ASSEMBLED: Bruce Conner / Jean Conner / Anonymous / Anonymouse / Emily Feather / Signed in Blood
Hosfelt Gallery is thrilled to present its first exhibition in collaboration with the Conner Family Trust - a show which mines 60 years of work by Bruce Conner and Jean Conner (as well as by Anonymous, Anonymouse, Emily Feather and Signed in Blood), across the genres of drawing, collage, assemblage and painting - highlighting shared themes and recurring motifs. 117 works, some from the private collection of Jean Conner and many never exhibited before, illustrate the artists' intertwined interests in mysticism, religion, social and cultural norms, the natural world and the human body.
Bruce Conner (1933 - 2008) and Jean Sandstedt (b.1933) met on a blind, double date in 1954 at the University of Nebraska, where they both studied art. They married on September 1, 1957 and left that night for San Francisco, where they quickly fell in with the Beat-era community of artists and poets. The Conners, like other Bay Area artists, refused to conform to the expectations defined by the art establishment of New York, instead embracing the lack of commercial viability of their artworks and their outsider status in ways that led to highly experimental and original art forms.
Then, in the autumn of 1961, spurred by Bruce's fear of the possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and the intention to live cheaply, the Conners moved to the Juárez neighborhood of Mexico City. The year they lived there proved highly inspirational. Forays to historic churches and pyramids; Dia de los Muertos, and the funeral rites of strangers; a hunt for psilocybin mushrooms; the birth of their son; and day-to-day living in a foreign city and culture led them to independently create related bodies of work that would presage concepts, motifs and techniques they'd explore for the rest of their lives.
This exhibition - by tracing those seminal, symbolic vocabularies and technical strategies - surveys the practices of two remarkable 20th century voices.
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Bruce ConnerMOM'S COLLAGE, 1961mixed media assemblage24 x 11 x 6 in
61 x 27.9 x 15.2 cm -
Bruce ConnerUNTITLED, 1990photocopy collage13 3/4 x 8 1/4 in
34.9 x 21 cm -
Bruce ConnerTHE PIANOFORTE SISTERS MARCH 13, 1992, 1992engraving collage10 x 14 1/2 in
25.4 x 36.8 cm -
AnonymousJEWELRY AND TABLE JULY 21, 2001, 2001engraving collage3 x 5 3/8 inches
7.6 x 13.7 cm -
Emily FeatherINKBLOT DRAWING DECEMBER 12, 2003, 2003ink on paper12 x 15 inches
30.5 x 38.1 cm -
Bruce ConnerUNTITLED, 2005photocopy collage6 x 4 1/2 in
15.2 x 11.4 cm -
Emily FeatherINKBLOT DRAWING NOVEMBER 24, 2005, 2005ink on paper5 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches/14.6 x 16.5 cm
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Jean ConnerAZTEC WARRIOR, 1990watercolor on paper30 1/8 x 22 inches
76.5 x 55.9 cm -
Jean ConnerTWO NUDISTS AT THE BEACH, 1996paper collage7 7/8 x 7 1/2 in
20 x 19.1 cm -
AnonymousFALLEN LEAVES OCTOBER 7, 2001, 2001ink and collage on paper and silk36 x 17 in
91.4 x 43.2 cm -
AnonymouseINKBLOT DRAWING OCTOBER 24, 2000, 2000ink on paper22 7/8 x 29 in
58.1 x 73.7 cm -
Bruce ConnerUNTITLED, c. 2000photocopy collage6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in
16.5 x 11.4 cm -
Bruce ConnerINKBLOT DRAWING OCTOBER 24, 2000, 2000ink on paper8 x 7 in
20.3 x 17.8 cm -
Jean ConnerTHE EIDER'S EGG SEPTEMBER 12, 2012, 2012paper collage5 1/8 x 3 3/4 in
13 x 9.5 cm -
Bruce ConnerNINE OF SQUARES MARCH 16, 1983, 1983ink on paper11 7/8 x 9 in
30.2 x 22.9 cm -
Bruce ConnerWART FEBRUARY 16, 1987, 1987ink on paper12 x 9 in
30.5 x 22.9 cm -
Jean ConnerHUMMINGBIRD, 1984paper collage13 1/2 x 10 in
34.3 x 25.4 cm -
Jean ConnerBEARCAT, c. 1980paper collage5 1/4 x 6 3/8 in
13.3 x 16 cm -
Bruce ConnerINKBLOT DRAWING SEPTEMBER 8, 1999, 1999ink on paper7 1/4 x 9 3/4 in
18.4 x 24.8 cm -
Bruce ConnerINKBLOT DRAWING JUNE 3, 1998, 1998ink on paper8 1/2 x 4 3/4 in
21.6 x 11.9 cm
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HG Magazine Issue no. 25
ASSEMBLED on view at the gallery; plus Liliana Porter, Lordy Rodriguez, Patricia Piccinini, Cornelius Völker January 31, 2021ASSEMBLED: Bruce Conner/Jean Conner/Anonymouse/Emily Feather/ Signed In Blood on view at Hosfelt Gallery Liliana Porter: Man with Axe and Other Stories opens at Frist Art...Read more -
HG Magazine Issue no. 24
ASSEMBLED: Bruce Conner / Jean Conner / Anonymous / Anonymouse / Emily Feather / Signed In Blood; plus Isabella Kirkland, Patricia Piccinini, Russell Crotty, Jutta Haeckel, Gallery Climate Coalition January 9, 2021ASSEMBLED: Bruce Conner/Jean Conner/Anonymouse/Emily Feather/Signed In Blood opens January 23, 2021 Upcoming exhibitions: Isabella Kirkland & Patricia Piccinini Art and the Environment Hosfelt Gallery joins...Read more