SEÑORITA, 1962

Medium: Assemblage on wood Hair, comb, metal clip, bobby pins, metal lamp base, wax, nylon, paper, metal foil, metal sheets, ribbon, fabric, lace, tinsel, string, thread, tissue with lipstick print, newsprint, and nails on board mounted on wood
Dimensions: Other (Plexi case): 42 3/4 x 27 1/4 x 9 3/8 in. (108.59 x 69.22 x 23.81 cm) Image: 34 x 23 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (86.36 x 59.69 x 16.51 cm)
Accession Number: 88.30
Credit: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Purchase with funds provided by LLWW Foundation

Bruce Conner’s SEÑORITA taunts high, refined, elite culture with a work made of junk materials: torn pantyhose, a brunette wig, a tattered handkerchief sealed with a kiss of lipstick, and other garbage.

In San Francisco in 1959, Conner founded an informal artists’ club, the Rat Bastard Protective Association, which allied its members with ragpickers, scavenger figures at the social margins. The crude materials of Conner’s three-dimensional collages, known as assemblages, possess a putrid character. The artist even stipulated that museums and art collectors allow dust to accumulate on them. He made SEÑORITA while briefly living in a semi-rural community outside Mexico City. Trash was much harder to come by there than in the excessively wasteful, consumerist US. For this reason, SEÑORITA is flatter than Conner’s previous assemblages, relying for its effects on the layering of papers, including a glittering red scrap, an image of nosegay flowers, and an engraving of the Last Judgment.

Collection