films for the bucket – klaus telscher (1955–2024)

For far too long, Klaus Telscher’s films have not seen the screen. Yet he is one of the most important artists to have worked in experimental film in West Germany during the 1980s and 1990s. He began making films in 1978 – the splendour of the 1960s, of structural film, had faded and given way to lacklustre repetitions – thereby opening up a space for a new generation of filmmakers in which they could flourish. Within a sophisticated, self-assured scene characterised by mutual appreciation – to which artists such as Hille Köhne, Christine Noll Brinckmann, Claudia Schillinger, Ute Aurand, Stephan Sachs, Christoph Janetzko and Michael Brynntrup (to name but a few) belonged – Telscher developed a highly personal, unmistakable style. Autobiographical references, everyday life, German history, American culture, references to film history, popular music, kitsch and irony are brought together through her own aesthetic sensibility and formal precision. Christine N. Brinckmann: “Telscher’s rich, original, witty, subtle and partly cryptic work is characterised by a flair for deliberate technical imperfections, for the obsessive use of all kinds of music, and for eclectic references to he history of film and photography..” (Booklet accompanying the DVD edition Klaus Telscher, Das filmische Werk. Experimental Cinema, arsenal. institut für film und videokunst, filmgalerie451) Alongside his film work, Klaus Telscher taught at a number of German and international art colleges, travelled worldwide on behalf of the Goethe-Institut presenting programmes of German experimental films, and led workshops. He received numerous awards, was given the German Film Critics’ Prize in the experimental film category on several occasions, was the recipient of the Lower Saxony Art Prize, and was awarded the Ottomar Dominik Scholarship in 1985. His final film, La Reprise, was released in 1995. A sudden fatal illness brought his work to an untimely end in 1996; he died in 2024.

( Heide Schlüpmann, Karola Gramann )

Curated and introduced by Karola Gramann and Heide Schlüpmann. Many thanks to EMAF and the curators for providing the analogue prints for this program. With additional thanks to Christine N. Brinckmann, Mike Hoolboom and Ralph Sausmikat.