Charles Bernstein: Portraits, Series 7

John Ashbery
After John's retrospective reading at the Bard 80th birthday celebration, we gathered at Finberg House. Pierre Jorris narrates with Joan Retallack close by.
(mp4, 14 seconds, 10.5 mb)

Rae Armantrout
Rae had come to read at the Kelly Writer's House. Along the way she read "Make It New," from Next Life.
(mp4, 59 seconds, 43.5 mb)

George Kuchar
George came down the hill from Mimi's to the Race Road place, where last summer he filmed Susan painting and my reading from Girly Man. Last night at dinner, George was saying how much he was influenced by Tennessee Williams, which you can see more in his screenplays than in his films. He said he had once met Williams in a pool locker room, and that Williams had greeted him, possibly mistaking George for someone else. But George didn't realize who he was till just after he left.
(mp4, 28 seconds, 20.8 mb)

Emma Bee Bernstein
We were on Herring Cove Beach. I asked Emma about the conflict between art and fashion, but the wind drowned out my question.
(mp4, 29 seconds, 5.8 mb)

Susan Howe
I was at Yale for the day and met Sukey at the Museum of Art, now fully restored to Louis Kahn's original design, though Sukey lamented that Kahn had not wanted blinds on the floor-to-ceiling windows; the views of the city were to be a backdrop for the art on display. The show was hodgepodge from their entire collection, but Sukey was most interested in looking again at the installation African art; she pointed to a wood sculptures that was stunningly spare and noted its similarity to David's work. We walked across the campus and sat on the benches across from the chapel, where, fifteen years ago, we were at David's memorial service.
(mp4, 30 seconds, 30.7 mb)

Sigmund Laufer
I met Susan’s father Sigi in 1968. He had grow up in Berlin, left for Palestine on a youth aliyah in 1936, and then come to New York, with Susan’s mother Miriam, in 1948. Both Sigi and Miriam were artists. On the boat from Palestine, Sigi got a connection for a New York apartment on Lex and 85th. He lived there for the rest of his life. (mp4, 2 min. 16 sec., 26.2 mb)

Video Portraits Home Page

• Portraits series 1 : Régis Bonvicino, George Lakoff, Heny Hills, Mimi Gross, Loss Pequeño Glazier, Caroline Bergvall
• Portraits series 2 : Pierre Joris, Wystan Curnow, Levhi Lehto, Robert Grenier, James Sherry, Johanna Drucker
• Portraits series 3 : Ann Lauterbach, Karen Mac Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Nick Piombino, Richard Tuttle
• Portraits series 4 : Rod Smith, Nicole Brossard, Douglas Messerli, Peter Middleton, Norman Fischer, Tina Darragh
• Portraits series 5 : Myung Mi Kim, Charles Alexander, Alan Davies, P. Inman, Phong Bui, Bob Perelman
• Portraits series 6 :Kenneth Goldsmith, John Yau, Peter Gizzi,  Dubravka Djuric,  Elizabeth Willis, Tan Lin
• Portraits series 7 : John Ashbery, Rae Armantrout, Emma Bee Bernstein, Susan Howe, Sigmund Laufer
• Portraits series 8: Maggie O'Sullivan, Christian Bök, Darren Wershler, Tonya Foster, Marty Ehrlich & Erica Hunt, Lev Rubinstein
• Portraits series 9: David Antin, Ted Greenwald, Jerome Rothenberg, Diane Rothenberg, Ron Silliman, Joel Kuszai
• Portraits series 10: Peter Gizzi, Elizabeth Willis, John Tranter, Bruce Andrews, Cecilia Vicuña, Tom Raworth
• Portraits page 11: Ben Yarmolinsky, Hank Lazer, Marjorie Perloff, Alan Loney, Claude Royet-Journoud, Li Zhimin
• Portraits page 12: Arkadii Dragomoschenko, Susan Howe, Ernie Gehr

Thanks for Steve McLaughlin for technical and design assistance. These video recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the artist. ©2006-2012 Charles Bernstein. Used with permission of Charles Bernstein. Distributed by PennSound.