Animator,
independent filmmaker, writer, flipbook artist, film producer, George Griffin
came from Tennessee to New York City in 1967. He drew one cartoon for RAW and one
for RAT, apprenticed at an animation studio for one year, and was an assistant
animator on Fritz the Cat for one
month. Concurrently, influenced by the work of Robert Breer and Saul Steinberg,
he was experimenting in various media and techniques, and in 1969 completed his
first film. Griffin has made over 30 personal films from 10 seconds to 30
minutes long, which have been seen on television, in theaters, at festivals and
museums worldwide; most can be streamed at vimeo.com/geogrif. His
early interactive film installation work (Franklin Furnace, Artists Space) has evolved
into construction of "digital mutoscopes" such as Viewmaster (2010 Site Santa Fe Biennial).
He has produced and directed educational, documentary, graphic segments, and
advertising spots for TV, and was line-producer of R.O. Blechman's The Soldier's
Tale for PBS. Griffin has taught at Harvard, Pratt, Parsons, Hunter, NYU,
SVA; has been a visiting artist at KASK (Ghent), CAFA (Beijing), and NanJing (Singapore);
and has served on panels at film festivals (Ottawa, Stuttgart, Poznan,
Utrecht, Portland).
Griffin's
essays
and reviews have appeared in Film Comment, Pervasive Animation,
Cartoons, EnterText, the International Journal of Animation, and other
publications, often under catchy titles
like “Concrete Animation,” “Cartoon, Anti-Cartoon, ”The Anxious Pencil,”
"Take
the B Train,” and “Furniture of My Mind.” His publishing projects include Frames: Drawings and Statements by Independent Animators, Flip-Pack, a boxed set of flipbooks by
six contemporary animators, as well as numerous editions of
flipbooks
which were exhibited atDaumenkino (2005, Dusseldorf Kunsthalle).
Griffin has received grants from Guggenheim, the NEA, and NYSCA;
his films and drawings are in the collection of MoMA, which has recently restored Lineage . Griffin made Head and Flying Furat MacDowell and
has also made a satirical User's Manualhonoring the residence's Centennial.