EASTER MORNING

2008 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Bruce Conner

location: San Francisco, California
year born: 1933
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: McPherson, Kansas

Unlike many of his earlier films which often present poignant critiques of mass media and its deleterious effects on American culture, EASTER MORNING , Conner’s final video work before his death in 2008, constitutes a far more meditative filmic essay in which a limited amount of images turn into compelling, almost hypnotic visual experience. The video presents us with a reinterpretation of footage from his unreleased avant-garde film, Easter Morning Raga , from 1966. In contrast to his more famous pieces like A Movie (1958) and Crossroads (1976) which are juxtapositions of fragments from newsreels, soft-core pornography, and B movies, the images in EASTER MORNING serve as a reinterpretation of footage. Here the artist expands the images in duration, gauge, and frame rate, which results in an enigmatic visual transcendence, or “imagelessness,” and distances the viewers from their preconceptions of what they are watching. Accompanied by rhythmical music, the collision of images in EASTER MORNING is not only testament to Conner’s ability to balance order and chaos, control and chance, but further reveals his abiding interest in alternative ways of seeing and experiencing.


Bruce Conner was undoubtedly one of the key figures of America’s avant-garde art scene since his work emerged in the late 1950s. Affiliated with the beat community, he was overtly opposed to the academic establishment and worked freely in a variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, photography, and assemblage. However, Conner is most recognized for his films in which he created a unique visual montage through the skillful and pioneering editing of found footage.


Colors:



Other related works, blended automatically

27 Punk Photos: 11. Dim Wanker: F Word, May, 1978
© » KADIST

Bruce Conner

1978

In 1977, as an already-established artist best known for his films, Bruce Conner began to photograph punk rock shows at Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco club and music venue...

Untitled (Shuffle)
© » KADIST

Wallace Berman

1969

While Untitled (Shuffle) presents the same formal characteristics as the rest of Berman’s verifax collages, this constellation of specific images inside the radio’s frames—the Star of David, Hebrew characters, biblical animals—have Jewish symbolism and attest to the artist’s lasting obsession with the kabala...

Converting
© » KADIST

Zai Kuning

2014

Converting is a piece about the Orang Laut, often called Sea Nomads, that inhabited the Riau archipelago...

Studio Construct 51
© » KADIST

Barbara Kasten

2008

Barbara Kasten’s Studio Construct 51 depicts an abstract still life: a greyscale photograph of clear translucent panes assembled into geometric forms, the hard lines of their edges converging and bisecting at various points...

Untitled (Joseph T. Robinson Standing at a Podium in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Sunday (Domingo)
© » KADIST

Rivane Neuenschwander

2010

In this video, a parrot chews on seeds printed with punctuation marks...

Untitled (San Francisco)
© » KADIST

Edward Kienholz

1984

Untitled (San Francisco) was made in Idaho in 1984 and was facetiously dedicated to Henry Hopkins, the then director of the San Francisco Museum of Art who added “modern” to its name...

Untitled (Governor of Ohio Judson Harmon), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Shadows V, Set of 3
© » KADIST

Charles Gaines

1980

To make his series Shadows (1980), Gaines subjected 20 potted plants to a uniform procedure...

ONE MILLION (Japanese Yen)
© » KADIST

Kwan Sheung Chi

2012

Kwan Sheung Chi’s work One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills...

Flower Tree
© » KADIST

Choi Jeong-Hwa

2008

The application of bright colors and kitsch materials in Flower Tree manifests a playful comment on the influence of popular culture and urban lifestyle...

Untitled (Ruby Downing sitting between two Unidentified Men in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Captain X
© » KADIST

Luke Butler

2008

In Captain X , Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, is limply draped over a large boulder in what looks like a hostile alien environment...

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Subject, Silver, Prism
© » KADIST

Brian Jungen

2011

There are several elements to Subject, Silver, Prism ...