You Select: A Community-Curated Exhibition

AUG 19, 2022–FEB 12, 2023

In the final exhibition celebrating the tenth anniversary of Clyfford Still Museum, You Select: A Community-Curated Exhibition celebrated how much we have to gain from our support networks.

Clyfford Still positioned himself as an isolated outsider, but he clearly understood the importance of being part of a community. He willed his entire collection comprising more than 3,000 objects to an American city, ensuring that his life’s work would be part of a larger civic enterprise. CSM exists because the City and County of Denver and Still’s family committed themselves to executing his vision. The Museum allows the vibrant members of our community to gather and explore the myriad facets of Still’s art and thought. You Select included our audiences’ feedback and perspectives to deepen and illuminate these extended networks.

Engaging the Community

CSM asked art lovers from the Denver area and beyond to select works in five different exhibition categories through a voting platform on the Museum’s website: West Coast Revolution, High-Impact Color, Richmond Oils on Paper, Abstract Expressionism, and Movement. These categories were translated in the exhibition to represent five moments when Still’s environs were particularly influential on him. After an eight-week voting period in late 2021, CSM’s associate curator Bailey Placzek arranged the pieces that received the most votes on the walls of five of the Museum’s galleries. Nearly one-third of the works in the show had not been on view previously.

Designed to foster far-reaching engagement with the collection and encourage visitors to reflect upon their various support systems, exhibition gallery text and interpretive content incorporated participants’ feedback.

A dad holds his daughter up while she looks at a painting

Photo by James Dewhirst

Vote for Your Favorite Artwork

The show also included an interactive voting feature for visitors to choose their favorite painting after exploring the exhibition.

Find out which artworks received the most votes on the Results page.

A man an woman touch a screen to vote for their favorite paintings

Photo by James Dewhirst

Exhibition Tour Video Series

Each of the short videos in this series explores one of the five galleries in You Select and features members of the Museum’s extended community reflecting upon their own communal relationships as they relate to Still’s life and work.

Part I – Featuring Joyce Tsai, PhD

Enjoy Part I of our tour series for You Select. Watch as CSM Director Joyce Tsai takes us through the first gallery of the exhibition and discusses Still’s connection to the university world.

Part II – Featuring artist Jonathan Saiz

Enjoy Part II of our tour series for You Select. View the second gallery in the exhibition while Jonathan Saiz, Denver-based artist and illustrator of the forthcoming children’s book Colorfully Courageous Clyfford Still, discusses using color and working within a community of artists.

Part III – Featuring CSM members Kathy Jones and Ryan Trauman

Enjoy Part III of our tour series for You Select. CSM members Kathy Jones and Ryan Trauman take us through the third gallery in the exhibition, featuring Clyfford Still’s works on paper.

Part IV – Featuring Catherine Chauvin, Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of Denver

Watch as Catherine Chauvin, Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of Denver, discusses the impacts of their visiting artist program, and the role that the Colorado community plays in its success.

Part V – Featuring James Squires, CSM Chief Conservator

Watch as James Squires, Chief Conservator at the Clyfford Still Museum, discusses the process to prepare voters’ top pick for this gallery, PH-989.

Explore Art in the Exhibition

Explore

Vertical abstract painting with bare canvas and a large black figure with some highlights of red, orange, yellow, and blue

Clyfford Still, PH-124, 1947 (detail). Oil on canvas, 68 1/8 x 39 3/8 in. Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, CO. © City and County of Denver / ARS, NY

Abstract oil painting with mostly red paint and small splotches of gray, orange, yellow, and blue

Clyfford Still, PH-1107, 1951 (detail). Oil on canvas, 105 1/8 x 118 1/4 in. Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, CO. © City and County of Denver / ARS, NY

An abstract oil painting on canvas with a large splotch of pink paint, and some smaller areas with light blue, red, and purple

Clyfford Still, PH-273, 1962 (detail). Oil on canvas, 112 1/4 x 170 1/4 in. Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, CO. © City and County of Denver / ARS, NY (Not stretched, never been shown)

An abstract painting with brown, red, orange, black, and yellow paint and bare canvas

Clyfford Still, PH-989, 1975 (detai). Oil on canvas, 113 x 93 in. Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, CO. © City and County of Denver / ARS, NY

Collection Highlights

Collection Highlights are on view in galleries 1–4 and You Select begins in Gallery 5.

A woman and girl look at each other and smile while making shapes like a painting behind them — Photo by James Dewhirst