Bruce Conner: It's All True

by Rudolf Frieling (Editor), Gary Garrels (Editor), Stuart Comer (Contributor)

Artist Bruce Conner (1933–2008) moved to San Francisco in 1957 and quickly enmeshed himself in the Bay Area’s distinctive cultural milieu, combining a vision and a multifaceted body of work that went beyond the limitations of any genre. From early assemblages of the 1950s and 1960s to iconic and pioneering works in film, from photography and photograms to prints, drawings, and paintings, Conner’s oeuvre continues to exert tremendous influence on artists working today. This historic retrospective catalogue will be the definitive resource on this important artist for decades to come. Offering a highly anticipated contemporary perspective on Conner, it will prove revelatory in assessing his output and place in postwar art. Illustrated in full color throughout, this comprehensive volume provides access to a range of material that has never been published, including early paintings from the 1950s and works from the last decade of Conner’s life, along with a trove of fascinating ephemeral materials. The publication features original scholarship by a range of luminaries, including essays by Frieling, Garrels, Stuart Comer, Diedrich Diederichsen, Rachel Federman, and Laura Hoptman as well as contributions from Michelle Barger, Kevin Beasley, Dara Birnbaum, Carol Bove, Stan Brakhage, Will Brown, David Byrne, Johanna Gosse, Roger Griffith, Kellie Jones, Christian Marclay, Greil Marcus, Michael McClure, Megan Randall, Henry S. Rosenthal, Dean Smith, and Kristine Stiles.
 
Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
 
Exhibition
Museum of Modern Art, New July 3–October 2, 2016
San Francisco Museum of Modern October 29, 2016–January 29, 2017
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, February 21–May 22, 2017
 

Genres: Art, Photography, Film

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 19, 2016

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fui a ver la exposición en el Reina Sofía porque me llamaron la atención sus ensamblages. Que no me decepcionaron es no decir nada. Este catálogo es el recuerdo de ese día. Por eso se merece las estrellas. Y por la lección de arte para ignorantes como yo.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conner’s work is a joyously anarchic riot of assemblage, compilation, and chaos, and this catalog does as best it can to show it and explain it. Of course, a two-page spread showing a lot of frames from A MOVIE or REPORT can’t be the same as watching those films, but the multiple authors and photographs go a long way.

[William West]

Connor's work definitely seems like a progenitor of punk, most specifically goth, aesthetics. His assemblages from the late '50s and early '60s are genuinely creepy and unsettling. Often suggesting through his collages, assemblages, and films that victimizing violence is foundational to the construction of the feminine, his work can seem (and has been described as) both misogynist or feminist depending on how one approaches it. (Indeed, Conner associates identification with violence and violation throughout his work.)

As ghoulish as much of Conner's output has been, it has a very detectable spiritual element. His frequent referencing of religious iconography seems, if not devotional, non-ironic. Always preoccupied with death, Conner seemed to be drawn to all aspects of the "beyond". Some hilarious collages of renaissance Christian iconography and '50s sci-fi imagery that Conner made in the '70s and '80s may strike some as heretical, but to me it suggested a search for meaning and reassurance in the context of the Cold War and the possibility of nuclear annihilation.

The "happiest" stage of Conner's output seems to have occurred during a brief period living with his family as an ex-patriot in Mexico. Not only is the color-scheme brighter, but much of the work from this time doubles as items of genuine domestic utilibility, as if Conner found himself in a healthier, more livable reality.

[Anne]

I saw the exhibit in San Francisco but resisted the urge to buy the exhibition catalog. Sometimes I regret that (i.e. Cult of Beauty), other times I get off lucky (It's All True). It's not that I didn't enjoy the exhibit in all its astounding variety, it's more that Conner's work isn't something I want to subject myself to on a regular basis. Fortunately, my library has a copy of the catalog which I can enjoy and return for as long as nobody else steals it.

My favorite bits include the collages of found illustrations - he put them together to such great effect - unfortunately those are reproduced so tiny they're really hard to enjoy in this format (or maybe I need to be in a room with less glare from the lights). And some of his assemblages were quite delightfully creepy. I was amused to read in the Greil Marcus essay (p. 79) that Conner expected people to add to his assemblages to keep them growing and changing... without being told they were supposed to (LOL, I find interpreting art hard enough, reading minds is even further beyond my skill level). Good thing I didn't know about that when I saw the exhibit - I would have had to suppress the urge to leave my own stamp on them (as if the rest of the world would want such a thing, hahahaha).

[Mills College Library]

700.92 C75277 2016