Since the 1970s, the artist Charles Simonds (b. 1945) has created enigmatic dwellings for an imaginary civilization of “Little People.” Spread across more than thirty cities around the world, from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, these miniature built environments can be found tucked away on street corners and window ledges. (If you visited The Met Breuer, you might have seen one of his sculptures in the stairwell.) This short 1974 documentary by Rudy Burckhardt captures the artist at work in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and offers a thrilling window onto a lost world, illustrating how art survives—and even flourishes—in the most unlikely conditions.
