I am sorry to say, Barry, I never saw the 'performance' side of Bruce. I saw him talk briefly once at his gallery, Paule Anglim.
Tho he continued to be productive, he was quite immobilized by Chrones (sp?0 disease for many years.
I am glad you were an early participant in the fun. Curious how Sontag could like Bruce Conner, while, also, for 20 years or so, managed to critically destroy Diane Arbus' significance - Arbus now being considered one of the giants of 20th century photography.
It would have been nice if Sontag had launched Conner, at least. Ah, was his own enemy on that level. Arbus, on the other hand, was ambitious, and certainly, as Conner, on frontiers of their mediums.
Stephen
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
Where a picture of me with my relatively new grandson resides,
including a commentary on the possible significance of this meeting of faces.
Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Stephen,
I was lucky enough to have had a lot of exposure to Bruce Conner's work, starting when I was an
undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, where--prompted by writing about BC by Jonas
Mekas and Susan Sontag--I screened "Cosmic Ray" and "A Movie" within one of my film series. Most
recently, in conjunction with a large exhibition of work by Conner & his "assistants" Anonymous and
Anonymouse, ten of his films were projected within the Katzen Museum on the campus of American
University in Washington DC.
Unfortunately, I was never able to witness any of the "performances" he staged, as it were, within his
personal life, and wonder whether you ever caught any of these? Or perhaps an in-person
screening? The rumors and stories his behavior initiated were amusing, but I've never heard an
eyewitness account. Can you supply one?
Barry Alpert
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