LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS
Bruce and Jean Conner in Mexico, 1961-62
February 8 鈥 May 18, 2025
Bruce Conner and Jean Conner, Artists
听Read and/or download the exhibition brochure听online
Co-produced by the Conner Family Trust and the 玉米视频 University Museum
Bruce Conner, HONGO, 1962. Ink on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches. Courtesy of Jacaeber Kastor.
Overview & Events
Friday, April 4, 2:00鈥3:00 p.m.
Follow the journey of artists Bruce Conner (iconic artist during the Beat, Psychedelic, and Punk periods) and his wife Jean (as reserved as her husband was assertive in seeking public attention), during the year they moved to Mexico City because Bruce believed they could 鈥渓ive cheaply and hide in the mountains when the bomb dropped.鈥
Bruce and some ex-pat friends (including Timothy Leary) would search for magic mushrooms and hidden Aztec pyramids while Jean stayed at home, recording aspects of the local culture. Their resulting drawings and the kaleidoscopic film Looking for Mushrooms Bruce made during their travels are topographic, psychedelic, religious and mundane. They give us a record of the young couple鈥檚 brief year of experimentation that ended with the birth of their son and their running out of money.
Find out how two young creative personalities, so different from each other, reacted to a cultural situation so radically foreign from their own in the first museum exhibition to concentrate on this formative time in their lives.
Read Review in
Bruce and Jean Conner, UNTITLED, 1962. Ink on paper, 12 x 8 7/8 inches. Courtesy of Jacaeber Kastor.
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LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS 1959-67/1996, 16mm to 35mm blow-up, color, sound, 14.5 min. Digitally restored, 2016.