Bruce Conner
Encyclopedia
Bruce Conner was an American
artist
renowned for his work in assemblage, film
, drawing, sculpture
, painting
, collage
, and photography
, among other disciplines.
, Conner was raised in Wichita, Kansas
, attended Wichita University
(now Wichita State), and received his B.F.A
in Art at Nebraska University in 1956. Conner then received a scholarship to the Brooklyn Museum
Art School, where he studied for a semester. He then attended the University of Colorado
on scholarship; also there was Jean Sandstedt, whom he had met at Nebraska and who would become his wife. On September 30, 1957, the two married and immediately flew to San Francisco
. There, Conner quickly assimilated into the city's famous Beat community
and founded the Rat Bastard Protective Association
.
Conner first attracted widespread attention with his moody, nylon-shrouded assemblages
, complex amalgams of found objects such as women's stockings, bicycle wheels, broken dolls, fur, fringe, costume jewelry, and candles, often combined with collaged or painted surfaces. Erotically charged and tinged with echoes of both the Surrealist tradition and of San Francisco's Victorian
past, these works established Conner as a leading figure within the international assemblage "movement." Generally, these works do not have precise meanings, but some of them suggest what Conner saw as the discarded beauty of modern America, the deforming impact of society on the individual, violence against women
, and consumerism
. Social commentary and dissension remained a common theme among his later works.
Conner also began making short movies in the late 1950s. Conner’s first and possibly most famous film was entitled A MOVIE
(1958). A MOVIE (all titles of all Conner works, per his explicit directions, are to be typed in ALL CAPITALS ALL THE TIME) was a poverty film in that instead of shooting his own footage Conner used compilations of old newsreels and other old films. He skillfully re-edited that footage, set the visuals to a recording of Ottorino Respighi
's Pines of Rome, and created an entertaining and thought-provoking 12 minute film, that while non-narrative has things to say about the experience of watching a movie and the human condition. A MOVIE subsequently (in 1994) was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry at the Library of Congress
. Conner subsequently made nearly two dozen mostly non-narrative experimental film
s.
A 1959 exhibition at the Spatsa Gallery in San Francisco involved an early exploration by Conner into the notion of artistic identity. To publicize the show, the gallery printed up and distributed an exhibition announcement in the form of a small printed card with black borders (in the manner of a death announcement) with the text "Works by the Late Bruce Conner."
A work of Conner's titled CHILD—a small human figure sculpted in black wax, mouth agape as if in pain and partially wrapped in nylon stockings, seated in—and partly tied by the stockings to—a small, old wooden child's high chair—literally made headlines when displayed at San Francisco's De Young Museum in December 1959 and January 1960. A meditation or perhaps comment on the then pending Caryl Chessman
execution, the work horrified many. "It's Not Murder, It's Art," the San Francisco Chronicle
headlined; its competitor the News-Call Bulletin headlined its article, "The Unliked 'Child'". Today, this powerful sculpture no longer exists. It was in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, which kept it in storage for many years. An attempt to conserve its very fragile wax elements resulted in its disintegration.
A New York City exhibition of assemblages and collage in late 1960 garnered favorable attention in the New York Times, The New Yorker
, Art News, and other national publications. Later that year Conner had the first exhibition at the Batman Gallery, in San Francisco; Conner had the entire gallery painted black to show his work, and the show received very favorable reviews locally. Another exhibition in New York in 1961 again received positive notices.
In 1961, Conner completed his second film, COSMIC RAY, a 4 minute, 43 second black-and-white quick edit collage of found footage and film that Conner had shot himself, set to a soundtrack of Ray Charles
' "What'd I Say
." The movie premiered in 1962; most suggest the film concerns sex and war.
in 1963, when John F. Kennedy
was assassinated. Conner filmed the television coverage of the event and edited and re-edited the footage with stock footage into another meditation on violence which he titled REPORT. The film was issued several times as it was re-edited.
In 1964, Conner had a show at the Batman Gallery in San Francisco that lasted just three days, with Conner never leaving the gallery. The show was announced only via a small notice in the want ads of the Los Angeles Times. Part of the exhibition is documented in Conner's film VIVIAN.
