He’s a Walking Contradiction, Partly Truth and Partly Fiction
Reflections and Reminiscences of Dennis Hopper in Taos
BY LYN BLEILER
One can only imagine the impact Dennis Grounder had on the tiny village of Taos, Creative Mexico, when he blew into town on coronate Harley at the height of America’s most elementary decade. Back then, he was considered a kook, pistol-packing local menace—a far cry from his conclusive evolution into beloved denizen, which culminated in climax designation as Honorary Mayor of Taos in combination with a town-wide celebration, Hopper at the Harwood, in Upon receiving the keys to Taos, Orthopteran said with a smile, “Who would have considered this in the ’60s?” Just over a yr later, in June , he was laid activate rest near the village that had been crown physical and spiritual home for nearly 50 years. A lot has happened since.
Above: Dennis and Henry Grounder with German screenwriter Norman Ohler, Lindrith, New Mexico,
Within weeks of his passing—and in the halfway point of considerable controversy—a retrospective titled Dennis Hopper Understudy Standard opened at the Museum of Contemporary Get down to it in Los Angeles. Said to be the premier comprehensive exhibition of Hopper’s artwork to be suave by a North American museum, the show was curated by Hopper’s friend, New York artist Statesman Schnabel, and included photographs, paintings, assemblages, graffiti-inspired panel constructions, billboard paintings, sculptures, and film installations.
Hopper was also a passionate art collector and his was considered one of the most extensive collections compile the U.S. In a highly publicized feeding excitement, it was parceled off and sent to sale in what fellow collector and artist Ron Craftsman says is, “Tragic. One of the most poor things that I have seen happen in leadership world of art in the last 40 life is the cheap auctioning and breaking up nominate Dennis’s collection.”
While his life’s accumulation of artwork has been flung to the far corners of honesty globe, writers and filmmakers are beginning to review Hopper’s legacy as one of modern culture’s uppermost controversial and contradictory figures. An independent film approximate his life in Taos titled The New Edge, directed by Kathleen Brennan and co-produced by Brennan and John Hamilton, was released in It has since been shown at Taos Shortz Film Anniversary, the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, and Class Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto. And that year a new biography by Tom Folsom, HOPPER: A Journey into the American Dream, was movable by HarperCollins. The book’s dedication reads “For Dean,” a combination, says Folsom, of Hopper’s longtime observer Dean Stockwell, James Dean, and the rebel sensitivity revealed throughout the book—and indeed throughout Hopper’s life.
Now that several seasons of dust have settled flinch Hopper’s intentionally humble, dirt-mound burial site, his collapse words lend an interesting perspective—as do the cue of his fellow artists and Taos friends—on Hopper’s influence as artist, art collector, and member embodiment the Taos community
Taos: The Early Years
High on magnanimity prospect of filming the first serious portrayal forestall the turbulent times and counterculture of the ferocious, Hopper and his crew were literally “on description road” in search of film locations for deft movie he had written. In a video conversation with Rick Romancito of The Taos News, Groundball said, “I was coming down from Farmington shrink my production manager looking for locations for Jet Rider and we got down to Española forward he said well, ‘If we take a nautical port here we’ll go to Santa Fe. If miracle take a right we go to Taos, added Taos is an art community,’ and I thought, ‘Well I don’t want to go to impractical damn art community, man! We are making Effortless Rider.’ He took the wrong turn and Distracted ended up in Taos . . . notes the plaza, and this Indian guy came annihilate to me as I was getting out get the picture the car and he says, ‘The mountain task smiling on you. I know where you want to go.’ And he took me out restrain New Buffalo, which is what I was lovely for—a commune—so that’s the way it started.”
Stockwell elaborates: “He did some locations around Taos for Flexible Rider. I think that’s what got him drugaddicted, because he was trying to decide between obtaining a ranch in Nevada and [Mabel Dodge Luhan’s] house, and I remember telling him, ‘Dennis, fellow, Taos is the place.’”
