With exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the MAK (Museum for Applied Art) in Vienna and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Dennis Hopper’s acting, artistic and directorial work has received a critical makeover in recent years. Adding to this list, in 2008 Paris’s Cinémathèque Française hosted a dense exhibition and screening program which focused on Hopper’s multi-faceted life and career titled, ‘Dennis Hopper et le Nouvel Hollywood’.
Due to the recognisability of his name and the extent to which his extra-curricular activities are unknown, Hopper’s work lends itself particularly well to the format of a retrospective. As an actor he is famous for playing immoral yet oddly sympathetic characters; as an artist and director his work is historically loaded yet obscure enough to warrant another look. Then there is the intimidating biographical blurb which ties it all together: ‘one time friend of James Dean, early collector of Andy Warhol, pioneer of American independent cinema, outcaste director who fueled a prodigious drug habit in New Mexico, great actor who returns to mainstream acclaim in Blue Velvet (1986) and Hoosiers (1986) …’.
In the exhibition component of the Frank Gehry designed cinémathèque, Hopper’s eclectic artwork, works from his collection and excerpts of his performances in films and commercials were displayed alongside each other in an astutely researched exhibition. His practice was represented through a variety of themes and formats: from photographic portraits, billboard style paintings, figurative sculptures, to performance art and more. In the ground floor cinemas, the screening program comprised some fifty films in which he has appeared, seven of which he directed. When considered together, the retrospective consisted of a disparate range of tropes, with numerous media, characters