To the Winged Distance: Films by Robert Beavers

Date: 2 February 2007 | Season: Robert Beavers 2007

TO THE WINGED DISTANCE: FILMS BY ROBERT BEAVERS
2—25 February 2007
London Tate Modern

Since leaving the USA in 1967, Robert Beavers has laboured in relative isolation on works whose goal “is for the projected film image to have the same force of awakening sight as any other great image.” His meticulously crafted films are at once lyrical and rigorous, sensuous and complex. Whilst communicating his response to the landscapes, architecture and traditions of the Mediterranean and Alpine countries in which they were filmed, they also incorporate deeply personal and aesthetic themes. Rarely seen in public, Robert Beavers’ remarkable body of work is a celebration of light, life and colour.

The retrospective is structured in two parts: Six programmes of selected titles will be followed on the last weekend by “My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure”, Beavers’ complete cycle of eighteen films.  

We are very pleased to welcome writer and theorist P. Adams Sitney (Princeton University Professor and author of the book “Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943-2000”) for a discussion with Robert Beavers on Sunday 4 February 2007.

Curated by Mark Webber. With thanks to Temenos Verein, Cineric Inc., and The Guild of St George.

INTRODUCTION