Rudy Burckhardt

A detailed look at a remarkable artist who died in 1999 at age 85. Aspects of Burckhardt's work in photography, film, and painting are examined in interviews with Rudy Burckhardt, painter Yvonne Jacquette, and curators Robert Storr (former Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Brian Wallis (Chief Curator, International Center of Photography, New York). In his studio in New York, Burckhardt discusses his photography and its significance within its historical framework. In the woods near his summer home in Maine, the viewer sees Burckhardt's easel and painting in front of the scene he is depicting. Whether in city or country, Burckhardt appreciated and transformed the chaos he discovered.

Short film by Swiss-American film-maker and photographer Rudy Burckhardt, featuring a poem by Kenneth Koch.

Made in the final year of his life, Rudy Burckhardt’s Scattered Showers begins its journey in the city he so scrupulously documented in photographs and film for the greater part of his career.

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

A film-dance, shot on 16mm film in Long Island City, Queens, NY.

A film-dance, shot on 16mm film in Long Island City, Queens, NY.

A film-dance, shot on 16mm film in Long Island City, Queens, NY.

Elliott Carter’s composition of the same title inspired Rudy Burckhardt, in collaboration with Yvonne Jacquette, to photograph this collage-style film. Mostly shot in New York City, but also in Hong Kong and Searsmont, Maine.

A collage film featuring dual narrations of Ashbery’s eponymous poem of the same name, with both Ashbery and Burckhardt appearing in in front of the camera.

"A diary or collage film, ranging from snow in the Catskills, with stop-overs in Boulder, Colorado and San Francisco, to Easter in New York, flowers and cows in Maine, a Caribbean carnival in Brooklyn, country fairs with men splitting wood and women weight-lifting; and a last section with all these combined and more. The film is also about Venus – two of them actually – one a classic Renaissance Venus, the other a Nordic, Gothic one, the Venus of the Broken Trees. The music is a collage too, ranging from Spike Jones to Hector Berlioz' "Nuits d'Ete." - Ron Padgett

To a poem by Kenneth Koch with Chopin played by Gena Raps. "Rudy's lyrical montage opens and reflects the world the way a poem does. He consistently gets to the essential fragments of an experience or a view. His perspective is that of a pedestrian god of sidewalks, a celebrator of details we might have missed. The films are about desire, bewitched noticing and, most of all, love." – Greg Masters

Poems by John Ashbery; with performances by Douglas Dunn and Susan Blankenson, Yoshiko Chuma. "A grand synthesis of the poetic free association films by Rudy Burckhardt has been perfecting for the past fifteen years. Democratic in its celebration of all contemporary art forms (dance, painting, performance art, music, and, of course, film), encyclopedic in its images (from New York City interiors to Maine brooks to Latin American villages), it is finally most unique by virtue of its emotional range. The filmmaker has achieved a style which enables him to encompass everything from the whimsical, even silly, to the deeply philosophical and grave, with all shades of curiosity and neutral observation ('Just walking around,' as the subtitle says) in-between." – Phillip Lopate

Untitled takes an intrigued look around and reports on how things appeared then and what everyone was up to. Lines from a poem by John Ashbery cross the screen at times and our grasp of his elusive language is strengthened by the accompanying images. The land and people of Maine, New Mexico, and New York City appear to wittily chosen music by Busconi, Duke Ellington, Merle Haggard, Philip Glass, Cecil Taylor, et al. There are heroic hang-gliders soaring over hills, cars streaming sweetly around a corner in Lower Manhattan, and Yoshiko Chuma's dancers in fierce rehearsal, performing with vulnerable whimsey at a traffic intersection and frolicking intently (and unclothed) in the woods.

"R. B.'s new film is a magic dream, airy and clear. Everything you see is a fact, firm and distinct at the moment you are seeing it, a fact of daily life or of extraordinary dance, or of amateur acting, and you recognize each fact too, at a glance. Later, as the film continues, the factual seeing is still the same, but somehow it doesn't feel the same, it feels like a good dream you are dreaming, with a sly and witty tease to it, and nearly weightless." - Edwin Denby

"This filmic slice of life coalesces into an ethnographic view of a possible future: the city as a constantly bubbling, delirious playground where yesterday’s monuments are symbols to be triumphed over, and tomorrow never arrives. Perhaps this is why the ultimate effect is one of wistfulness, due also to the unexpected intrusion of a memento mori in the guise of a nude traversing the Maine woods…" - Trevor Winkfield

Images of city and landscape moving with a romantic piano sonatina by Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), then classic keyboard figures by Johann S. Bach. Images and music, "in" the same time-space, sometimes join and affect each other, then pursue their own independent course again.

A snapshot from the filmmaker's own life in rural Maine.

