Sichtspiele –
Films and Video Art from the Wemhöner Collection

Editor
Philipp Bollmann

Author
Michael Ostheimer

Design
Neue Gestaltung

Publisher
Distanz Verlag

Format
30 × 21 cm

Details
272 pages, 460 colour illustrations
Hardcover, cloth with dust jacket

ISBN
978-3-95476-253-8

Publication
June 2018

Since the early 20th century, there has been both a productive and a receptive engagement with moving images. The triumph of visual media is also driven by the anthropological figure of Homo ludens. For the central activities of human coexistence—linguistic communication, interpretation of the world and the formation of community—are shaped by play. Art, accordingly, has become play given form through content. Sichtspiele presents films and videos. All the works represented here develop a playful tension between visual representation and compositional form. In response to the challenging shift in medium from moving image to art book, the book offers an innovation: on the one hand, it shows stills as visual reference points for image dynamics; on the other, sequences from each work can be set in motion via an app on a phone or tablet to view moving images. All texts are by Michael Ostheimer.

Artists
Julian Charrière, Isaac Julien, Masbedo, Michael Najjar, Hans Op de Beeck, Alexandra Ranner, Julian Rosefeldt, Erik Schmidt, Yang Fudong