Also in 1964, Conner decided he would no longer make assemblages, even though it was precisely such work that had brought him the most attention.
According to Conner's friend and fellow film-maker Stan Brakhage
in his book Film at Wit's End, Conner was signed into a New York gallery contract in the early 1960s, which stipulated stylistic and personal restraint beyond Conner's freewheeling nature. It is unlikely that Conner would ever sign such a restrictive document. Many send-ups of artistic authorship followed, including a five page piece Conner had published in a major art publication in which Conner's making of a peanut butter, banana, bacon, lettuce, and Swiss cheese sandwich was reported step-by-step in great detail, with numerous photographs, as though it were a work of art. Just before Conner moved to Mexico in 1961, he repainted a worn sign on a road surface so that it read "LOVE."
Conner produced work in a variety of forms from the 1960s forward. He was an active force in the San Francisco counterculture
of the mid-1960s as a collaborator in light shows at the legendary Family Dog at the Avalon Ballroom. He also made -- using the new-at-the-the-time felt-tip pens -- intricate black-and-white mandala-like
drawings, many of which he subsequently (in the very early 1970s) lithographed into prints. One of Conner's drawings was used (in boldly colored variations) on the cover of the August, 1967 issue (#9) of the San Francisco Oracle
. He also made collages made from 19th-century engraving images, which he first exhibited as THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW.
He also completed a number of short films in the mid-1960s, in addition to REPORT and VIVIAN. these include TEN SECOND FILM (1965), an advertisement for the New York Film Festival which the Festival rejected as being "too fast," BREAKAWAY (1966), featuring music sung by and danced to by Toni Basil
), THE WHITE ROSE (1967), documenting the removal of fellow artist Jay DeFeo
's magnum opus from her San Francisco apartment, with Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" as the soundtrack), and LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (1967), a three minute color wild ride with music by the Beatles.
During the 1970s Conner focused on drawing and photography, including many photos of the late 1970s West Coast punk rock
scene. A 1978 film used Devo's
"Mongoloid" as a soundtrack. Conner in the 1970s also created along with photographer Edmund Shea a series of life-size photograms called ANGELS. Conner would pose in front of large pieces of photo paper, which after being exposed to light and then developed produced images of Conner's body in white against a dark background. Conner also began to draw elaborately-folded inkblots.
In the 1980s and 1990s Conner continued to work on collages, including ones using religious imagery, and inkblot drawings that have been shown in numerous exhibitions, including the 1997 Whitney Biennial
. Throughout Conner's entire body of work, the recurrence of religious imagery and symbology continues to underscore the essentially visionary nature of his work.
In 1999, to accompany a traveling exhibition, a major monograph
of his work was published by the Walker Art Center
, titled 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story, Part II. The exhibition, which featured specially built in-gallery screening rooms for Conner's films as well as selected assemblages, felt-tip pen and inkblot drawings, engraving collages, photograms, and conceptual pieces, was seen at the Walker, the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, the de Young
in San Francisco, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
genre. When told of his impact on music videos and his status as "the Father of MTV,", Conner would reply, "Not my fault."
Conner's works are often metamedia in nature, offering commentary and critque on the media — especially television and its advertisements — and its effect on American culture and society. His film REPORT (1967) which features repetitive, found footage of the Kennedy assassination paired with a soundtrack of radio broadcasts of the event and consumerist and other imagery — including perhaps most notably the film's final image of a close-up of a "SELL" button — may be the Conner film with the most visceral impact. REPORT "perfectly captures Conner's anger over the commercialization of Kennedy's death" while also examining the media's mythic construction of JFK and Jackie — a hunger for images that "guaranteed that they would be transformed into idols, myths, Gods."
Conner's collaborations with musicians include Devo
(MONGOLOID), Terry Riley
(LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (long version) and EASTER MORNING}, Patrick Gleeson
and Terry Riley (CROSSROADS), Brian Eno
and David Byrne
(AMERICA IS WAITING, MEA CULPA) and three more films with Gleeson (TAKE THE 5:10 TO DREAMLAND, TELEVISION ASSASSINATION, and LUKE). His film of dancer and choreographer Toni Basil
, BREAKAWAY (1966), featured a song recorded by Basil.
in Oakland, CA
, were translated from digitally manipulated scans of small-scale paper collages, made in the 1990s from engraving
illustrations from Bible stories.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
renowned for his work in assemblage, film
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
, drawing, sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, and photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, among other disciplines.
