Bruce Conner RIP - Devo "Mongoloid"

Bruce Conner passed away a couple of days ago. He had a show in LA last Summer at Michael Kohn gallery. In Europe he was mostly known as an experimental filmmaker, and his photos of the San Francisco punk scenes are not very well-known there.
He also made some punk rock videos, including the "Mongoloid" one for Devo. Hopefully if I haven't screwed up with code you should be able to watch it.

A belated few pics of Bruce Conner at Michael Kohn

Apologies to my ever growing readership for lack of recent posting.
I've been quite busy last week and when I tried posting over the last couple of days my connection failed me.
Anyway, I've recently mentioned a few shows worth seeing, and since the Bruce Conner show at Michael Kohn is ending next week, I thought I should post a few pictures.
The show documents the West Coast early punk scene, but since it's an artist who took the pictures they don't look like straightforward photojournalist pictures. Rather, they constitute a shrine to a vanished scene, a number of which participants met an early death, because, you know, sex and drugs and rock'n'roll are not necessarily what brains and body need.
Conner had the gallery walls painted gray, the surface being left incompletely covered to create a club-y atmosphere, in addition to the spotlights. This being an art gallery, it doesn't look that nightclub-y to me, since it lacks a vibrant soundtrack and a great many unwashed dancing bodies, but it changes from the usual white cube.

The best part of the show however is the movie (Eve-Ray-Forever) projected in the adjacent gallery. Conner is better-known in Europe as an experimental filmmaker, and I do think this is where his talent is. It's a projection on 3 separate screen of various pictures (there's an explanation of the sequence of their apparition and their non-repetition in the gallery but I failed to pick it up) in B&W. It's fast and and dynamic but also subversively funny.
Since next week there's Thanksgiving if I were you I'd go see the show now, so you're safe re: opening hours. Please say hi to the lovely Nancy Meyer for me if you gos ee the show!

Things To Check Out Now

So the pinched nerve isn't showing any sign of unpinching itself by the sheer magic of laying flat on my bed for what was the duration of the entire weekend. I kind of foresaw that when the doctor told me to try this, but I couldn't really bend myself enough in the kind of suitable shape that's amenable to driving or even, more simply, get inside a car and get treatment NOW. Who knew folding one midget body would be so painful?
Anyway, I'll be busing my chic and diminutive Frenchy self to the chiropractor tomorrow Monday (on buses, you can STAND UP, yay!) and in the meantime, since typing is a bit difficult, I'll advise you to go see the Bruce Conner show at Michael Kohn (the movie is great) and the drawing show at Steve Turner, which is very, very good. Their website isn't updated unfortunately, but I can only urge you to go see it. If the chiropractor releases that nerve from its iron grip I'll write a review, but I'm late on the Thanksgiving In October post. I have a few pictures of both shows but will post them later as getting my camera now would mean some unnecessary acrobatics; and my lower back in its present state wouldn't thank me for attempting those.

Also, it is art too: Max Eider, one of the founding members with Pat Fish of my all time favorite band The Jazz Butcher [Conspiracy sometimes added here, and even once the Sirkorsky From Hell] has a new solo album out. Check all the info here.
Max Eider is also a Sex Engine! I'd love, love a re-release of the JBC albums Bath of Bacon and Fishcotheque, say for my B-Day?


I haven't seen the Murakami show at the the Geffen obviously. Paul, I think this obsession with Murakami is a little bit too much, really, but I'll check the show out as soon as I can move. And yes, that Vuitton store is tacky, and only shows how fashion has come full circle, it's the 1980s again and Vuitton is going to become vulgar all over again. Couldn't wait, save for the Marc Jacobs shoes, those patterns have always been atrocious, if you ask me.

Also, Andy Ouchi had an opening at China Art Objects on Saturday, ditto couldn't move.