2012 Artists: The Quay Brothers
Since the late 1970s, the identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay have made a unique contribution to stop-animation in general, and the puppet film in particular. Each Quay film rivets the attention through hypnotic control of decor, music and movement, evoking half-remembered dreams and long-suppressed childhood memories, fascinating and deeply unsettling in turn. Their films are often described as surreal, moody and macabre, representing a world frozen in time, full of cobwebs and dust, mirrors and strange machines.
Books inspire almost all of their film projects, not as scripts or screenplays, but as points of departure for their own ideas. The Brothers are heavily influenced by Eastern European visual and literary culture and in particular, Polish animators, as well as writers like Franz Kafka. One of their best-known films, ‘Streets of Crocodiles’ was adapted from a short story by Polish novelist, Bruno Schulz and selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the top 10 best animated films of all time. The set of will be on display in October’s Dormitorium exhibition and the film itself shown on Light Night.
The Brothers have also worked on TV commercials, channel identification footage, and created music videos for His Name Is Alive, Michael Penn, Way Down, 16 Horsepower and MTV.
The Quay Brothers were born near Philadelphia where they studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, then later in London at the Royal College of Art. Since 1979 they have produced a hybrid variety of puppet animation film work: fiction films, documentaries, interludes, commercials, two live-action feature films as well as three film collaborations for the Ballet.
Film works include: Bruno Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles; Franz Kafka’s Ein Brudermord; Robert Walser’s The Comb and Institute Benjamenta; Stanislaw Lem’s Maska and E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman.
They have used the following composers in their films: Leoš Janáček and György Kurtág (The Sandman); Krzysztof Penderecki (Ein Brudermord; Maska; Inventorium of Traces); Arvo Pärt (Duet); Alfred Schnittke (Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass); Claudio Monteverdi (Eurydice, She so Beloved); Olga Neuwirth (The Calligrapher); and Karlheinz Stockhausen (In Absentia).
They have also designed for the Theatre, Opera and Ballet. For Richard Jones: Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges; Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear; Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa; and Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. For Nicolas Broadhurst: Olga Neuwirth’s Bählamm’s Fest; Richard Ayre’s The Cricket Recovers; Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan. For Simon McBurney: Ionesco’s The Chairs. For Jonathan Miller: Shakespeare’s: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the Ballet they have collaborated with the choreographers: Kim Brandstrup and Will Tuckett. The Brothers have made two installation pieces, one for Castle Belsay and the other for Opera North celebrating the 400th anniversary of Monteverdi’s Orfeo shown at Leeds Art Gallery.
Stephen and Timothy have just finished a short documentary film in Poland called Inventorium of Traces – Jan Potocki at Castle ĺańcut and have recently completed a short film for the Polish Cultural Institute in London on a story by Stanisĺaw Lem called Maska, premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival. See what they are planning for Leeds here.