Early life
Born in McPherson, KansasMcPherson, Kansas
McPherson is a city in and the county seat of McPherson County, Kansas, United States, in the central part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 13,155. The city is named after Union General James Birdseye McPherson, a Civil War general...
, Conner was raised in Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, attended Wichita University
Wichita State University
Wichita State University is a NCAA Division I public university in Wichita, Kansas with selective admissions. WSU is one of six state universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The current president is Dr. Donald Beggs....
(now Wichita State), and received his B.F.A
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
in Art at Nebraska University in 1956. Conner then received a scholarship to the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
Art School, where he studied for a semester. He then attended the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
on scholarship; also there was Jean Sandstedt, whom he had met at Nebraska and who would become his wife. On September 30, 1957, the two married and immediately flew to San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. There, Conner quickly assimilated into the city's famous Beat community
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
and founded the Rat Bastard Protective Association
Rat Bastard Protective Association
The Rat Bastard Protective Association was an informal group of Beat and Funk artists who worked and exhibited together in San Francisco, California from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s. The association was founded by and the group's name was coined by Bruce Conner in 1959...
.
Early career (late 1950s / early 1960s)
Conner worked in a variety of mediums from an early age. His first solo gallery show in New York City took place in 1956 and featured paintings. His first solo shows in San Francisco, in 1958 and 1959, featured paintings, drawings, prints, collages, assemblages, and sculpture.Conner first attracted widespread attention with his moody, nylon-shrouded assemblages
Assemblage (art)
Assemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects...
, complex amalgams of found objects such as women's stockings, bicycle wheels, broken dolls, fur, fringe, costume jewelry, and candles, often combined with collaged or painted surfaces. Erotically charged and tinged with echoes of both the Surrealist tradition and of San Francisco's Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
past, these works established Conner as a leading figure within the international assemblage "movement." Generally, these works do not have precise meanings, but some of them suggest what Conner saw as the discarded beauty of modern America, the deforming impact of society on the individual, violence against women
Violence against women
Violence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women...
, and consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
. Social commentary and dissension remained a common theme among his later works.
Conner also began making short movies in the late 1950s. Conner’s first and possibly most famous film was entitled A MOVIE
A Movie
A Movie is a 1958 experimental film in which Bruce Conner put together snippets of found footage, taken from B-movies, newsreels, soft-core pornography, novelty short films, and other sources, to a musical score featuring Respighi's The Pines of Rome....
(1958). A MOVIE (all titles of all Conner works, per his explicit directions, are to be typed in ALL CAPITALS ALL THE TIME) was a poverty film in that instead of shooting his own footage Conner used compilations of old newsreels and other old films. He skillfully re-edited that footage, set the visuals to a recording of Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
's Pines of Rome, and created an entertaining and thought-provoking 12 minute film, that while non-narrative has things to say about the experience of watching a movie and the human condition. A MOVIE subsequently (in 1994) was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. Conner subsequently made nearly two dozen mostly non-narrative experimental film
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
s.
A 1959 exhibition at the Spatsa Gallery in San Francisco involved an early exploration by Conner into the notion of artistic identity. To publicize the show, the gallery printed up and distributed an exhibition announcement in the form of a small printed card with black borders (in the manner of a death announcement) with the text "Works by the Late Bruce Conner."
A work of Conner's titled CHILD—a small human figure sculpted in black wax, mouth agape as if in pain and partially wrapped in nylon stockings, seated in—and partly tied by the stockings to—a small, old wooden child's high chair—literally made headlines when displayed at San Francisco's De Young Museum in December 1959 and January 1960. A meditation or perhaps comment on the then pending Caryl Chessman
Caryl Chessman
Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber and rapist who gained fame as a death row inmate in California. Chessman's case attracted worldwide attention, and as a result he became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment.-Crime and conviction:Born in St...
execution, the work horrified many. "It's Not Murder, It's Art," the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
headlined; its competitor the News-Call Bulletin headlined its article, "The Unliked 'Child'". Today, this powerful sculpture no longer exists. It was in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, which kept it in storage for many years. An attempt to conserve its very fragile wax elements resulted in its disintegration.
