Title: TAKE TWO, D.H.O.M.S., VOLUME I
Medium: Etching
Size: 18 1/4 x 14 1/4 in.
Edition: Eight images in portfolio, edition of 12, 4 Artist Proofs, 1 I.C.E. Impression, 1 B.A.T.
Release: November 2001
Price: $20,000.00 / $2,750.00 singles
BRUCE CONNER, TAKE TWO, D.H.O.M.S., VOLUME I(1973/2001), a portfolio of eight etchings printed by Kay Bradner in San Francisco on Magniani Pescia paper in an edition of 12 with 4 Artist’s Proofs, published by I.C. Editions, NYC.
Beginning about 1959, Bruce Conner began to secretly piece together paper collages using 19th-century wood engravings which he had collected or accumulated. His working method was not unlike that used to make the film and assemblage for which he had become well known. Taking advantage of the public’s ignorance of this new and seemingly disparate body of work, Conner decided to attribute the collages to yet another artist, Dennis Hopper. The unwillingness of a dealer to exhibit the work under another’s name and the unwillingness of the artist to reveal his identity, led to their relative obscurity.
It was not until the late Sixties when Kathan Brown invited Conner to work at Crown Point Press that the wood engraving collages were resurrected. Conner returned the collages to their original printed state, producing twenty six etchings bound in three black leather volumes and titled collectively THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW VOLUMES I - III. Acting simultaneously as artwork and as foil for a larger conceptual project, this series is considered by many to be among Conner’s major works.
With the completion of Volume III in 1973, Conner with the printer went back and re-worked the negatives of Volume I using the experience garnered over the course of the project. New plates were made at the time and are being editioned today as TAKE TWO, D.H.O.M.S, VOLUME I so that the images might be appreciated as the artist intended.
TAKE TWO, D.H.O.M.S., VOLUME I can be found in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
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