Dennis Hopper

Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica

BMG Bertelsmann

Christie's, New York, 14 November 2002, Sale 1180, Lot 482

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Dennis Hopper, "Standard Bullshit", Parkett (Zurich, 1988), no. 18, p. 49

Peter Noever, ed., Dennis Hopper: A System of Moments (Vienna: MAK, 2001), cover

Richard D. Marshall, Ed Rushca (London, 2003), p. 59

Douglas Fogle and Hannake Skerath, eds., Making Strange: The Chara Schreyer Collection (New York, 2021), pp. 398 and 415

Throughout the 1960s, actor Dennis Hopper made an estimated 18,000 images, of which Double Standard is the best known.  He made this photograph at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, and North Doheny Drive, in Los Angeles. Referring to his photographs as "tablets of time," Hopper captured pop elements of the Los Angeles landscape, with its billboard advertisements, classic cars, and prominent signage are visible through the windshield of his Corvair convertible. Although this image has traditionally been dated to 1961, the details of the image have helped confirm its true dating of between the fall of 1963 and the summer of 1964: the Corvair's interior indicate it is a 1964 model; and "Smart Women" billboard by advertising agency Foster & Kleiser dates to around 1963.  An early patron of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Ed Ruscha, Hopper's Double Standard was used for the invitation to Ruscha’s second solo exhibition in 1964 at the venerated Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.