In assignment after assignment he recorded colleagues in their studios preparing for exhibitions. These photographs form a selective, personal, and vital picture of the New York art world during those two decades and contrast greatly with the more studied poses that these same artists would adopt for the photojournalists of mainstream publications like Life and Time. Ranging from short comedies to meditations on architecture set to music, the films were often produced in collaboration with the same artists on whom Burckhardt trained his still camera. His films belie the myth of the solitary artistic genius and open yet another portal to the vibrant and interconnected artistic community that thrived in downtown Manhattan. Burckhardt also filmed dancers such as Paul Taylor, Yoshiko Chuma, Douglas Dunn, and Dana Reitz.
All programs are open to the public.
In conjunction with the Grey Art Gallery's showing of Rudy Burckhardt and Friends, NYU's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library is organizing an exhibition focusing on the poets working in and around Greenwich Village. As the group's name suggests, these poets embraced a creative process that was akin to the Abstract Expressionist sensibility, generating works based on the writer's inner feelings rather than observations of the outside world. The Other New York School will be on view from May 9 through July 15. Another exhibition complementing the show at the Grey Art Gallery this summer is Rudy Burckhardt Books and Diaries, on view from May 23 through June 17, at the Swiss Institute in Soho. The Swiss Institute is located at 495 Broadway, 3rd Fl.