Bruce Conner, an iconoclastic artist and avant-garde filmmaker of the Beat era who gained international admiration for his work, died on July 7. He was 74.
Conner died at home of natural causes, said his wife, artist Jean Conner.
One of the last surviving artists who was associated with San Francisco’s Beat scene of the 1950s, Conner remained active and influential in the contemporary art world throughout his life.
In 1958, Conner made the 12-minute experimental film A Movie, in which he set snippets of B-movies and other found newsreel and film clips to music. The film has been cited as a precursor of music videos, and in 1991, the National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the Library of Congress.
”He definitely was one of those artists who worked without regard to what the current climate was,” said his New York-based art dealer, Susan Inglett. ”He did his own thing and benefited from it in the long run and was admired for it.”
Throughout his career, Conner also collaborated with many visual artists and musicians, including David Byrne and Brian Eno on the 1982 short film America Is Waiting and the band Devo for a film he made in the 1970s.
Conner moved to San Francisco in 1957, after receiving his fine-arts degree from the University of Nebraska. There he met and collaborated with a group of visual artists, including Jay DeFeo and Wallace Berman who were associated with the Beat scene.
Conner gained international attention around this time for assemblages he built from old stockings, photographs, broken dolls and other discarded items, which were viewed as a social criticism of American consumer society.
Later in the 1960s he became active in San Francisco’s counterculture, and collaborated on light shows during psychedelic concerts at the legendary Avalon Ballroom.
Throughout his career, Conner was known as much for his unique work as his disregard for the established art world.
”It was part of the independent spirit that his artwork comes from and sails on,” said Steve Fama (51), a long-time friend of Conner’s. ”He let the work speak for itself … He saw his work as ever changing.”
More recently, Conner’s work gained a new legion of admirers after a retrospective titled 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story Part II opened at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and travelled to San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Conner was very particular about how his art was shown, and had a hand in every aspect of it, Jean Conner said.
”He planned the layout and lighting, everything. He was very annoying to the museum people who had to work with him … but he was always right,” she said.
Conner is survived by his wife and their son, Robert Conner. — Sapa-AP