Bruce Conner’s photographic documentation of the San Francisco punk scene at Mabuhay Gardens, now on display at the Berkeley Art Museum, does not seem at all out of character for the Bay Area assemblage-based artist. Known for his compositions of city detritus and later found footage films, Mabuhay presented a living evolution of Conner’s beat aesthetic.

After being asked by Search & Destroy-cum-RE/Search magazine publisher V. Vale, for a contribution, Conner’s project began. The Mabuhay Gardens, a Filipino restaurant and bar in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, which began booking punk shows in the late 1970s, became the hub of the burgeoning punk scene in San Francisco. Conner’s photographs capture, with a sort of Weegee-esque curiosity, the layers the shows left on the Mabuhay. In Women’s Room at Mabuhay (April 3, 1978) the graffiti encrusted walls read: “Sid Vicious is a lightweight” and “Iggy is God” behind grinning visages of two women at the bathroom sinks. Illustrating the energetic wake of the shows, popcorn strewn across the floor amongst overturned chairs and discarded bottles, singers collapsed as if lifeless, his compositions often rely on potential movement or suspended animation. A falling bottle, slipping from the hand of Negative Trend singer Roz, hovers in mid air, stopped by Conner’s camera, a stream of frothing beer frozen, as if a solid. Most remarkable, however, are his photographs of Frankie Fix and Johnny Strike of Crime, whose portraits break with this trend, their bodies ghost-like, leaving traces of their travels across the stage.

Accompanied by a program of films and videos, as well as a number of original promotional posters from the collection of V. Vale and Henry Rosenthal (the drummer for Crime) Conner’s photographs give additional dimension to a short-lived, yet intensely dynamic and influential moment in the history of music.

--Ava Jancar

(*Images, from top to bottom: Bruce Connor, Mabuhay Gardens, June 4 - August 3, 2008; Berkeley Art Museum, Roz Makes a Giant Step for Mankind: Negative Trend, January 23, 1978; black-and-white photograph; 9 7/8 x 13 1/8 in.; museum purchase: bequest of Thérèse Bonney, Class of 1916, by exchange; photo courtesy of the artist.  Bruce Connor, Mabuhay Gardens, June 4 - August 3, 2008; Berkeley Art Museum, De Detroit: UXA, July 10, 1978; black-and-white photograph; 9 7/8 x 13 1/8 in.; museum purchase: bequest of Thérèse Bonney, Class of 1916, by exchange; photo courtesy of the artist.)