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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
How to Draw a Bunny attempts to both unravel the enigma of artist Ray Johnson's elusive personality and restore him to his rightful place in the pantheon of 20th century American art. An artist whose collages bridged dada and pop art, Johnson occupied a respected if obscure corner of the visual art world. Upon his suicide off Long Island in 1995, he left his friends and associates with a bounty of work and more questions than answers about the man behind such works as "Untitled (Joseph Cornell Just a Face)." Through interviews with subjects from Christo to the sheriff who investigated his suicide, this documentary serves its subject best when it allows the camera to linger on Johnson's work. Those unfamiliar with Johnson's sometimes cartoonish reappropriations of advertising iconography may marvel in much the same way viewers of Basquiat did a decade ago. Here was an artist who transformed every act of his life—even his highly orchestrated death—into a work of art. From letters to canvases to a pair of shoes, Ray Johnson used the world as his medium to create objects of wonder.
How to Draw a Bunny grates on occasion, especially with so many shots of brushes tapping a snare drum and swirling shots of artworks when a static image would have sufficed. Cinematic tics notwithstanding, the film is a loving introduction to a contemporary of Lichtenstein and Warhol who arguably achieved the sublimity—but not the notoriety—of his peers. --Ryan Boudinot
Product Description
How To Draw A Bunny explores the fascinating often hilarious and always enigmatic world of artist and underground icon Ray Johnson. A "Pop Art mystery movie" the film is framed by Johnson's mysterious suicide on Friday January 13 1995 the puzzling circumstances of which left both his intimate admirers and the general public wondering if this was a final "performance." Little has been written about him yet the man who many have dubbed "the most famous unknown artist" was considered a genius whose career spanned nearly fifty years and whose collages have been exhibited in major museums around the world.System Requirements: Running Time 90 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 660200309725 Manufacturer No: PALMDV3097
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
On Friday, January 13th, 1995, Ray Johnson checked into a Sag Harbor hotel, drove to the 7-11, then walked to the Sag Harbor Bridge, where he jumped to his death. This action, like most of his life, was foreshadowed by a number of clues, numerical coincidences and puns. When police entered his house, they found, among his belongings, a complex suicide note presented as a box full of small, beautiful collages. When they started investigating, the stories told by people who knew him each seemed to describe a different individual. This film is a quest to discover more about the mystery that was Ray.
I saw this film at Film Forum in NYC and it's criminal that it didn't receive wider distribution. Ray Johnson lived his life as a performance piece, improvising puns and jokes into everything he did. His artworks are complex zen riddles with punchlines, with collaged paper sanded like round rocks, all put together with elmer's glue. He was the eternal prankster, and the wonderful interviews relate many "Ray stories" from the likes of his art dealer, patrons and fellow artists (including Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Chuck Close, and Christo). Far from being someone who tried to become famous, he worked to avoid it, shunning publicity and pranking the art world, and mailing his work out for free to people around the world. I was one of those people.
The film is brilliantly assembled, hilarious at times, and absorbing... and the Max Roach score is a great bonus (complete with some footage of Max playing the drums). If you are interested in art and love a good story, this film is for you.
I saw this film at Film Forum in NYC and it's criminal that it didn't receive wider distribution. Ray Johnson lived his life as a performance piece, improvising puns and jokes into everything he did. His artworks are complex zen riddles with punchlines, with collaged paper sanded like round rocks, all put together with elmer's glue. He was the eternal prankster, and the wonderful interviews relate many "Ray stories" from the likes of his art dealer, patrons and fellow artists (including Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Chuck Close, and Christo). Far from being someone who tried to become famous, he worked to avoid it, shunning publicity and pranking the art world, and mailing his work out for free to people around the world. I was one of those people.
The film is brilliantly assembled, hilarious at times, and absorbing... and the Max Roach score is a great bonus (complete with some footage of Max playing the drums). If you are interested in art and love a good story, this film is for you.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
A fascinating look inside the New York art scene and the predecessor class to Warhol. I confess that I knew absolutely nothing about this artist before watching this documentary, and yet I couldn't get enough of it. Truly a man who lived his life as art. And his death? That's the central guessing game of this film, and it makes for a captivating and vaguely haunting biopic.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The subject of this film is a lesser-known artist Ray Johnson, who was an extremely private person. While he knew everyone in the New York pop art scene, no one knew him very well at all.
