Brothers Quay retrospective starts at MoMA 8/12

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For the New Yorkers out there, the Museum of Modern Art begins a massive retrospective on The Brothers Quay starting Sunday, August 12th. You may know The Brothers Quay best for their creepy yet oddly beautiful works of stop-motion animation. I was somewhat obsessed with their work in late high school and early undergrad. (Ditto Jan Svankmajer.)

Titled On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets, the retrospective spans two floors of the museum and will feature paintings, drawings, puppets, cabinets of wonder, set recreations, book and album covers, and more. The retrospective will also feature exhibitions of the Quay Brothers’s influences, including surreal Polish posters, the paintings of Rudolf Freund, and the films of Walerian Borowczyk and the previously mentioned Svankmajer.

MoMA has also set up an accompanying film series that will screen the complete works of The Brothers Quay. A 35mm print of their first feature, Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life, is being screened tonight, though you will have another chance to catch it later this month.

On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets runs from August 12th, 2012 to January 7th, 2013. Check the MoMA website for updates on the film series and the gallery show.

[Via Twitch, MoMA]

Hubert Vigilla
Brooklyn-based fiction writer, film critic, and long-time editor and contributor for Flixist. A booster of all things passionate and idiosyncratic.