Bruce Conner’s many editions of self in San Jose
The Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles was a force in the early ’60s renaissance of editioned graphic arts as media of fresh creative invention.
[...] knowing that finger marks on a plate were signs of insufficiently skilled effort to the master printers of Tamarind, Conner produced an edition consisting of his thumbprint off center on a sheet otherwise empty, except for a second thumbprint at the lower right corner to serve as his signature.
[...] that was the case at the time:
Punctuating the exhibition are some of the psychedelically detailed abstract ink drawings Conner made that sealed his preference for commercial over fine art printing technology.
The latest work on view from 2003, Magnolia Editions’ stunning translation of a 1987 collage-based etching into a jacquard tapestry, attests to Conner’s never-ending restlessness in shuffling productive media and traces of personal artistry.
Conner was miffed to find that June Wayne, Tamarind’s founder and guiding spirit, was away on other business during his stint there, so he made another print that reproduces in blue letters on black the sign posted at her vacant, dedicated parking spot: “This Space Reserved for June Wayne.”
The show includes one of his most famous images, “Bombhead” (2002), an inkjet print in which a mushroom cloud appears seamlessly grafted into a photograph of him in nondescript uniform, replacing face and head.
In related works here based on stills from his anti-nuke film “Crossroads,” Conner digitally worked in faint images of some of the collaborative photograms he called “Angels.”
Among the most famous and visually arresting examples are the suites of etchings titled “The Dennis Hopper One Man Show,” based on collages Conner made from 19th century magazine engravings, those collages heavily indebted to predecessor works by Max Ernst (1891-1976).