Moreover, in the documentary, at least, he seldom seems to sell a work of art, yet all he does is create art. He became a constant presence in the New York art scene from the early 1950's till his suicide in 1995. He is credited with creating the first happenings when he displayed his collages on a city street. He began to concentrate on creating elaborate collages.
He is so shy about his art that even as his friends, maybe all his friends, get shows at well-known galleries and even at the Museum of Modern Art, he never allows MOMA's curators to judge whether to admit his works to the museum's collection. Instead, he mails his art to many friends, collectors and MOMA's library. The library, as is its custom, duly catalogs and keeps the mailed art. In that way, he gets in the back door of the museum.
So when his friend Chuck Close wants a piece by Ray exhibited in Close's own exhibit at the museum, the MOMA library shows the "mail art" that Ray sent.
His address book is a Who's Who of modern art: Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstein, Christo, Robert Rauschenberg, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol. All these artists knew and respected Ray Johnson and his work.
His house was a living space unfurnished except for shelves and shelves of his art works: small collages which he called moticos, drawings and paintings.
The film does not solve the puzzle of Ray Johnson, but it certainly presents what anyone knows of this oddly private artist. In fact, he was known as "the most famous unknown artist in the world."
Moreover, in the documentary, at least, he seldom seems to sell a work of art, yet all he does is create art. He became a constant presence in the New York art scene from the early 1950's till his suicide in 1995. He is credited with creating the first happenings when he displayed his collages on a city street. He began to concentrate on creating elaborate collages.
He is so shy about his art that even as his friends, maybe all his friends, get shows at well-known galleries and even at the Museum of Modern Art, he never allows MOMA's curators to judge whether to admit his works to the museum's collection. Instead, he mails his art to many friends, collectors and MOMA's library. The library, as is its custom, duly catalogs and keeps the mailed art. In that way, he gets in the back door of the museum.
So when his friend Chuck Close wants a piece by Ray exhibited in Close's own exhibit at the museum, the MOMA library shows the "mail art" that Ray sent.
His address book is a Who's Who of modern art: Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstein, Christo, Robert Rauschenberg, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol. All these artists knew and respected Ray Johnson and his work.
His house was a living space unfurnished except for shelves and shelves of his art works: small collages which he called moticos, drawings and paintings.
The film does not solve the puzzle of Ray Johnson, but it certainly presents what anyone knows of this oddly private artist. In fact, he was known as "the most famous unknown artist in the world."
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Great Film About a Fascinating Subject
Strange, private and idiosyncratic artist Ray Johnson is quite the mystery. While Johnson appears to be somewhere near the center of New York's downtown art movement in the 1950s... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Natalie Cladt
Best Art Doc Ever
This is the best documentary on an artists I have ever seen, period. I had never heard of Ray Johnson before I watched this for the first time. Read more
Published on October 16, 2009 by B. Divin
poignant and moving
Poignant and moving, with a fantastic soundtrack that keeps driving the plot forward. Glad I saw this film. Read more
Published on December 9, 2008 by Revolver
Forever an Enigma
This is an fascinating documentary that I have watched countless times. It is a very entertaining attempt to portray the art and life of the singular collage artist, Ray Johnson. Read more
Published on October 29, 2008 by Suzinne Barrett
Yawn
Henry Darger. That is the name that hovers behind this 2002 documentary film, How To Draw A Bunny, by John Walter, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film... Read more
Published on September 11, 2008 by Cosmoetica
Interesting
This is an interesting documentary on a fascinating subject, but I nearly had to stop watching several times because the music/drums on the soundtrack are completely irritating. Read more
Published on October 31, 2007 by E. Spivey
Portrait of a fascinating enigma
More than one person interviewed in this fascinating documentary states that no one really knew Ray Johnson. The film certainly does nothing to dispel that notion. Read more
Published on September 4, 2007 by Robert Moore
How to Draw a Bunny
This movie is just the thing that fits inside you and never goes away. I first heard of this movie at the Museum of Fine Arts. Read more
Published on June 25, 2007 by Jeanne Lafferty
Was his death a performance piece?
Ray Johnson was born in Detroit in 1927 and as an only child he was always focused on art and drawing. Rather than attend regular school, he attend Cass Tech and studied art. Read more
Published on March 30, 2007 by Craig Matteson
eccentricity and genius
Pop artist, prankster, and provocateur extraordinaire, Ray Johnson (1928-1995) had many acquaintances, but to a person no one claimed to know who he really was. Read more
Published on January 24, 2007 by Daniel B. Clendenin
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