{"data":{"id":"285","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":285,"topgoose_id":2628,"tms_id":285,"display_name":"Bruce Conner","sort_name":"Conner Bruce","display_date":"1933–2008","begin_date":"1933","end_date":"2008","biography":"\u003cp\u003eBruce Conner emerged in the late 1950s as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, a loose association of artists, poets, musicians, and filmmakers who, resisting conformity in both art and life and juxtaposing beauty and ugliness in their work, articulated the cultural and political upheavals of their time. Conner’s experimental attitude took a multiplicity of forms, including collage, painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, film, and photography. He gained early acclaim for a series of moody, ethereal assemblages that utilized a variety of found objects and scrap materials to form complex meditations on contemporary life.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/10291\"\u003e\u003cem\u003ePORTRAIT OF ALLEN GINSBERG\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e is an unconventional, abstract depiction of the poet that shuns any overtly formal or symbolic references, achieving instead, in Conner’s words, “a drama of a characterization.” Combining a door or window frame with dangling biomorphic forms (nylon stockings filled with found objects), sinewy stretched fabric, and partially burnt candles, it connotes a state of decay, a forensic scene, or an occult ritual. Equally renowned for his films, Conner originated an influential form of film collage through the meticulous assemblage of found footage—newsreels, countdown leader, film company logos, hand-altered film frames (hole punched, bleached, ink marked)—and his own original material. From the beginning he imagined the possibility of an infinitely looping, multiple projection film environment, and in 1965 he reworked his film \u003cem\u003eCOSMIC RAY\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1961) into a three-screen 8mm film installation for exhibition at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Near the end of his life he revisited this work and, with the advance of digital projection, finally realized his vision for an infinite duration, multiscreen work, using this and earlier film materials to create \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/34455\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eEYE-RAY-FOREVER\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500116235","wikidata_id":"Q991589","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:29:24.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-30T07:04:47.558-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/285/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/285/exhibitions"}}}}