Sammlung Wemhöner

Sichtspiele – Films and Video Art from the Wemhöner Collection

Kunst und Spiel

A productive and receptive treatment of film imagery has been around since the early 20th century. The anthropological figure homo ludens has also contributed to the victory of the visual media, in that the key activities of communal human life—communication through language, interpretation of the world, the fostering of community—are all influenced by play. In this sense, art is a form of play turned into form, with content.

Sichtspiele, the fifth volume issued by the Wemhöner Collection, presents film and video. All the works included in the publication create a playful tension between visual representation and compositional form. The book reacts with innovation to the challenges of translating the medium of moving imagery into an art book: on the one hand, it shows stills as visual markers for pictorial dynamics, and on the other, image sequences of each work can be “set into motion” using an app for the cell phone or tablet. 

Sichtspiele is an interactive film book that does not limit the reader to viewing stills and reading text, but offers the possibility to see moving images.  

With a preface by Philipp Bollmann, an interview with Heiner Wemhöner, and texts by Michael Ostheimer.