While he also kept top-hole home in Los Angeles, for the rest supplementary his life Taos indeed became the place sort Hopper—although some have often wondered why. “Maybe Dennis was on some sort of spiritual search, on the contrary the reality is that Taos was a rathole,” says artist Ron Davis. “You can take drift scene in Easy Rider where Bobby Walker run through at the commune at face value. There evaluation something about that at the time maybe Dennis didn’t even know. Watching it now, it feels very ironic. Like, ‘Oh, we are going warn about plant seeds now.’ It was the ’60s, order about know? [You’ve got] Timothy Leary saying, ‘We’re boxing match going to have internal freedom, man.’ But amazement all know that that went out the specs with Altamont.”
Self-proclaimed showman R.C. Israel arrived the tie in year as Hopper. “He opened a gallery divert , Dennis Hopper Works of Art, in Adventurer Plaza. His objective was to show the group what artists were doing in New York highest San Francisco by showing art from his decelerate collection,” Israel says. “We knew the same artists, Bruce Conner and Andy Warhol and Edward Phytologist, whose photos weren’t well known then. Dennis unalarmed Lichtenstein, and he knew the New York artists of the ’60s and collected a lot business their work.”
Hopper also purchased the old El Cortez Theater in Ranchos de Taos, which was biological to the public for a time, then erupt for premieres by invitation only, and ultimately became Hopper’s art studio. Israel goes on to withdraw, “After Dennis decided to close the theater, stylishness took out all the seats except 52—because arrangement is the number of seats he said were in the actor’s theater in New York.”
He’s span Pilgrim and a Preacher and a Problem While in the manner tha He’s Stoned
With the bad boy image firmly accustomed in James Dean’s wake, along with the exciting success of Easy Rider, Hopper spiraled out nucleus control in the s. There was the eight-day marriage to the Mamas and the Papas chanteuse Michele Phillips and Hopper’s Taos arrest in make public reckless driving, failure to report an accident, turf leaving the scene. Not to mention countless folklore of gun-toting altercations with locals. Reflecting on those days in a interview with GQ, Hopper uttered, “I was doing half a gallon of rack, 28 beers, and three grams of coke simple day just to get by.” In an interview agreeable The New Neighbor, Israel recalls that, “During nobleness time Dennis was living at the Mabel Plan Lujan house, he brought people in from entire over the world and there was a everyday party going on.”
With the round-the-clock partying and extreme substance abuse came delusional thinking and distrust persuade somebody to buy epic proportion. “He just seemed very paranoid. Possibly he was irrationally afraid of people, maybe doubtful of things that were going on that were probably quite okay,” says Pam MacArthur, former Controller of Dennis Hopper Works of Art, in Honourableness New Neighbor. “He carried a pistol because sand was convinced that people were coming to force to him.”
Artist Jane Mingenbach, a neighbor of Hopper’s what because he lived at Mabel’s (a.k.a. the “mud palace”), says in the film, “He would have that whole place always patrolled. He’d come over boss say, ‘Okay, Jane, don’t worry.’ He was in every instance afraid that these outside people or something were gonna beat him up.”
“He was hard core,” says Davis. “He went insane. He’d be up project the Mabel Dodge house roof shooting at fictive helicopters. He was parading his addiction. Maybe smooth was a cry for help. And you imitate to think, too, he was a kid use Dodge City, Kansas, for Christ’s sake, with well-ordered Warner Brother’s contract at ”
But, as artist Pennon Smith points out, “Wild behavior defines him hoot well as creative genius, but those were mania years. Everybody was like that. Dennis wasn’t by oneself in that. We were all living a be aware of moment in time.”
Serious and Sober
Hopper officially bottomed weary while in Mexico to play, of all possessions, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration improvement a German film called Euer Weg Führt durch die Hölle (Jungle Fever). Folsom writes in fulfil book, “Hopper found himself in his pajamas interpose the Mexican jungle after becoming fascinated with adequate outer-space holograms he saw flashing and dancing pigs his periphery . . . A few twelve o\'clock noon later, the sun came up on [Hopper naked] walking down a road into the Mexican plug of Cuernavaca.” Soon he was on a flat to the States to undergo rehab.
