The work of one of the UK's most important artists, and Bizarre favourite Jeff Keen, faces an uncertain future. His family and friends are asking for support in securing the future of his invaluable body of work.

Jeff Keen is one of the most significant experimental filmmakers in Britain, and one of Brighton's most important artists. He’s also a favourite of Bizarre (see our review of his DVD below) He is best known for his underground film and expanded cinema work. His contribution to cinema was recently acknowledged in a major retrospective of his film and video work at the BFI, to coincide with the launch of Gazwrx, the definitive collection of his film work in a DVD box set.
 
Lighthouse is hosting a public meeting which will gather together concerned friends, researchers, curators, institutions, and collectors. Jeff Keen's daughter, Stella Keen, will give an overview of the current situation, and outline ways that the community in Brighton can help.
 
Brighton’s art and film community can help save this major body of work, but we need to act now.

Less well known is that Keen has been an incredibly prolific visual artist since the 1940s. His extraordinary body of visual artwork includes paintings, drawings, prints, collages, hand printed books of poetry, sculptures and assemblages. Most of this work has not been seen by the public.
 
Jeff Keen is suffering from terminal prostate cancer and has - at best - one year to live. He and his wife are being evicted from their house on 13 September 2010. Their only option is to move into Keen's studio. To make the studio habitable, Stella Keen needs to move his art collection out of the studio as soon as possible.
 
We urgently need to help Stella find somewhere to house Keen's exceptional collection. Even a temporary safe storage location would be considered at this stage. In the longer term, the collection needs to be formally archived and catalogued. But at present, the critical urgency is ensuring the safety of the work.
 
Lighthouse is urging anyone who appreciates Keen's work, or feels they may be able to help Stella, to come to this meeting. We will warmly welcome representatives from universities, museums, galleries, archives, libraries, councils, and individuals who feel they may be able to contribute advice, support or space at this difficult time.

Public Meeting: Jeff Keen
 
Wednesday 28 July
6.00pm: Doors & Bar
6.30pm: Meeting begins
At: Lighthouse, 28 Kensington St, Brighton BN1 4AJ
Entry: Free

 
To find out more about Jeff Keen, please visit:
http://www.kinoblatz.com
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/1359564/index.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/feb/13/1


RSVP
 
To RSVP to the meeting please contact: emma@lighthouse.org.uk
RSVP date: Monday 25 July
 
 
About Lighthouse
 
Lighthouse is a leading arts agency in South East England supporting, commissioning and showcasing new work by artists and filmmakers. As well as being a vibrant venue for events in Brighton, Lighthouse supports artists and filmmakers by offering opportunities for development through commissions and mentoring programmes. Lighthouse advocates for moving image, media arts and the new forms of practice made possible by digital technologies. It has an ongoing exhibitions programme and also runs regular events for digital and moving image artists and filmmakers.

DVD of the month, issue 147
GAZWRX
The films of Jeff Keen

Born in 1923, British artist Jeff Keen first unleashed his movie-making mastery on an unsuspecting public in 1962. With such offbeat titles as Meatdaze and Cineblatz, his outpourings over the following four decades have been a brain-crunching combination of animation, photomontage and live action that is unique and inspiring beyond belief.

The 45 short films collected here possess a profusion of weirdness in which every mind-boggling moment is played out by a cast of characters that includes burlesque berserkers, masked avengers, pulp-noir detectives, goose-stepping Barbie dolls, aliens and a libidinous wasp-woman. Each of the projects is a non-linear exercise in mental stimulation – an incendiary mix of love letters to a bygone age and memos for a yet to be realised future.
 
Aside from an overwhelming visual brilliance, the best asset of Keen’s work is that, by virtue of its multi-layered nature, it’s impossible to ever watch any of the films the same way twice. It’s just one of the many traits that establish him not only as a maverick of his craft, but also as an art-terrorist whose mission is to blow apart convention and show that pure art has no boundaries. He creates work that transports viewers to unimaginable places, where nothing is true and everything is permitted.

This astonishing collection will have you wondering why he isn’t regarded as one of the greatest exponents of experimental filmmaking of all time.

Billy Chainsaw

For more info, check out Jeffkeen.org.uk