E-Mail This Article to a Friend HOW TO DRAW A BUNNY

This thoughtful collaboration between director/editor John Walter and producer/photographer Andrew Moore won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Any documentary about Ray Johnson must explore the mysterious circumstances of his suicide in 1995, and the filmmakers bookend their project with interviews and footage that attempt to unravel what many have called his final piece of performance art. An innovative collagist, Johnson was part of the cadre of New York artists who defined the Abstract Expressionist movement beginning in the late ’40s: Jasper Johns, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and later Andy Warhol (Johnson was making what he called "Chop Art" collages of Elvis Presley, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe years before Warhol’s work with pop icons). He was perhaps best known for inventing "mail art," eventually creating a network of thousands of fellow artists around the world by sending postcards, mini-collages, and 3-D objects like mannequin heads. With an edgy, moody soundtrack by jazz drummer Max Roach, How To Draw a Bunny is an occasionally intimate glimpse into the life and work of an artist who was a model of reclusive but prolific eccentricity. (90 minutes)