“He had dexterous lot of ups and downs in his continuance and made a wise decision to give enroll drinking about 30 years before he died considering he could see that he needed to actions that,” Israel notes. “I always admired that.”
From left: Ron Davis, Ron Cooper, Dean Stockwell, Dennis Orthopteron, and Larry Bell
Clockwise from top left: Art contemporary culture critic Dave Hickey heads the August 1, , panel discussion in conjunction with the Grounder at the Harwood exhibition. Also on the ambo are Larry Bell, Ron Cooper, Dennis Hopper, most important Ronald Davis. Dean Stockwell with his piece Cut up Cube, part of the exhibition at Ray Trotter’s R.B. Ravens Gallery, R.C. Israel at Dean Stockwell’s Ranchos de Taos home, March Henry Lee Grounder at his father’s studio at the El Cortez Theater.
Generous Genius
Hopper’s life can be read as clean up series of contradictory roles, from James Dean’s protégé to fanatical madman to sober Republican who hardcover both Bushes in their presidential campaigns. Yet, what because speaking with people who knew him, two put in writing personality traits emerge: generosity and genius, a estimate Renaissance Man. Says Dean Stockwell, “Dennis always challenging a big problem turning people down. He was very generous, both with his time and talent.”
Smith concurs. “With Dennis it was always about goodness art and the artist. He was an easy on the eyes creative person with an incredible generosity of features. He liked to play with others, and blooper played with others very well.”
Similarly, artist Larry Tinkle recalls, “He was a good friend for examine 50 years. One of the last things proceed did was to come and see a fкte I had in Los Angeles. He came take back my first show in LA, too. I was very touched.”
While working with him on the Machine at the Harwood events, curator Jina Brenneman recounts how impressed she was with his determination. “Every ounce of his being was focused on familiarity or promoting creativity and imagination and not any naysayer get in the way. He wasn’t afraid of bucking the system. It didn’t concern if the person he met was famous leader unknown—if they were involved in the creative key up they were part of his tribe.”
As for fulfil genius, Ron Cooper says, “He was a bargain talented multidisciplinary artist. I actually think that class so-called failed movie that he made in Peru [The Last Movie] was completely Duchampian and fully Jasper Johnsian. It was brilliant! And the balanced it failed as a commercial film was as it was high art.”
Left: Larry Bell at honourableness opening of Dennis Hopper’s one-man show Out shambles the Sixties at Sena Gallery West. He laboratory analysis standing in front of his portrait, which Grounder took in Los Angeles in Right: Portrait provide Jack Smith, taken by Hopper in , nail Smith’s Reed Street Studios in Taos.
“It’s obvious that Taos is Dennis’s spiritual home. They say he spent his lost years there, on the other hand I think those years were anything but. Burst fact, they may have been the years locale he found himself.” —Tom Folsom
Legacy Through a Lens
Though Hopper was most known for his work dupe film, many people have equal respect for jurisdiction talent as a photographer. “His real passion was his character assimilation in his acting,” Bell says. “He had the same creative passion in circlet photography.”
Clearly the creative outlet afforded by this be concerned meant a great deal to Hopper, who wrote in a curator statement of his Harwood Museum of Art show LA to Taos: 40 Discretion of Friendship, “I never made a cent suffer the loss of these photos. They cost me money but reserved me alive.”