In this film we see Katz drawing and painting. We see his paint table (he drinks Medaglia d'Oro and eats Skippy peanut butter in the country), his studio, the green view out the door. We see his models. We see him laugh as he works. We see a fly land on his T-shirt, at the shoulder. We see his paintings, lots of them, in detail and from across the room, still shots and gentle, sinuous pans. We see his enormous Times Square billboard in progress, then finished. We see a show being hung, and the opening, where the people inevitably begin to resemble the art on the wall - such a funny and exquisite sensation! And over it all we hear Alex talking to us about his work, talking about style and influence and perception in the most straight-forward way.

"Good Evening Everybody" does not construct a world, but projects a personality. Burckhardt's camera observes life in a way characteristic of someone sensitive to irony, detail, diversity, humor, incongruity and (even) beauty, expressive of a cultivated, somewhat aloof, yet generous sensibility that suggests a perceptive, complicated and engaging, in fact ideal, traveling companion." Noel Carroll, SOHo News

A documentary about the sex industry around 8th Avenue and 42nd Street.

a travelogue of Peru.

Since the 1970s, the artist Charles Simonds (b. 1945) has created enigmatic dwellings for an imaginary civilization of “Little People.” Spread across more than thirty cities around the world, from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, these miniature built environments can be found tucked away on street corners and window ledges. In Burckhardt's film, astonished neighborhood kids look on as Simonds crafts his mini-locales.

"A funny and gorgeous little animated story of the war between coke and pepsi – the bottles come alive and form armies. The battle scenes are spectacular." Ron Padgett, Tap Journal

When New York was about to go bankrupt, all construction had stopped and an architect tried to become a wrecker. This is the story of the demolition of a large factory building on 23rd Street and 6th Avenue. Meanwhile daily business - grimy or funny, money or no money - goes on as usual.

Burckhardt collaborates with artist Simonds to produce a portrait of the artist as a foundation.

Burckhardt collaborates with artist Simonds to produce a portrait of the artist as a foundation.

A snow storm – Disney World – self important New York – ox-pull in Maine – a special old man – strip tease – an ant in the woods –wild 14th street – a mugging survived – the end.

Looking down at nature's small works in the woods of Maine, then straight up at the sky, then down again at the daylong journey of an inchworm.

A fairy tale about a pair of moccasins that take off on their own, through woods and fields into the town of Belfast, Maine. They fall in love, drink beer, dream in the gutter, at last are rescued by the boy on whose feet they belong. - MUBI

"The New Jersey Turnpike and downtown New York in rain and shine. Trailer trucks, overpasses and industrial wastes become natural wonders. The stream of trucks is often gay but sometimes ominous. After a thunderstorm, the pike gives way to charming and sexy shoppers on 14th Street. Real sounds and wonderful color." - Edmund Leites

"A pseudo-educational, fictitious documentary survey of the ups, downs, ins and far-outs of Dope. Very funny and slightly sinister, like Red Skelton in the sky with diamonds." - Ron Padgett

"A few acres of Maine, a small lake in the woods, wild flowers, clouds, mosses, and mushrooms after the rain. The visual richness is fantastic, the objective eye is absorbing. Burckhardt often cuts by glimpses, the second time you see the film you see twice as much, and each time the power and depth of feeling are new." – Edwin Denby

"A few acres in Maine. Closeup looks at a small lake in the woods, wild flowers, clouds, mosses, ants and mushrooms. The visual richness is fantastic, the objective eye is absorbing. Often cut by glimpses, the second time you see the film you see twice as much, and each time the power and depth of feeling are new." - Edwin Denby "Like a mescaline high." - Frank Lima

"The story of a shipwrecked baby reared by a kindly animal. See Tarzam, the beast-man, invent the art of painting. He meets his first human. His scene deepens from innocence to corruption and to final violence. Taylor is sublime, as always. The text is his, of course." – Edwin Denby *Contains a scene where "Tarzam" (played by Mead) gets sick from eating berries and is cured when a missionary doctor, played by Edwin Denby, administers an enema.

ONE FLIGHT UP is both the name of this documentary portrait and the title of a piece by artist Alex Katz. The work-of-the-same-name figures prominently (or, more accurately, entirely) in the film-of-the-same-name.

A silent screen-type comedy starring Edwin Denby as Hemlock Stinge, the unlovable billionaire.

First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in style and sensibility but united by their opposition to the Vietnam War. Part of the protest festival Week of the Angry Arts, the epic compilation film incorporated minute-long segments which were sent from many corners of the country, spliced together and projected. The original presentation of the works was more of an open forum with no curation or selection, and in 2000 Anthology Film Archives preserved a print featuring around 40 films from over 60 submissions.

A Saturday night on 42nd Street, from dusk to dawn: the glamour, the garbage, the hot dogs, the movies, the sex, and the violence in the air.

