Coming of age during the Sixties, Bruce Conner was at the forefront of a Cultural Revolution set against the stark backdrop of the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Summer of Love. In the face of an increasingly unpopular war and the prevailing Conservative Capitalist Culture, Conner and his peers sought an alternative lifestyle and value system on the margins of society. Consciousness raising experimentation took the form of mystical studies and mind altering drugs, all interests which manifested themselves in Conner’s work in film, assemblage, photography, and drawing.
Some forty years later, in the face of an increasingly unpopular war and prevailing Conservative Capitalist Culture, we look upon Conner’s work from this period with renewed interest. Conner’s personal journey begins in the dense cross-hatched black nights of the early 1960’s opening up to light filled ephemeral scumblings of peyote induced wanderings. As the work develops, both religious and secular symbols are introduced as touchstones or markers along the way. Intricate tantric mandalas and suggestive Rorchach or inkblot drawings follow. Standing alone, the single photogram captures a wisp of the artist’s body as it glows for an instant bright white against a stark black ground. It is said that there are “many paths to enlightenment”, Bruce Conner leads the way.
Susan Inglett Gallery now provides exclusive representation for Bruce Conner on the East Coast. Bruce Conner has been the focus of a major retrospective organized by the Walker Art Center. The work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis among others.