A New York City exhibition of assemblages and collage in late 1960 garnered favorable attention in the New York Times, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Art News, and other national publications. Later that year Conner had the first exhibition at the Batman Gallery, in San Francisco; Conner had the entire gallery painted black to show his work, and the show received very favorable reviews locally. Another exhibition in New York in 1961 again received positive notices.
In 1961, Conner completed his second film, COSMIC RAY, a 4 minute, 43 second black-and-white quick edit collage of found footage and film that Conner had shot himself, set to a soundtrack of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
' "What'd I Say
What'd I Say
According to Charles' autobiography, "What'd I Say" was accidental when he improvised it to fill time at the end of a concert in December 1958. He asserts that he never tested songs on audiences before recording them, but "What'd I Say" is an exception...
." The movie premiered in 1962; most suggest the film concerns sex and war.
Mid-career (early 1960s to circa 2000)
Conner and his wife moved to Mexico circa 1962, despite the increasing popularity of his work. The two —along with their just born son— returned to USA and were living in MassachusettsMassachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
in 1963, when John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
was assassinated. Conner filmed the television coverage of the event and edited and re-edited the footage with stock footage into another meditation on violence which he titled REPORT. The film was issued several times as it was re-edited.
In 1964, Conner had a show at the Batman Gallery in San Francisco that lasted just three days, with Conner never leaving the gallery. The show was announced only via a small notice in the want ads of the Los Angeles Times. Part of the exhibition is documented in Conner's film VIVIAN.
Also in 1964, Conner decided he would no longer make assemblages, even though it was precisely such work that had brought him the most attention.
According to Conner's friend and fellow film-maker Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
in his book Film at Wit's End, Conner was signed into a New York gallery contract in the early 1960s, which stipulated stylistic and personal restraint beyond Conner's freewheeling nature. It is unlikely that Conner would ever sign such a restrictive document. Many send-ups of artistic authorship followed, including a five page piece Conner had published in a major art publication in which Conner's making of a peanut butter, banana, bacon, lettuce, and Swiss cheese sandwich was reported step-by-step in great detail, with numerous photographs, as though it were a work of art. Just before Conner moved to Mexico in 1961, he repainted a worn sign on a road surface so that it read "LOVE."
Conner produced work in a variety of forms from the 1960s forward. He was an active force in the San Francisco counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
of the mid-1960s as a collaborator in light shows at the legendary Family Dog at the Avalon Ballroom. He also made -- using the new-at-the-the-time felt-tip pens -- intricate black-and-white mandala-like
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
drawings, many of which he subsequently (in the very early 1970s) lithographed into prints. One of Conner's drawings was used (in boldly colored variations) on the cover of the August, 1967 issue (#9) of the San Francisco Oracle
San Francisco Oracle
The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, also known as the San Francisco Oracle, was an underground newspaper published in 12 issues from September 20, 1966, to February 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city...
. He also made collages made from 19th-century engraving images, which he first exhibited as THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW.
He also completed a number of short films in the mid-1960s, in addition to REPORT and VIVIAN. these include TEN SECOND FILM (1965), an advertisement for the New York Film Festival which the Festival rejected as being "too fast," BREAKAWAY (1966), featuring music sung by and danced to by Toni Basil
Toni Basil
Antonia Christina Basilotta , better known by her stage name Toni Basil, is an American singer-songwriter, actress, filmmaker, film director, choreographer, and dancer, best known for her multi-million-selling worldwide #1 hit "Mickey" from 1982.-Early life:Basil was born Antonia Christina...
), THE WHITE ROSE (1967), documenting the removal of fellow artist Jay DeFeo
Jay DeFeo
Jay DeFeo was a visual artist associated with the Beat generation who worked c.1950-1989 in the San Francisco Bay Area....
's magnum opus from her San Francisco apartment, with Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" as the soundtrack), and LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (1967), a three minute color wild ride with music by the Beatles.
