Image: Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles
The Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles is presenting ‘BRUCE CONNER / RECORDING ANGEL’, a survey of seven experimental films by Bruce Conner that runs from February 21 through July 18, 2026. Installed in the foundation’s Theater Gallery, the exhibition presents the works in an alternating sequence across four screens, bringing together films made over nearly five decades of the artist’s practice.
Conner, who died in 2008, is described by the institution as a multidisciplinary artist who moved between sculptural assemblage, painting, conceptual art, collage, drawing, photography, and filmmaking without hierarchy. The exhibition foregrounds the films for which he became especially influential, including his use of found, scavenged, and original footage. Marciano Art Foundation says the show highlights his role as a pioneer of remix and cut-up techniques and notes that he has been called the “father of the music video” because of the rapid-fire editing effects he developed.
Among the works on view is ‘A MOVIE’ (1958), which combines clips of Western serials, soft-core “stag” films, newsreels of car crashes, and film leaders. Also included is ‘CROSSROADS’ (1976), for which Conner reedited documentary footage of the Operation Crossroads underwater atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946. The exhibition also features ‘BREAKAWAY’ (1966), ‘LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS’ (1959–1967), ‘MONGOLOID’ (1978), ‘AMERICA IS WAITING’ (1981), and ‘THREE SCREEN RAY’ (2006).
The foundation characterizes the program as a meditation on the power of images in consumer culture and on what it calls the hubristic and violent nature of the human condition, especially in postwar America. Sound is a central part of that reading. ‘A MOVIE’ uses Ottorino Respighi’s 1924 composition ‘Pines of Rome’; ‘CROSSROADS’ is paired with a score by Patrick Gleeson and Terry Riley; and other works are tied to songs by Toni Basil, The Beatles, DEVO, David Byrne and Brian Eno, and Ray Charles. In the exhibition text, Conner is quoted saying, “I learned to distrust words. I placed my bet on vision.”
The show is organized by independent curator Douglas Fogle for the Marciano Art Foundation. The institution says the project explores the structural limits of film while underscoring Conner’s cultural critique of the American Dream. The exhibition page also identifies special thanks to Michelle Silva, Toni Basil, and Patrick Gleeson, along with Michael Kohn of Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, for his contribution to the restoration of Conner’s films.
The Marciano Art Foundation, which describes itself as a contemporary art space in the heart of Los Angeles, says admission is free with advanced timed-entry reservation. Alongside ‘BRUCE CONNER / RECORDING ANGEL’, the foundation’s site lists ‘John Giorno: No Nostalgia’ and ‘Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: Ninety-six and Pissed’ as on view through July 18, 2026. ‘BRUCE CONNER / RECORDING ANGEL’ remains on view in the Theater Gallery until July 18, 2026.
