Realist. Surrealist. Hippie. Punk. Bruce Conner (1933-2008) was all of these and more. A Bay Area pioneer in experimental film, collage, photography, conceptual works, and paintings, Conner challenged the limitations of medium, genre, and style, constantly breaking new ground.

Bruce Conner, CROSSROADS (1976, 35mm, b&w/sound, 37min.); Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, with the generous support of the New Art Trust; © Conner Family Trust, San Francisco

Both of and ahead of his time, Conner continues to influence artists working today. Bruce Conner: It’s All True, on view at SFMOMA through January 22, is the first comprehensive retrospective of this pivotal artist’s incredible output, bringing together over 250 objects in various media, including film and video, works on paper, assemblages, photographs and photograms, performance, and more.

Spanning his five-decade career, the exhibition presents aspects of Conner’s work that have rarely been seen before, from paintings he made in the 1950s to photos from the Bay Area punk scene in the 1970s to video work from the 2000s, as well as numerous works produced in the last decade of his life.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently sang the praises of the exhibition, writing that “if there was ever any doubt about who should be recognized as the greatest artist the Bay Area ever produced, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has resolved the question definitively with its lovingly presented, sweeping analysis of the work of Bruce Conner.”

Bruce Conner: It’s All True is on view at SFMOMA October 29 - January 22, 2017! Tickets on sale now at sfmoma.org.