The art of failure

His paintings once sold for as tens of thousands of dollars. His name was linked in New York art circles with those of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel. His flamboyant, boozy persona served as the inspiration for Nick Nolte's portrayal of a New York artist in Martin Scorcese's film "New York Stories: Life Lessons."

Today, he struggles to pay the bills.

His name is Chuck Connelly. He may be the greatest Pittsburgh artist you never heard of.

The story of Connelly's rise and fall is chronicled in "The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale." Its producer and director is Mt. Lebanon native Jeff Stimmel.

The documentary airs at 9 p.m. Monday on HBO.

Nearly six years in the making, Stimmel's film paints a portrait of a brilliant and charismatic artist who sabotaged a promising career through hubris, bad business decisions and a seemingly pathological inability to keep his big mouth shut.

"The Art of Failure" features interviews with collectors, critics, gallery owners and fellow artists. But it draws its power from the almost feral domestic scenes, where Connelly paints, swigs beer and rages like a drunken King Lear at the indignities of his life.

In one scene, the man who sold $1 million worth of artwork during his '80s heyday watches an online art auction where one of his paintings fetches just $550. In another, he pays his accountant by giving him a painting.

Connelly and his now ex-wife, Laurence, filmed many of the domestic scenes themselves in their Philadelphia home and sent the footage to Stimmel.

"You should see some of the stuff that's not in the movie," Stimmel says. "It's really out of control."

Art versus commerce

Stimmel cut his teeth scouting and managing locations on Pittsburgh-made films like "Wonder Boys" and "Dogma." He met Connelly in 2002 when he was working for the television division of the New York Times. Stimmel now lives in Los Angeles.

He conceived the idea for the film when he attended the opening of an exhibition of Connelly's paintings. He says he was impressed with the work, but puzzled at the sparse audience -- he could see they were mostly friends of the artist there to lend moral support.

"I thought 'Man, this art is amazing. Why isn't he more successful?' " Stimmel says.

Even by art world standards, Connelly was difficult. Though handsome, charismatic and generous, his abrasiveness managed to make enemies almost as quickly as he produced paintings. He bad-mouthed the Scorcese film, possibly alienating a man who could have promoted his paintings in the Hollywood community. He refused to "brand" his paintings by sticking to one recognizable style. He fell out with wealthy collectors, whom he alternately courted and resented.

Connelly particularly despised the fact that his paintings were viewed as an investment, like stocks, to be traded and sold.

"It's too easy to pick on the art world, that they don't know what they're doing, that they're shady or dishonest," Stimmel says. "Most of them have passion. A lot of them don't make millions and millions of dollars ... but there are also a great deal of art dealers, consultants and gallerists who, more and more, think profit first, the quality of artwork second. I think that is what irritated Chuck."

It's basically a stock market of image. 'OK, Connelly's stuff is not worth much anymore. Let's unload it.' "

Portrait of the artist as a young man

Born in Pleasant Hills in 1955, Connelly attended Thomas Jefferson High School. (Connelly says he was thrown out of his 20th year reunion for raising a stink when a picnic that was scheduled was canceled without explanation).

He grew up with an abusive father and a mother who drank too much. His two brothers both struggled with drug use. He is estranged from his only sister.

Connelly attended Tyler Art School in Philadelphia and eventually moved to New York. He was in the right place at the right time. It was the '80s, and newly minted stock-market millionaires were fueling an unprecedented art boom. Along with Basquiat and Schnabel, he was feted as one of the stars of the downtown New York neo-expressionist movement. His patrons included diet doctor Robert Atkins.

Stimmel's film catches up with Connelly in 2002, when the artist's life is "falling apart in real time." He spent more than five years filming Connelly.

During the making of the film, Connelly's wife, Laurence, left him. He then hatched a desperate attempt at a comeback by hiring a young actor to impersonate a fictitious artist named Fred Scaboda. The actor was instructed to pass off Connelly's work as his own in the hopes that art dealers would think they'd discovered a new young talent.

Stimmel wasn't immune from being drawn into the drama.

"Inevitably, we'd have fights on occasion. He would say, 'I don't want to do this!' and hang up the phone."

Connelly wasn't the only one looking for investors. Stimmel had his own troubles finding enough money to finish his movie.

"At some point, I didn't have anybody interested. I didn't have any more money," he says. "There were a lot of moments when I thought it wasn't going to happen. "

Connelly has rebounded somewhat from the tribulations depicted in the film.

A retrospective of his work is on exhibition at DFN Gallery in New York City. Owner and president Rick Davidman calls Connelly "The Ozzy Osbourne of the art world."

His paintings are starting to sell again, he says. While Connelly brought most of his misfortunes upon himself, Davidman says he can understand his frustration.

"You spend a lot of time in your own head. You do good stuff and nobody appreciates it," he says. "You see other people do crappy stuff and make a lot of money. Most people in the arts get to the point where they don't take everything personally and that it's counterproductive to get all bent out of shape about it, and he hasn't gotten to that point, which may mean that he's more sane then the rest of us, or may mean that he has to grow up a bit."

Artist says film is honest

In the film by Mt. Lebanon native Jeff Stimmel, artist Chuck Connelly, a Pittsburgh native, rages like a wounded bear. The documentary, which airs Monday on HBO, plays like a tutorial on how not to conduct your artistic career.

The documentary may give the notoriously volatile artist a second chance.

Reached by phone in Los Angeles, Connelly says he's drinking at the moment -- orange juice. He was on the West Coast to attend the screening "The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale" at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

At the last premiere of a film that was at least partly based on his life, he was snubbed by the film's director, Martin Scorcese. The film was the 1999 trilogy "New York Stories." Scorcese had used Connelly, who had a reputation as a hell-raiser, as the basis for the character played by Nick Nolte in his portion of the film, titled "Life Lessons." Nolte played a slovenly, womanizing New York artist. The paintings in the film were Connelly's.

Connelly, who had already burned bridges with many patrons and gallery owners, criticized the film to a reporter from the New York Post. It was something akin to the third strike.

"I didn't mean to say that," says Connelly, 53. "I was just talking. Word for word, it was out in the paper the next morning, and right away I knew that I was in trouble."

As for Stimmel's film, "I like it. It's got some power to it. It's got some flaws, but I like it. It's honest."

Connelly says he's not the wild man portrayed in "The Art of Failure." The film captured him at one of the low points of his life -- going broke, boozing, just trying to survive. Stimmel's documentary has helped to renew interest in his work, however. He says he's beginning to sell paintings again.

"I'm not as tortured as the movie portrays," he says. "I've got my quiet, gentle moments and such. The movie did get me at a time that was pretty torturous. Because I have years that I've not been noticed and I'm working my heart out and it's not going over and I see all this crap take over that sort of eats at you."

He says he's proud to be known as a Pittsburgh artist because of the city's blue-collar work ethic.

"It's all I know. It kind of formed my thinking. So I think it's all good. Pittsburgh was the root of it all for me."

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