Art museums are hushed places. Whispers are often broken only by the laughter of children or the delighted meeting of two friends. Echoes spring from footsteps, not piped-in tunes. It can feel downright solemn.
The Clyfford Still Museum is challenging that with a sound-driven, “multisensory exhibition” as well as a world-premiere symphony. Bailey Placzek, the museum’s curator of collections, and Ben Coleman, a British multidisciplinary artist, put the Sound exhibit together alongside that celebrates 15 years since the museum’s opening.
And the symphony, which was commissioned by the museum, takes place Thursday, May 7, at Boettcher Concert Hall, with British composer James Clarke flying in this week for rehearsals.
It’s all in an attempt to welcome people into what may otherwise seem like a walled-off world.
“We have this whole set of cultural expectations that we carry with terms like ‘abstract expressionism,’ but you don’t have to be some kind of cultural elite to enjoy it,” said Joyce Tsai, the museum’s director. “We’re inviting people in to see that, yes, this is a glimpse of a world that’s completely different than what’s in front of us. It’s undeniably serious art. But it can also be joyful.”
The Denver-based Clyfford Still Museum, which collects 93% of the late artist’s work, is embracing the idea that visual art inspires sound. That applies even to Still’s thousands of large-scale abstract expressionist paintings, which can prompt a sort of Rorschach test response in viewers, who may see animal-skin rugs, maps, weather, or other relatable shapes.
Those aren’t intentional on the artist’s part, but rather emotional reactions from those who look at the art. And those emotions tweak the other senses, said Clarke, the composer whose new work, “Symphony No. 2,” is inspired by his time as a senior research fellow at Clyfford Still Museum in 2017 and 2018.
“I was bowled over,” Clarke said of his discovery of Still’s work in the mid-2000s. “The way he used paint and gesture and subject matter was astonishing. … But he’s not as well-known in Britain and Europe, so the (Denver) museum is really helping put his work on the map again.”
Also helping: Colorado Symphony, which will world-premiere “Symphony No. 2” as part of The May 7 program highlights the music Still himself listened to and was inspired by while working, such as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Composer Adam Schoenberg’s Finding Rothko rounds out the 7:30 p.m. performance at Boettcher Concert Hall.
“The museum has Still’s actual record collection, and years ago Colorado Symphony had a chance to peruse it,” said Anthony Pierce, chief artistic director of Colorado Symphony. “I was surprised by (from) jazz and folk to Native American recordings and spirituals.”
However, the collection was heavy on Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, and Mozart, which also inspired Still while he worked. The music prompted Still to tell art critic Thomas Albright in 1978 that he was trying to capture “the vastness and depth of a Beethoven sonata” in his paintings, .
The artist intentionally kept his work off the map for a while, sending nearly 2,500 pieces into storage for two decades after his 1980 death — at least until his estate could find an American city that would host it all under one roof. (He famously despised general-audience art museums, Tsai said.) Since its 2011 opening, the Clyfford Still Museum has not only hosted the collection but also collaborated with Colorado performing artists on boundary-pushing projects.
So what, exactly, does a Clyfford Still painting sound like? Still’s abstract expressionism helped revolutionize the mid-to-late 20th century art world, but it didn’t exactly come with a playlist.
“For Still, it was not about selling paintings and becoming famous and all the razzamatazz and New York galleries and parties,” Clarke said. “When he was creating work, he experienced joy and he wanted to transmit that. It was about art’s fundamental importance and bringing people to art on his terms.”
That seriousness implies traditional music, and certainly classical is up there. But the Still in Sound artists, who will take over the six largest galleries at the museum through Feb. 14, 2027, took a more interpretive tack. The co-curators invited Maria Chávez, Maya Dunietz, Kalyn Heffernan, Matana Roberts, and Michael Schumacher (all of whom enjoyed museum residencies) to select a specific painting as a starting point to produce sonic interpretations of his work.
To top it off, co-curator Placzek then filled the rooms with other works “that resonated with their contributions,” the museum said. These sonic interpretations are meant to ‘create a holistic, immersive environment through the galleries,’ Tsai said. Denver artist Phillip David Stearns also designed “a special interactive experience for the exhibition in response to Still’s pastel drawings.”
“There is no set path, no beginning or end, and every visit will be different,” Coleman said in a statement.
A museum “sound tour” also offers experimental music and sound art created during the same years as the artworks in each room, the museum said, and excerpts from some of Still’s favorite composers, records and even archival recordings of Still’s own piano-playing. (Notably, visitors can also nab noise-canceling headphones from the front desk.)
Still’s muscled, uncompromising work has always generated strong reactions among viewers and in the art world, Tsai said. Now, they can hear it instead of simply feeling it.
“I want to be in total command of the colors, as in an orchestra,” Still once said. “They are voices.”
