Margit Rosen, Gerd Winkler: Flick-Flack (2020)

Online-Screening of the film »Flick-Flack« by Gerd Winkler with a digital conversation between Margit Rosen and Frederik Schikowski

As part of the exhibition »Ed and Urs Kiënder. Roll-Objects. From Space-Pictures to Rolling Spaces« the ZKM | Karlsruhe is showing with »Flick-Flack« a whimsical-modern fairy tale, which is prominent casted with Hanns Dieter Hüsch, Günter Strack, Gisela Trowe, and others.

The plot of the television film, made in 1970 for Hessischer Rundfunk and directed by Gerd Winkler, can be summarized as follows: whoever executes a perfect flick-flack – a backward handspring – gets to marry a beautiful and rich heiress. »Flick-Flack is designed as a humorous-grotesque film with many ironic allusions and socially critical sideswipes. Flick-Flack is a gymnastics film, whereby training and gymnastics are synonymous with many things that automatically dominate our lives.« (Gerd Winkler)

Ed and Urs Kiënder, whose artistic work is presented in the current exhibition at the ZKM | Karlsruhe, are largely responsible for the film. Not only did the costumes come from Urs Kiënder and the equipment from Ed Kiënder, but the entire story is also designed so that a large number of artworks, some of which were specially created for the film, could be featured. According to the plot, various Aktionsgeräte function as gymnastics and training equipment, such as the Lauftonne[Running Barrel], the Flick-Flack-Übungsmaschine [Flick-Flack Exercise Machine] or the Arm-Trainer [Arm Trainer].

Typically Kiënder, these works are all based on the movement rolling and rotating. The same themes can be found in other elements of the film, such as the recurring motif of the spirals of snail shells and, last but not least, the flick-flack of the title, which is based on two semicircular movements.

The online screening will be accompanied by a digital conversation between Margit Rosen, Head of Wissen – Collection, Archives & Research at ZKM, and Frederik Schikowski, Curator of the exhibition.

The conversation and screening will take place in German.