Ian Wooldridge presents the work of Jeff Keen.

Jeff Keen (1923–2012) was a pioneer of experimental film whose rapid-fire animations, multiple screen projections and raucous performances redefined multimedia art in Britain.

Keen’s films and performances emerged from the 1960s counterculture and echo the climate of literary happenings and ‘bomb culture’ at Bob Cobbing’s Better Books in Charing Cross as well as Gustav Metzger’s 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium. Recalling American underground films by Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs and Kenneth Anger, his work also resonates with Happenings, Fluxus and Viennese Actionism. Nothing stands still in his work, it is a constant process in which images and sounds evolve in quick succession through what Keen called ‘violently disconnected and overlapping patterns’ of destruction, creation and accumulation.

Screening Schedule:
Marvo Movie
1967, 5 mins, color, sound, 16mm

Mad Love
1972 – 1978, 42 mins, color, sound, 16mm

Family Star (The Mutt & Jeff Icecream Sundae + Mothman)
1968 -69, 31mins, color, twin-screen, 8mm

The screening will be held in English, is free and open to the public. There is also supplementary reading, the essay "Cult Hero: Jeff Keen" by Jack Sergeant, to accompany the films. Please reference the following .pdf.