FILMMAKING
EXPERIMENTAL FILM COLLABORATIONS WITH SHIRLEY CLARKE, YAYOI KUSAMA, JACK SMITH, TIMOTHY LEARY
During the 1960s and 1970s, Snyder made experimental films and collaborated with artists such as Shirley Clarke, who edited his kinescope video CHROMA. He photographed Yayoi Kusama, and helped her produce her only film, Self Obliteration, participating both in front of and behind the camera. Snyder filmed Paradise Now and collected hours of documentary footage at Timothy Leary’s Castalia Foundation in Millbrook. He was commissioned to make a feature-length film of experimental erotica for Maurice Girodias, which he shot in the Berkshires.
In addition, he made many short creative films such as Pavement, which comprised an evolving series of manhole covers as Snyder strolled down the streets of Manhattan. His last known film was a documentary of Jack Smith portraying a drunken Susan Heyward in Jack's play, “Song for Rent.” The film was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 2011 and is in the museum’s permanent collection.
YAYOI KUSAMA
SELF-OBLITERATION
Snyder worked with Kusama on her only film, Kusama's Self-Obliteration. Kusama's art often delved into anti-war and anti-establishment themes. She had a strong political conscious, and in 1967 she began organizing anti-war protests and happenings known as atomic explosions, painting her friend's bodies with polka dots as a means to dismantle the constraints of identity and ego. Her later work, such as Narcissus and the Infinity Room grew ultimately more immersive, blurring the boundaries between audience and art
