Robert Breer

Spanning BALTIC's Level 3 and Level 4 Galleries, this major exhibition of American artist Robert Breer brings together his paintings, ground-breaking films and radical sculptures from the last 60 years. Considered one of the most influential animator/film-makers in history, this is the artist’s most comprehensive exhibition to date.

Initially producing abstract paintings in Paris in the 1950s, Breer quickly sought new ways to reflect the ever-changing nature of daily life and turned to film. His first films evolved seamlessly from his paintings, literally setting their forms into movement by transposing them onto index cards and shooting them sequentially, frame by frame, with a 16mm camera. Breer became a pioneer of animation, discovering new techniques by trial and error, experimenting at every turn using line, collage, photographic images and overlaid found objects. His animations test the eye, continually creating new associations through unprecedented manipulations of filmic imagery, colour, time and space.

Breer's evolutions continued when he returned to America in the 1960s and developed his 'float' sculptures – abstract forms produced in three dimensions and mechanised. Through his sculpture Breer brought the rapidly-shifting nature of his films into reality, allowing the viewer to experience form and change in real time and space. Presented on BALTIC's Level 4 Gallery, this section of the exhibition continually updates and modifies itself as the floats meet, collide and shift course.

Robert Breer is organised in collaboration with Museum Tinguely, Basel and is accompanied by a fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue.

Robert Breer sadly died on Thursday 11 August 2011 aged 84.

Robert Breer
Kurator: Laurence Sillars

Stationen:
11.06.2011 - 25.09.2011 BALTIC Gateshead
26.10.2011 - 29.01.2012 Museum Tinguely, Basel