biotopes: hille köhne and uli versum

In the 1980s, curator and doyen of experimental film Alf Bold coined the term „Braunschweig Foil School“, which relates above all to Hille Köhne. In her 16mm-films, she works with coloured foils whose transparency absorbs and intensifies the celluloid, making the colours glow. A magical space is created in which people and objects, trees and plants, even lettering appear and begin to tell stories. In Na gut, schlachtet alle Gummibärchen (All Right, Slaughter All the Jelly Bears), the colourful jelly animals are agents of transparency and objects of pleasure. Zitrusfrüchte (Citrus Fruits) captures southern light through light yellow foils, and lemons on a table by the sea evoke beach life. Like a coda to this film is Super 8 auf 16 mm (Super 8 on 16 mm), a play with film strips and the memories they contain. These films never stray into abstraction for its own sake. The playful nature of film as a product of exuberant life is particularly evident in King Kong, an echo of mighty Hollywood on the small format. Calm in green-blue colours, accompanied by the handwritten line from a Mayakovsky poem, the crocodile appears in Und sie, sie liebte Raubtiere, tritt auch in den Garten (And she, she loved beasts, step into the garden). Uli Versum appears as an actor in King Kong. But he also stages himself in his own films. For example, in Zitrusfrüchte 2 (Citrus Fruits 2), with which he responded to Zitrusfrüchte (Citrus Fruits). In the second film, Faszinierendes Puppenhaus (Fascinating Doll's House), Uli shares Hille's fascination with light and colours. But the playful element takes on a more solid form in his films, in which wit conceals its dark side beneath a strikingly spectacular surface.

Curated and introduced by Karola Gramann and Heide Schlüpmann. In the presence of Hille Köhne.