Rudy Burckhardt’s breezy stop-motion animation follows after a poem by his New York School compatriot Kenneth Koch.

"a film that looks forward to the many collage films Burckhardt has made in the last two decades. Shot in Maine in black and white, it demonstrates Burckhardt's ability to take seemingly slight subjects -- flowers, fields, a pond -- and invest them with consequence by the simple act of looking. Instead of thinking about a daisy, compiling a list of its literary references, and planning a rise-and-fall drama based on a mental construct, Burckhardt simply sets out with his camera and films. As he shoots, he goes closer and closer to his chosen subject, putting the viewer into a trance, intoxicated by textures of petals, the myriad-flowered center, the unchoreographed dance the daisy makes on a breezy day. " - Mobile Homes: The Art of Rudy Burckhardt, Institut d'Art Modern, Centre Julio González, Valencia, Spain,1998.

“Happy with his luscious daughter Aurora in a rustic setting, Professor Borealis has devised an improved brain and is ready to transplant it. The humor is tenderly black. Burckhardt's fusion of documentary-type photography with fairytale storyline is nearer Keystone than avant-garde with its visual honesty and particular virtuosity.” — Edwin Denby

a swift tour of subways and streets while it concentrates on a threadbare romantic comedy about a lonely boy and a girl, played by Red and Mimi Grooms

A piano sonata by Josef Haydn and New York City. The first, allegro movement is choreographed by midtown crowds, crossing every which way, often barely avoiding collision. For the long, slow second movement we see quiet, stately buildings, their columns, cornices, portals and ornaments, with only the camera providing movement at times. The very fast, final part is in color, around Times Square, the movement speeded up and frantic.

Short film of a statue of an angel by an ornamental pond on a summer's day.

A sombre day in the city.

A short, avant-garde movie, starring twelve-year-old ballet student Gwen Thomas, Nymphlight is a lovely blend of fact and fiction, using Bryant Park at the New York Public Library as a stage set for the fantasy inclusion of a certain nymph. A meditation on an ephemeral day in the the life of a park shared by birds, the young and the old.

Short film by Rudy Burckhardt and Joseph Cornell.

A collaboration between Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, Aviary is an impression of Union Square. The location held a particular fascination for Cornell who wanted to establish a foundation for artists and art therapy there. In the film, he treats the park as an outdoor aviary.

a quiet, humorous mockumentary on cars, with Freilicher narrating Kenneth Koch’s text and Frank O’Hara as the pianist.

Rudy Burckhardt's color portrait of Manhattan's East Side strolls along at an easy pace befitting blue skies and Thelonious Monk's piano score. Where most city symphonies prize grandiose views of the urban organism, Burckhardt sticks to the walker's view.

"…one cannot deny its documentary value or Burckhardt's eye for detail, his unpretentiousness. There are sequences — the children swimming under the Brooklyn Bridge is one — which belong with the best footage on New York by anybody." — Jonas Mekas

The film's title evokes a mundane slice of life but a kindhearted maid catches a lucky break when her enchanted feather duster makes it so that the house cleans itself.

Larry is a madly energetic, oversexed artist. Jane, a combination of palm reader and psychoanalyst, is trying to straighten him out. John is a straight boy interested in baseball who ends up an abstract painter.

Rudy Burckhardt shot plenty of film while he was stationed in Trinidad with the Signal Corps in the early 1940s. This short film compiles some of the choicest bits.

A soldier on a weekend pass, with Kodachrome in his camera, takes a leisurely walk on both sides of the tracks. Piano by Earl Hines.

Short film by Rudy Burckhardt.

Photographer Rudy Burckhardt shows us the ebb and flow of people rushing about Manhattan. Equally exhilarating in his novel approach to snap images quickly on the run, a method he inaugurated and that continues to the present day. In film, he added slow and fast motion, split-screens and superimpositions to his repertory.

A travelogue of Port-au-Prince, Haiti concentrating on the daily life and rhythm of tropical island life.

A sightseeing portrait of New York, with lively narration taking the viewer aboard the New York elevated and subway trains. Then the view from the windows becomes slightly abstracted, the voice of the commentator becomes uncertain. Featuring Joseph Cotten (credited 'Cotton') Virginia Nicholson Welles, John Becker and Edwin Denby.

A sightseeing portrait of New York, with lively narration taking the viewer aboard the New York elevated and subway trains. Then the view from the windows becomes slightly abstracted, the voice of the commentator becomes uncertain. Featuring Joseph Cotten (credited 'Cotton') Virginia Nicholson Welles, John Becker and Edwin Denby.

A romantic pair leaves their flat for a desultory burlesque show and two workmen take advantage of the empty house to pilfer a wallet.