"Damage Control" at the Hirshhorn Museum

In January, I briefly mentioned reading the book Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950. Imagine my surprise when it was on view at the Hirshhorn Museum over Spring Break. It featured some of my favorite video pieces including:

Steve McQueen, Dead Pan, 1997

Pipilotti Rist, Ever is Over All, 1997

Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958 [finally available online = wish that happened when I taught Art and Its Relationship to New Technology]

Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1958

I am fairly certain I have seen this Rauschenberg on half a dozen occasions. It is featured in any exhibition that includes aggression (also Target Practice: Painting Under Attack, 1949 - 1978) and suddenly, its presence is expected. I would like to be surprised the next time it makes an appearance - perhaps curated into a show focusing on exercise or meditative actions.

There were some terrific Ed Ruscha works including The Royal Road Test and Los Angeles County Museum on Fire. I was also able to spend time with John Baldessari's Cremation Project and was reacquainted with how often nuclear bombs are featured in artwork. 

Bruce Conner: "Applause," 1970

Substitutions

Looking for someone to be me for five days this month... Must be able to participate in the Animation Search committee meetings and attend a lecture, meet with five BFA thesis students, teach seven classes, and feed my cats. Anyone?


Cindy Sherman as Richard Prince, Richard Prince as Cindy Sherman, 1983

Matthew Barney as Gary Gilmore in Cremaster 2

Duane Michals, Self-Portrait as Someone Else I and II, 1968

Alfred Hitchcock poses as a woman for a magazine article, c. 1964

Douglas Gordon, Self-portrait as Kurt Cobain, as Andy Warhol, as Myra Hindley, as Marilyn Monroe, 1996

Bruce Conner as Dennis Hopper and Dennis Hopper as Bruce Conner, From The Dennis Hopper One Man Show, 1973

Janine Antoni, Mom and Dad, 1993-94

The Dennis Hopper One Man Show: 1936-2010

Left to Right: Bruce Conner and Dennis Hopper, 1973

In 1967, Conner stole the name of his friend, Dennis Hopper, and used it to present 26 of his own collages. Hopper was ignorant of the plan and so was Conner's art dealer. The act raised many questions including who the work belonged to, who would receive the money upon its sale, would people confuse Conner's work with Hopper's own art, and so on.


A Bruce Conner collage in "The Dennis Hopper One Man Show"

This also ties in with my family's relationship with Dennis Hopper dating back to the mid 1950s in San Diego, California. In 1954, a mutual friend of my father's and Dennis Hopper drove them both to school. Hopper was a year ahead of Dad at Helix High School (and was voted Most Likely to Succeed in Dad's yearbook). I can hear Dad imitating Hopper's voice right now when he said, "Why do we always have to pick up this asshole?" pointing to Dad in the backseat. No love was lost between them.

One of my favorite articles of clothing is a belt Dad wore in high school. I can't help but imagine that he had it on at least once when riding in the back of the car with Dennis Hopper in the front seat. I wore that belt today thinking about Hopper's death and my father's past. Incidentally, they both shared the same birthday though Dad was one year younger.



Once in the early part of this decade, I bumped into Hopper at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. I was amazed at his short stature. How could I be taller than Frank Booth in Blue Velvet? Yet apparently, I was. Part of me wanted to say something to him but I walked away pretending that I had no idea that I almost literally ran into my father's high school arch nemesis.