. The Still invites visitors to refresh, recharge, and reconnect with joy. Connect with the Clyfford Still Museum on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or at clyffordstillmuseum.org.
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