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Bruce Conner

Oven, 1960

Description

Maker

  • Bruce Conner, 1933 -2008, American

Title

Oven

Year

1960

Medium

wood; paint; wax; metal; hair

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • wax,
  • paint,
  • metal,
  • wood

Dimensions

64.8 x 42.6 x 20.3 cm (25 1/2 x 16 3/4 x 8 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

unsigned

Type

  • Sculpture

Credit

Museum purchase with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts

Object Number

71.063

About

OVEN is one of a small number of sculptures Bruce Conner made from dyed industrial wax between 1959 and 1961. It is a rare example of Conner modeling forms as well as cobbling them together from found materials, as was his standard practice in film and sculptural assemblages for which he was well-known among 1950s Beat artists and later avant-garde circles. Here the crude, encrusted surface bristles with detritus that appears charred, giving the piece a menacing take on a common domestic appliance. In salvaging material considered expendable in American culture, Conner’s work was an early and aggressive challenge to the throw-away ethos of consumerism.

unsigned

[]

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Oven with the accession number of 71.063. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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