During the 1970s Conner focused on drawing and photography, including many photos of the late 1970s West Coast punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
scene. A 1978 film used Devo's
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
"Mongoloid" as a soundtrack. Conner in the 1970s also created along with photographer Edmund Shea a series of life-size photograms called ANGELS. Conner would pose in front of large pieces of photo paper, which after being exposed to light and then developed produced images of Conner's body in white against a dark background. Conner also began to draw elaborately-folded inkblots.
In the 1980s and 1990s Conner continued to work on collages, including ones using religious imagery, and inkblot drawings that have been shown in numerous exhibitions, including the 1997 Whitney Biennial
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...
. Throughout Conner's entire body of work, the recurrence of religious imagery and symbology continues to underscore the essentially visionary nature of his work.
In 1999, to accompany a traveling exhibition, a major monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
of his work was published by the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
, titled 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story, Part II. The exhibition, which featured specially built in-gallery screening rooms for Conner's films as well as selected assemblages, felt-tip pen and inkblot drawings, engraving collages, photograms, and conceptual pieces, was seen at the Walker, the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, the de Young
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...
in San Francisco, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Late career (circa 2000 to 2008)
Conner announced his retirement at the time of the "2000 BC" exhibition, but in fact continued to make art until shortly before his death. However, much of this work, including in particular the many inkblot drawings he made, including a series responding to 9/11, were presented using pseudonyms or the name "Anonymous." Conner also made collages from old engravings, and completed (depending on how they are counted) three or four experimental films. He also used computer-based graphics programs to translate older engraving collages into large-sized woven tapestries, and made paper-based prints in that way as well. Various other artistic projects were completed as well, including in the year of his death a large assemblage titled KING. Conner also in late 2007 directed and approved an outdoor installation of a large painting, resulting in what one observer suggested is a final work-in-progress.Films
His innovative technique of skillfully montaged shots from pre-existing borrowed or found footage can be seen in his first film A MOVIE (1958). His subsequent films are most often fast-paced collages of found footage or of footage shot by Conner; however, he made numerous films, including most notably CROSSROADS, his 30 plus minute meditation on the atom bomb, that are almost achingly deliberate in their pace. Conner was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers, and are now considered to be the precursors of the music videoMusic video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
genre. When told of his impact on music videos and his status as "the Father of MTV,", Conner would reply, "Not my fault."
Conner's works are often metamedia in nature, offering commentary and critque on the media — especially television and its advertisements — and its effect on American culture and society. His film REPORT (1967) which features repetitive, found footage of the Kennedy assassination paired with a soundtrack of radio broadcasts of the event and consumerist and other imagery — including perhaps most notably the film's final image of a close-up of a "SELL" button — may be the Conner film with the most visceral impact. REPORT "perfectly captures Conner's anger over the commercialization of Kennedy's death" while also examining the media's mythic construction of JFK and Jackie — a hunger for images that "guaranteed that they would be transformed into idols, myths, Gods."
Conner's collaborations with musicians include Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
(MONGOLOID), Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
(LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (long version) and EASTER MORNING}, Patrick Gleeson
Patrick Gleeson
Patrick Gleeson is a musician, synthesizer pioneer, composer and producer, from California, USA.Gleeson began experimenting with electronic music in the mid-'60s at the San Francisco Tape Music Center using a Buchla synth and other devices....
and Terry Riley (CROSSROADS), Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
and David Byrne
David Byrne (musician)
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
(AMERICA IS WAITING, MEA CULPA) and three more films with Gleeson (TAKE THE 5:10 TO DREAMLAND, TELEVISION ASSASSINATION, and LUKE). His film of dancer and choreographer Toni Basil
Toni Basil
Antonia Christina Basilotta , better known by her stage name Toni Basil, is an American singer-songwriter, actress, filmmaker, film director, choreographer, and dancer, best known for her multi-million-selling worldwide #1 hit "Mickey" from 1982.-Early life:Basil was born Antonia Christina...
, BREAKAWAY (1966), featured a song recorded by Basil.
