Mommartzfilm Dreharbeit

Opening: 26.1.2008, 17-22 h

At 17, civil servant in the municipal administration
Between 14 and 23, competitive sports
Between 6 and 25, drawing and painting
Between 25 and 30, traveling and lounging about
Between 30 and 33, playing with consciousness on 8 mm
Since then production of 16 mm movies

In 1967 Lutz Mommartz (born in 1934) submitted his first four 16 mm movies at the legendary festival of experimental film in Knokke-le-Zoute, where his works attracted a great deal of attention. All four were accepted, three were screened in the competition, and his film Selbstschüsse (Self Shots) was awarded the internationally recognized festival prize. Mommartz was a pioneer of the German cinema of his day, which came to be known as "the other cinema". From 1978 to 1999 he was professor for film at the Münster Academy of Fine Arts. The poet, writer, and moviemaker today lives and works in Düsseldorf and Berlin.

Lutz Mommartz makes films that above all draw on an experimental initial situation. When filming he always enters into a certain constellation, sets himself a task, or concentrates on a specific idea. Despite the striking simplicity of his settings and his playful handling of the camera, his movies are complex, funny, and deeply moving. Interestingly, his radically experimental approach has resulted neither in abstraction nor in severe conceptualism: Mommartz's point of departure has always been the interaction with camera, medium, and People.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art will show four early films by Lutz Mommartz: Die Treppe (The Stairs, 1967), Selbstschüsse (Spring Gun, 1967), Der Weg zum Nachbarn (Way to the Neighbor, 1968), Als wär's von Beckett (As if it was from Beckett, 1975).

The exhibition is curated by Susanne Pfeffer.