Artist and collector Dennis Scholl’s new body of work continues his explorations of the sublime nuances of history and memory.
BY SEBASTIAN PHILLIPS
Dennis Scholl is in the midst of a most interesting evolution. After years of holding top positions at cultural institutions including Oolite Arts and the Knight Foundation, Scholl decided to retire from that world and dedicate his full attention to film and visual art. Now he spends most of his days alone in his studio, creating or thinking about art.
“The transition has been pretty seamless,” says Scholl. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve stored these ideas for so long and now, they finally have a chance to manifest themselves.”
That’s the type of inspiration most artists only dream of, but Scholl has surrounded himself with creative energy and pursued artistic pursuits since he was a kid. In between the demands of his aforementioned positions, he managed to produce and direct more than 100 short films and seven feature documentaries. He’s also a prolific art collector (a passion he shares with his wife, Debra), a staunch culture advocate, a mentor to young creatives, and, by unanimous opinion, an all-around nice guy.
Despite all this, he was as nervous as any newcomer when the time came to share his art with the public. He had reason to worry as Scholl’s work is not for everyone. Through historical objects, photographs, and cultural artifacts, he explores the fragility of collective memory. Central to his pieces is the dodecagon, a 12-sided form he employs as both structure and metaphor to evoke the passage of time. The work is nuanced and cerebral, and it demands attention. That’s why he mounted his first exhibition in Berlin, a city he knew would judge the art on its own merit, not his name or past accomplishments. “Even though I’ve been a collector for over four decades, there’s a big difference between being a diner and a chef,” says Scholl. “I just buckled down and did the best work I could.”
Audiences liked what he had to serve, and as other shows followed throughout Europe and eventually the U.S., the collector found himself collectible, a description that’s ideally (and ironically) suited to someone who’s been amassing odds and ends since elementary school. “My first collection was of milk bottle caps with images of different presidents on them, so I drank a lot of milk that year,” says Scholl. “Collecting gives me a sense of completion and a satisfying sense of order in the world.”
That’s certainly the case with his current exhibition about space exploration at the Art and Culture Center/Hollywood. “A Day of Four Sunsets” takes its title from astronaut John Glenn’s experience of witnessing four sunsets as he orbited Earth in 1962. For Scholl, it was a chance to explore one of the most impactful memories of his childhood.
“The exhibition is an overview of the moments in the Space Race that made us all stop,” he says. “It’s about time, memory, and the magnitude of the cosmos.”
It’s also about creating a dialogue between past and present, an association that Scholl is devoted to continuing to explore. dennisscholl.com
