February 9 - March 15, 2017
Gallery 1
Composed primarily of footage shot by Bruce Conner in San Francisco in the late 1950s, and footage filmed in rural Mexico while he and his wife, Jean Conner, were living in Mexico City in 1961-62, LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS is an “editing tour de force” of brilliant colors and pulsing rhythm. Dennis Hopper credited Conner’s film with influencing his own work, “Easy Rider,” while film and art historians have pointed to Conner’s rapid-edit technique as masterful and groundbreaking.
The original 8mm silent loop version of the film was shown at The Rose Art Museum in 1965 at Conner’s first solo show. The film was shown many times without sound before it was edited from 600 feet of film to 100 feet in length in 1965. A 16mm version of the 100 ft. film was shown, in 1967, at sound speed (2 minutes, 43 seconds) with The Beatles recording of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” whose transcendental lyrics reflect the fast paced imagery of this hypnotic film. In 1996, Conner created the long version of LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS by adding a soundtrack, “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band” by Terry Riley. Riley performed his music at an all night concert. The portion of the performance recorded by Riley on 1/4” audio reel in 1968 took place at about 3:00 AM.
New digital restorations of LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS are part of a series of groundbreaking restorations that will ultimately preserve all of Conner’s films, in limited editions of the highest quality, for future generations.
