{"data":{"id":"10291","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":10291,"topgoose_id":15971,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":10291,"title":"PORTRAIT OF ALLEN GINSBERG","display_artist_text":"Bruce Conner","display_date":"1960","accession_number":"96.48","dimensions":"Overall: 19 15/16 × 11 5/16 × 21 3/8 in. (50.6 × 28.7 × 54.3 cm)","medium":"Wood, fabric, wax, metal can, glass, feathers, metal, string and spray paint","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eBruce Conner, \u003cem\u003ePORTRAIT OF ALLEN GINSBERG\u003c/em\u003e, 1960. Wood, fabric, wax, metal can, glass, feathers, metal, string and spray paint, overall: 19 15/16 × 11 5/16 × 21 3/8 in. (50.6 × 28.7 × 54.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee 96.48. © Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eA key figure in the Beat counterculture of the 1950s, Bruce Conner rejected bourgeois ideals of art as an expression of privileged creativity that produces a beautiful, eternal object. Instead, he challenged artists to deliver new forms based on new values—spontaneity, impurity, the degraded, and the marginal. In this portrait of the renowned Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, Conner thumbed his nose at the conventions of portraiture. Conner’s depiction of his friend is evocative rather than representational. Through this casual assemblage of junk materials and detritus, including a tin can, candles, wax, spray paint, and one of his favorite materials, nylon stockings, Conner conveyed the spirit of the unorthodox poet whose famous 1956 poem \u003ci\u003eHowl\u003c/i\u003e begins: “I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.”\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A small wooden frame draped with torn mesh netting and three hanging burlap sacks.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:29:26.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:11.714-05:00","images":[{"id":101128,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/10291/96_48_vw3_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"285","type":"artist"}]}}}}