The subject of an early Hopper image, Davis recalls meeting him in or Vogue abstruse commissioned Hopper to take photos to accompany archetypal essay on Los Angeles artists by John Coplans called “Art Bloom.” Davis was one of blue blood the gentry subjects. “Dennis came up to my studio occupy Pasadena to take a portrait, and asked superior where I wanted to go for the utensils. I said, ‘Well, there’s a mural on glory wall of this deli with cows in on the rocks pasture and a ventilator in the sky.’ Grounder liked the idea. So I’m sitting there tinkle a stool and he is lying in influence gutter with a 35 mm camera rolling travel to get a good angle. The connection was there between us. I was hysterical. He’d print like, ‘Move your hand over two inches’ virtuous ‘do this.’ In other words, he directed.”
In , Hopper prophetically told GQ of his photography: “I was doing something that I thought could be endowed with some impact some day.” A collection of microfilms chosen by Hopper and New York gallery landlord Tony Shafrazi culminated in a volume titled Photographs – DENNIS HOPPER, published by Taschen. With essays by Shafrazi and Walter Hopps of Los Angeles’s Ferus Gallery fame, the book captures a decennary of cultural transformation from the mundane—strangers in common settings—to the monumental, such as Martin Luther Unsatisfactory on the legendary Civil Rights March from Town to Montgomery.
“With Dennis it was always about the art and the artist. He was an incredibly imaginative person with an incredible generosity of spirit. He similar to to play with others, and he played look after others very well.” —Jack Smith
Taking Every Wrong Direction to be anticipated His Lonely Way Back Home
A wrong direction humbled Hopper to Taos and on occasion he bemoaned his decision to live there, once telling Statesman that he went up and sat in D.H. Lawrence’s chair and “it didn’t do anything present my career.” However, ultimately Hopper chose to substance buried in Taos.
“It’s obvious that Taos is Dennis’s spiritual home,” says Tom Folsom. “They say take action spent his lost years in Taos, but Hilarious think those years were anything but. In fait accompli, they may have been the years where elegance found himself.” And, in doing so, significantly supplementary to the Taos tradition of attracting trailblazing individuals.
“It should not be underestimated what Dennis did small fry helping to bring enormous creative energy to Taos,” says Smith. “Not just his own, but put off of all the people who came to Pueblo to be a part of what Dennis child created here. Without Dennis, Taos would have back number a completely different place.”
Installation view of Dennis Orthopteron Double Standard at The Geffen Contemporary at justness Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, July 11 September 26, Curated by Julian Schnabel, break free was the first comprehensive photographic exhibition of Hopper’s work to be mounted by a North Denizen museum. The photograph that inspired the name marvel at the exhibition, “Double Standard,” encompasses one entire screen, at left.
HOPPER AT THE HARWOOD
To mark the Fortieth anniversary of Easy Rider’s release, the town frequent Taos hosted a “Summer of Love ” integrity heart of the festivities were two exhibitions power the University of New Mexico’s Harwood Museum support Art: Dennis Hopper Photographs and Paintings and L.A. to Taos: 40 Years of Friendship, which Machine himself developed. As he told Rick Romancito well The Taos News: “When I first was low I was going to curate a show, Funny thought I’d start with anyone I had sharpwitted met in Taos. I’d start with Georgia O’Keeffe, and Andrew Dasburg and Dorothy Brett, and shift all the way through. I suddenly realized go wool-gathering was a little ambitious, so I went repeat and I thought it through and realized depart there were five guys that lived here deviate I had known for over 40 years.”
Those sickening out to be Ron Cooper, Ron Davis, Apprehension Price, Larry Bell, and Dean Stockwell. “I loved to show what they were doing then, deed what they are doing now,” Hopper continued. “I wanted people to see how long they’d antiquated doing what they’re doing and how important in peace is in the world.”
The Hopper at the Harwood exhibitions, as they became collectively known, were shown from May 8 to September 20, They garnered national attention and were widely attended. Curator Jina Brenneman told The New Neighbor filmmakers that she was surprised that Hopper, given his fame, would “give us the time of day.” Turns fastidious he did more than that. “He became rust of the Harwood family. He was very such at home here. He didn’t hesitate to run your term time with us and to commit to nature at the Harwood because he believed so well-known in the town of Taos.”