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Edge of Frame presents two programmes exploring acclaimed artist, filmmaker and animator Robert Breer’s substantial legacy.
“I’d really like to have my films go ‘Fvoom!’ just like that – one split second… But somehow, that’s not the way perception works.”
Robert Breer
We are very excited to welcome back Edge of Frame to LIAF for the fifth year running with two programmes of work at the intersection of animation, experimental film and artists’ moving image. Specially curated by Edwin Rostron – the London-based artist, animator, writer, curator, editor of Edge of Frame blog and festival juror, these programmes celebrate this incredibly rich and vibrant, yet often marginalised and hard to define art form.
It is 10 years since Robert Breer died, and his impact on experimental animation practice is greater than ever. During his lengthy artistic career, Breer collaborated with the likes of Jean Tinguely and Claes Oldenberg, created kinetic sculptures that moved at an almost imperceptible rate, and produced more than 40 influential and ground-breaking films. The first programme; Fvoom! The Animated Films of Robert Breer brings together a selection of his seminal works of experimental animation, which collide radical discontinuity with cartooning and found materials, formally daring one moment, daftly humorous the next.
Find out about the second Edge of Frame programme: After Images
Form Phases IV – Robert Breer, USA
Breer’s earliest experiments in animation are wonderfully dense yet lyrical abstractions based on his own geometric paintings.
1954 4 mins
Recreation – Robert Breer, USA
A frame by frame collision of totally disparate images.
1957 2 mins
A Man and His Dog Out For Air – Robert Breer, USA
“A brilliant and astonishing ballet animated with unprecedented virtuosity!” Film Quarterly
1957 3 mins
Blazes – Robert Breer, USA
100 basic images switching positions for 4000 frames. A continuous explosion.
1961 3 mins
Horse Over Tea Kettle – Robert Breer, USA
“In this witty animation of brightly colored doodles, things are not quite what they appear to be. …’nuclear mayhem.” MOMA Catalogue
1962 8 mins
Breathing – Robert Breer, USA
“Breer’s unpredictable lines flow forth naturally with an assurance and a serenity which are the signs of an astonishing felicity of expression.” Cahiers du Cinema
1963 5 mins
Fist Fight – Robert Breer, USA
A rapid-fire onslaught of images set to the sound of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Originale.
1964 11 mins
66 – Robert Breer, USA
Bursts of continuous movement, jerky and irregular rhythms and drawn objects rotating in three dimensions. A continual unfolding of surprises.
1966 6 mins
Gulls and Buoys – Robert Breer, USA
Robert Breer’s first use of the rotoscope. Parts of objects, people, and movements are intertwined into an assemblage of abstract colour forms.
1972 6 mins
Fuji – Robert Breer, USA
“A poetic, rhythmic, riveting achievement, in which fragments of landscapes, passengers, and train interiors blend into a magical colour dream of a voyage.” Amos Vogel.
1973 9 mins
LMNO – Robert Breer, USA
“Conceivably the best of all of Breer’s films to date.” Jonathan Rosenbaum
1978 10 mins
Our Funding Partners
With Special Thanks to the Arts Council England
Event supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
