BRUCE CONNER:
AN ASSEMBLAGE OF FILMS
Co-presented by Aurora Picture Show
and The Menil Collection
Free Admission
Saturday, February 11, 7:00PM
Sunday, February 12, 3:30PM

While Bruce Conner first made his name as a sculptor and painter in the San Francisco Beat scene, in the late-1950s he began making films by refashioning pieces of B-movies, newsreels, and industrial films. Ranging from aggressive montages to gentler meditations, Conner’s found footage assemblages critique pop culture while simultaneously embodying it. Held in conjunction with the Menil Collection exhibition Holy Barbarians: Beat Culture on the West Coast, this program highlights some of Conner’s most influential films made between the 1950s and 80s–all shown on 16mm film prints.

Program:

A Movie, 1958

Cosmic Ray, 1961

Breakaway, 1966

White Rose, 1967

Report, 1963-67

Mongoloid, 1978

America is Waiting, 1981

Mea Culpa, 1981

“Bruce Conner was one of the great outliers of American art, a polymathic nonconformist whose secret mantra might have been “Only resist.” In multiple media, over more than five decades, this restless denizen of the San Francisco cultural scene resisted categorization, art world expectations and almost any kind of authority.” –Roberta Smith, New York Times.