A Letter to Charlotte Moorman

Art in America, June, 2000 by David Bourdon

In which the author reflects on the legendary musician, performance-art trailblazer, collaborator with Nam June Paik, and impresario of 15 Annual New York Avant Garde Festivals.

David Bourdon (1934-1998) was a good friend and exact contemporary of Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991). A critic whose reviews, essays and books form an important component of the history of post-1960s art, he was a ubiquitous observer and sometime participant in the heady, obstreperous mixed-media world of the '60s and '70s, in the midst of which Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman were together forging a challenging new genre of performance art. When he died, Bourdon left this unfinished manuscript, which he had been preparing for Art in America. What follows is a lightly edited, slightly condensed version of his text. --Eds.

Dear Charlotte,

This morning I daydreamed that we met again in Central Park. This reverie overtakes me whenever I recall that memorable day--Sept. 9, 1966--when I anxiously searched you out amid the confusion of your 4th Annual New York Avant Garde Festival, the first to take place outdoors and free to the public. I could not remember in my dream where I entered the park or how I was to locate you. But, like many daydreamers, I was endowed with supernatural powers that enabled me to fly like a spirit above the winding pathways, as if guided by radar, confident I would find you.

Along the way, I noticed signs that your accomplices were in the vicinity. I saw Geoffrey Hendricks's hanging cloths, painted with images of fluffy white clouds against a bright blue sky, strung between trees like clothes on a line. Christo had already wrapped a statue in plastic and twine. Al Hansen was creating an avian happening by spelling out "ART" in birdseed on a walkway. Dick Higgins sat on a chair, getting the top of his head shaved.

Finally, as the path made one more turn, you materialized beside the Conservatory Pond. From a distance I spotted your auburn hair, green-flecked blue eyes and radiant smile. You were rather formally attired, wearing a velvet dress that would have been appropriate for a concert stage. Although we had known each other for a couple of years, I don't think that I had ever seen you by daylight before, so I was surprised by the pallor of your skin. It seemed suitable for a lovely 32-year-old classically trained cellist.

You were graciously performing several tasks at once, serving as entrepreneur, ringmaster, stage director, booking agent, publicist, photographer's assistant, grievance adjudicator and so on. You had obtained a permit from the city's Parks Department, and the festival you organized would succeed in luring an audience of 15,000 passersby. You persuaded artists, poets, musicians, dancers and filmmakers to contribute their time and work. The program listed more than 65 events, with several additional "continuous pieces" and many other works to be performed "at some opportune moment." The range of works was impressively international, with especially strong representation by Dada-oriented Germans (Hans Richter, Richard Huelsenbeck, Joseph Beuys) and Japanese (Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota).

You enlisted me as a substitute performer in that evening's presentation of Kurt Schwitters's Class Class Struggle Opera. I was thrilled to accept the role, even after I learned I would only be saying one word--"up"--throughout the piece. I soon found myself afloat on a raft with seven other performers and four stepladders. Half of the cast (which included Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Bob Watts and Emmett Williams) stood below, repeatedly shouting the word "down." The other half stood on top of the stepladders reiterating the word "up." This Dada drama went on for 30 or 40 minutes. As darkness fell, the bored audience began to throw empty soda cans and other trash at us. What, I began to wonder, was I doing atop a stepladder, serving as a convenient nighttime target for disaffected onlookers?

The answer, dear Charlotte, was that I had become a convert to your cause. I admired your determination to bring new forms of expression to the widest possible public, and shared your internationalism and openness to unorthodox ideas. The prominence of mixed-media work in your festivals seemed particularly important at a time when most New York museums and galleries could not cope with performance art, installation pieces or new technologies. Mostly, however, I heartily adored you, delighting in your company, relishing your exuberant sense of humor, which you punctuated with lusty cackles.

I realize, of course, that we shall never meet again--neither in Central Park nor anyplace else. You disappeared several years ago, and your avant-garde festival vanished even before you did. But I have my memories.

I have no recollection, however, of attending your first festival, titled 6 Concerts '63, which was held at Judson Hall at 165 W. 57th Street in late August and early September. Those evenings featured work by 28 composers, including John Cage, whom you first met that August. But I know I attended the next one, now called the "2nd Annual New York Festival of the Avant Garde," which took place over 10 evenings, also at Judson Hall, from Aug. 30 through Sept. 13, 1964. The change in the title of the event was prompted by a woman who had attended the previous year's John Cage concert and subsequently sued, claiming that her hearing had been impaired. "We started calling it avant-garde the second year," you told me, "when our lawyers advised us that there should be something in the title to warn people that they weren't going to hear Mozart."