Exhibition

BRUCE CONNER

IT'S ALL TRUE

October 29, 2016–January 22, 2017

Bruce Conner: It’s All True is the first comprehensive retrospective of this pivotal American artist’s incredible output, bringing together over 250 objects in various media.

Realist. Surrealist. Hippie. Punk. Bruce Conner (1933–2008) was all of these and more. A pioneer in experimental film, collage, photography, conceptual works, and paintings, he challenged the limitations of medium, genre, and style, constantly breaking new ground. Both of and ahead of his time, Conner continues to exert influence over artists working today. Bruce Conner: It’s All True is the first comprehensive retrospective of this pivotal American artist’s incredible output, bringing together over 250 objects in various media, including film and video, works on paper, assemblages, photographs and photograms, performance, and more. Spanning his five-decade career, the exhibition presents aspects of Conner’s work that have rarely been seen before, from paintings he made in the 1950s to photos from the Bay Area punk scene in the 1970s to video work from the 2000s, as well as numerous works produced in the last decade of his life.

Exhibition Preview

Artwork image, Bruce Conner, Tick-Tock Jelly Clock Cosmotron

Artwork image, Bruce Conner Mexico Collage

Artwork image, Bruce Conner and Edmund Shea, Sound of Two Hand Angel

Artwork image, Bruce Conner, BURNING BRIGHT

Bruce Conner, MEA CULPA (still), 1981; courtesy Conner Family Trust; © Conner Family Trust

Bruce Conner, BREAKAWAY, 1966 (still); collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Conner Family Trust, San Francisco

Bruce Conner, CHILD, 1959; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Philip Johnson; © 2016 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: © 2016 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Bruce Conner, TICK-TOCK JELLY CLOCK COSMOTRON, 1961; the Art Institute of Chicago, restricted gift of Janss Foundation, Twentieth-Century Purchase Fund; © 2016 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Bruce Conner and Edmund Shea, SOUND OF TWO HAND ANGEL, 1974; collection of Tim Savinar and Patricia Unterman; © 2016 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and Edmund Shea Trust

Bruce Conner, CROSSROADS (still), 1976; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Accessions Committee Fund purchase) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, with the generous support of the New Art Trust; © The Conner Family Trust

Bruce Conner, THE ARTIST, March 21, 1990; collection of Joel Wachs; © 2016 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: Karl Puchlik, courtesy Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles

Bruce Conner, BURNING BRIGHT, 1996; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund: gift of the Gerson and Barbara Bakar Philanthropic Fund, Collectors Forum, Diane and Scott Heldfond, Patricia and Raoul Kennedy, Phyllis and Stuart G. Moldaw, Byron R. Meyer, Madeleine H. Russell, Chara Schreyer, Elle Stephens, Norah and Norman Stone, and Phyllis Watts; © 2016 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Watch

Bruce Conner was many things, among them a filmmaker, a mixed-media artist, a Beat, a punk, and a notorious prankster. In this collage of rare archival footage, Bruce Conner discusses how, as an artist, he can’t be pinned down and doesn’t want to be. Decades after his groundbreaking work first appeared, it’s still all true.