Prints and tapestries
Conner also continued to work on editioned prints and tapestries during the last 10 years of his life. These works often used digital technology to revisit earlier imagery and themes; for example, his Jacquard tapestry editions, created in collaboration with Donald Farnsworth of Magnolia EditionsMagnolia Editions
Magnolia Editions is a fine art studio in Oakland, California. Founded in 1981, Magnolia Editions publishes fine art projects, including unique and editioned works on paper, artist books, and public art...
in Oakland, CA
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, were translated from digitally manipulated scans of small-scale paper collages, made in the 1990s from engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
illustrations from Bible stories.
Death
Conner, who had twice announced his own death as a conceptual art event or prank, died on 7 July 2008, and is survived by his wife, American artist Jean Sandstedt Conner, and his son, Robert.Filmography
- A MOVIEA MovieA Movie is a 1958 experimental film in which Bruce Conner put together snippets of found footage, taken from B-movies, newsreels, soft-core pornography, novelty short films, and other sources, to a musical score featuring Respighi's The Pines of Rome....
(1958) - COSMIC RAYCosmic Ray (film)Cosmic Ray is an experimental film directed by Bruce Conner featuring black-and-white footage of a nude woman with a pearl necklace, cartoons, and newsreel footage of atomic bomb explosions, all set to Ray Charles's "What'd I Say"....
(1961) - VIVIAN (1964)
- TEN SECOND FILM (1965)
- EASTER MORNING RAGA (1966)
- BREAKAWAY (1966)
- REPORTReport (film)Report is a 1967 short, avant-garde film by Bruce Conner. It consists of found footage concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die....
(1963–1967) - THE WHITE ROSE (1967)
- LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (1967)
- PERMIAN STRATA (1969)
- MARILYN TIMES FIVEMarilyn Times FiveMarilyn Times Five is an experimental film by Bruce Conner, that is an exploration of how a film’s form can influence the way an audience perceives the film's content....
(1968–1973) - CROSSROADSCrossroads (1976 film)Crossroads is a 1976 short film directed by Bruce Conner. It features extreme slow-motion replays of the July 25, 1946 Operation Crossroads Baker underwater nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific....
(1976) - VALSE TRISTE (1978)
- TAKE THE 5:10 TO DREAMLANDTake the 5:10 to DreamlandTake the 5:10 to Dreamland is a short experimental film by Bruce Conner, using the technique of found footage. It is composed out of found images from the ’40-’50 from different sources such as educational hm and soundtrack...
(1977) - MONGOLOID (1978)
- MEA CULPA (1981)
- AMERICA IS WAITING (1982)
- TELEVISION ASSASSINATION (1995)
- LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (long version, 1996)
- LUKELukeLuke is a male given name, and less commonly, a surname.The name Luke is derived from the Latin name , from an Ancient Greek , meaning "man from Lucania". The earliest known recording of the name is from the Bible, The Gospel of Luke, which was written around AD 70 to 90, and it is from here...
(2004) - EVE-RAY-FOREVER (three screen installation) (2006)
- THREE SCREEN RAY (three screen installation) (2006)
- HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW (2006)
- EASTER MORNING (2008)
Contributions
2008 Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International http://blog.cmoa.org/CI08/2008/02/bruce-conner.phpSelected bibliography
- Sophie Dannenmüller: "Bruce Conner et les Rats de l'Art", Les Cahiers du Musée national d'art moderne, Editions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, n° 107, avril 2009, p. 52-75. (text in French)
- 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story Part II. Exh. cat. edited by Joan Rothfuss. Contributions by Kathy Halbreich, Bruce Jenkins, Peter Boswell. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 1999.
External links
- San Francisco Chronicle obituary retrieved July 8, 2008
- New York Times obituary 7/9/08
- The Guardian (of London) obituary
- "An Appraisal: An Artist of the Cutting-Room Floor", by Manohla Dargis, New York Times July 12, 2008; retrieved July 12, 2008.
- "Appreciation: Humor was Bruce Conner's Art", by Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle July 11, 2008
- Letter from Bruce Conner in The Brooklyn Rail (September, 2005)
- Watch Bruce Conner's film, "MEA CULPA" with music by Brian Eno and David Byrne, from "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts".
- Bruce Conner at IMDB
- Selected works by Bruce Conner in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Bruce Conner is represented by Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, CA