A  stolen frame from “Looking for Mushrooms” by Bruce Conner

Conner photographed the San Francisco punk scene of the late seventies- a micro scene really- and the resulting photographs and collages hang out in the gallery just outside of the showing of his film “Crossroads”. He went to hear the not-yet-famous Devo at the Mabuhay Gardens club at the suggestion of Toni Basil (whose energy and person is the subject of “Breakaway”). For a few years, that place became his bar, the bands and crowds his people while punk sparked and smoked. Oddly quiet is this noisy scene.  He probably saw his younger self in these young musicians. His early melting sculptures and collages are as punk as any baby-pinned cheek or torn nylons.  He never seems to slip into the punk aural aesthetic entirely, but he did make a music video of Devo’s Mongoloid (1978) during this period.

About twenty years later, using some of these pictures in collage, he eulogises the same men whose angry, destructive lives brought them to early deaths.

Always in the thick of things, Conner continued making music videos in the early 1980’s. As much a collaborator as collage maker, he made collage videos with the art-rock dream duo of Brian Eno and David Byrne. He pairs the pairs’ sound collage songs with images that flicker and dot with retro found funkiness. The videos don’t add to the music or detract from it, either. The sound is the hum of the box and the video is the embellishment on screen. Three black boxes wait the museum-goer on the first floor in front of the elevators which rise to the main exhibition hall. Give them a listen. Mongoloid is there. I liked Mea Culpa which is in the middle.

 

“Easter Morning” (1966/2008) is a meditation on love and resurrection. Placed at the end of the show, it clangs with the music of fellow bay-area legend Terry Riley. The music used is Riley’s “In C” which plays with a simple chord and leaves the when and where up to the individual musicians. The changing sameness of the strange soundtrack is emphasized by the use of traditional Chinese instruments instead of western instruments. The color film begins with flowers, crosses and spots of light and leads to a naked woman sitting demurely on the floor bathed in Van Eyck sunlight.

This is the third post of many about this exhibition. Please go! At MoMA until October 2nd.