Rudy Burckhardt's Photos at Tibor de Nagy (part two) [by Vincent Katz]

How Rudy Burckhardt photographed on the move is something of mystery. He did it, so we know it’s possible, but try to put yourself in his position. He must have moved with a dancer’s speed and precision, or, cat-like, lain in wait before pouncing on his unsuspecting prey. He regularly captures head-on in close proximity the precise moment at which or just before someone looks at him and says, “Hey!”

In addition to tableaux frozen from the city’s gyre, Burckhardt could compose images that seem snatched from a Renaissance picture-making textbook. Such a one is V-Back, from about 1985. There are two versions of this moment. In the first, Rudy has come up close behind a beautiful woman, her hair carefully styled and held back by a clip, a slender chain around her neck, a purse hanging from her left shoulder, her sweater turned backward, so that its V reveals her upper back. We can see the spinal cleft as it travels down, widening to a darkness in between her delicately flaring shoulder blades. We see a man in a suit in front of her, waiting to cross the street. We catch a glimpse of the traffic as it rushes past.

In the second photo of this moment, Burckhardt has quickly and adroitly turned his camera from a vertical to a horizontal format. He takes advantage of a moment of urban serendipity. A large white delivery truck is passing. In Burckhardt’s horizontal frame, we now see, in addition to the man in the suit on the left, a man in a long-sleeved striped shirt on the right. These two men frame this remarkable woman, each one turned slightly toward her, without actually looking at her, in two different gestures, diffidence and deference. And in that split-second, the woman has suddenly become aware of something behind her, some heat of energy, some thinking, something stretching back to the galleries of European museums, kindled on the stages of New York’s ballet. She turns, looking at Burckhardt, and now at us in the photograph, her beautiful face caught in that glance, the whole picture given a timeless quality by the pure background of the white truck passing, such that, for a split-second, Burckhardt has taken the city completely away, and we are enveloped in this moment of observation, two people seeing each other for the first time.

The exhibition of these and other chance encounters of New York City residents immortalized by Burckhardt’s eye and body is punctuated by a sequence of three films shown on a wall-mounted monitor. In these three films — Default Averted  (1975), Cerveza Bud (1981), and Ostensibly (1989) — Burckhardt takes three different approaches, all showing his complex approach to cinema. Default Averted refers to the moment when New York City almost went bankrupt; Burckhardt takes a typically wry approach to the topic, choosing to show a building being demolished over time. This is a favorite motif of his in his films; he loved the way New York was built, and also knocked down, sporadically, without municipal oversight. Cerveza Bud focuses on one of New York’s great pleasures — public joy, in this case in the form of outdoor dancing, music playing, and roller skating. As usual, Burckhardt is drawn to the city’s black and Latinx populations. Ostensibly uses a poem by that title by John Ashbery, and in fact Ashbery appears in the film, in red suspenders, recording the poem. So many events and images fly by in these films, balanced by moments of calm, that I like to try to document them as they pass. I’ll end with my notes from the films.

Default Averted (1975, 20 minutes, black and white, music by Thelonious Monk and Edgar Varèse)

Architectural emblems, details, demolition, smoke and fire
Fireman grins
Boards dropped from roof
T Monk big band sound to sped up b/w city traffic
Shakespeare-like head all that remains: preserved relic in antic sweep of wreckage-remake (the New York mantra)
Earl Hines reflections in wet pavement
Walls fall, classic Burckhardtism

Cerveza Bud (1981, 30 minutes, color)

Endless bodies of color, dancing, roller skating
Public displays of love: bodies, gay couples dance Hustle to Kool & The Gang
Reclining in summer grass à la La Grand Jatte but more relaxed, more openly sexual
Open embrace of Twin Towers, part of that cityscape with street light suspended in front
Seagull soars against dirtied blue

Ostensibly (1989, 16 minutes, color, poem by John Ashbery,)

piano music by Alvin Curran)
JA reading poem
Kia Heath nude poses in front of Rudy’s De Kooning then dresses, walks in snow
Nice family hops backward up steps
Maine log-throwing competition
A woman (Rochelle Kraut?) reads same poem
Shots of pond details of trees
Man jogs shirtless on Maine road
NY intersection (23rd & Broadway?) in rain reflection
Dancers at party (Skowhegan?)
RB pushing garbage to gutter (NY) and trees to ground (Maine)
Lichen details
NY walkers, skylines, water towers, sped up clouds

Ed. Note:  for part one of Vincent Katz's piece on the new Rudy Burckhardt show, click here. 

Tibor de Nagy Gallery is located at 11 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side
Tel: 212 262 5050. | Web: www.tibordenagy.com | Email: [email protected]
The show is up from December 21, 2020 until January 23, 2021.
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday to Saturday 10-6pm

Comments

[Mindy Aloff]

Thank you many times over for posting Vincent Katz's marvelous, illuminating two-part review of Rudy B's photographs. I knew Rudy a little from having written a New Yorker Talk story about taking a walk with him around his and Yvonne Jacquette's neighborhood. He was a terrific teacher as well as an artist of unfolding depth. For a story about the passing of Edwin Denby, for ballet-tanz, Rudy lent me some of his actual snapshot prints of Denby to scan and send to the editors in Berlin. He wanted me to hang onto the pictures; it did pass through my mind that he was trying to give them to me in return for my efforts on Denby's behalf. But then I wasn't sure and promptly, though sadly, returned them to Rudy. To run the review and, most of all, to alert readers to the show is a great public service.

[David Lehman]

Thanks for this wonderful comment, Mindy.