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I remember meeting Bruce Conner many years ago when I was in high school. I was in a punk band (back in 1977) and his son was the bass player in the band. I believed he was living in the Diamond Heights section of San Francisco at the time and he was working on the Mongoloid video with the new-wave band Devo and I got to see the video first hand. We(the members of the band) had a chance to see Devo at Mabuhay Gardens in 1977 (three years before "Whip It."). Bruce was a pleasant guy when I first met him
In 1965, plus or minus a year, I saw Bruce Conner
participate in a panel discussion.
The place was the auditorium of the
University of Chicago Law School. Now, none of the obituaries
have even mentioned that he was ever in Chicago, but The New York
Times did describe his life as "peripatetic" during the
1960s.
I don't remember what the advertised topic of the discussion was,
or whether it was part of a larger festival of the kind universities
put on to glorify themselves. At any rate, the other panelists I
remember were Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, psychiatry professor
Bruno Bettelheim and the former U.S. senator from Illinois
Paul Douglas. Conner was silent during the entire time, but midway
through he produced a box, which turned out to be full of marbles,
and emptied it out onto the uncarpeted floor of the stage.
In thinking back on the event, I realize that my reaction to
it -- that here was a psychologically disturbed individual --
had everything to do with context. Although he was apparently
well-known in art circles by this time, I hadn't heard of him,
so he must not have been known to the public -- or to a U.C.
undergraduate -- as was Claes Oldenburg, for example. And he
was the youngest of the panelists, which amplified the
childish aspect of his prank. But if Oldenburg had done something
like that, I _think_ my understanding would have been completely
different.
This was discussed in December 2012 at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rat Bastard Protective Association. Given that we could find only a limited number of reliable sources that dealt with the RBPA other than as it related to Conner, the consensus derived from this discussion was that the best result was to merge the small amount of verifiable content about RBPA to Conner's article. The relevant paragraph is still in the Conner article, with three footnotes. If there's more in reliable sources about the RBPA apart from Conner, we could expand and eventually consider spinning off a separate article again, but I think we'd need to find the sources first. --Arxiloxos (talk) 22:48, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Arxiloxos - so glad to learn of the reference. here is what I gleaned (including a picture of the RBPA seal) from that discussion. some of material appears interesting...curious to hear your thoughts --Ratbastardassn (talk) 19:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Although Rat Bastard Protective Association has often been called a "secret art society," it is more correct to say that it is an esoteric art society, in that most aspects are private. The RBPA has, in the last few decades, become less a secret art society and more of a "society with art secrets." Most aspects of RBPA remain exclusive, the modes of recognition amongst members and particular factions within the association.
Yet, there have been many recent disclosures, awards and edicts[5], but these hermetic notices often lack the proper context for true understanding of the content, or could be outright hoaxes on the part of the association. The organization continues to this day. Subsequent elected members include Dennis Hopper, Michael McClure and LG Williams.
References
^Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Interview with Bruce Conner, Conducted by Paul Karlstrom in San Francisco, California, August 12, 1974: File:Ratbastard seal.jpgRat Bastard Protective Association Seal, Wally Hedrick's RBPA Seal c.2001. Col: Richard Reisman, Napa, CA.
"Bruce Conner: I sent announcements to eight or nine people, ten people probably, telling them that they were all members of the Rat Bastard Protective Association. I was president. They should pay their dues. The next meeting was scheduled at my house. Then it was scheduled after that for every couple of weeks at Fred Martin's, or Joan Brown's, or Wally's house, or wherever."
^Michael Ducan, Art in America, "The Self and Its Symbols", May 2000,
...from 1959 to 1966...the Manuel Neri, Joan Brown, Jay DeFeo, Wally Hedrick, Wallace Berman, Jess, George Herms, and Bruce Conner... group was jokingly dubbed by Bruce Conner the Rat Bastard Protective Association."
^James Boaden, Ruin of the Nineteenth Century: The Assemblage Work of Bruce Conner, 1957 – 1962 [www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/journal2/acrobat_files/boaden_article.pdf]
^ The title also puns on the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood; its initials the RBPA mirroring the PRB thus mocking the branding of a style and the cowering into clans of so many artists. Its members included Jay de Feo, Michael McClure, Manuel Neri and Joan Brown. See Rebecca Solnit, ‘Heretical Constellations: Notes on California, 1946–61’, in Sussman, ed., Beat Culture and the New America, 69–122, especially 71.
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