ANIMAFEST SCANNER X | SYMPOSIUM FOR CONTEMPORARY ANIMATION STUDIES | PANEL 3 – ANIMATION ASSISTING OTHER ART FORMS

HANS RICHTER VS VIKING EGGELING: DEFINITELY NO BEST FRIENDS FOREVER Ingo Petzke (PhD - Professor Emeritus, Technical University Würzburg, Hoechberg, Germany)

PANEL 3 – ANIMATION ASSISTING OTHER ART FORMS
Theatre &TD
07/06 WED 09:40-10:10

Animation often comes in close interdependency with the visual arts. Particularly so in the 1920s when artists of the constructivist vein ranked highly among the forefathers of animation film. Among them, Swede Viking Eggeling and Swiss Hans Richter are of particular prominence with Symphonie Diagonale and Rhythmus 21 respectively. In the anglosphere, they are portrayed as BBF (Best Friends Forever) with Richter the Master and Eggeling the Minion - exactly the way Richter always spread his gospel. A closer look, however, based on letters, diaries, and diverse documents (including the ones from a Swiss criminal investigation) paints a completely different picture. Richter’s vaingloriousness led him to exploit Eggeling on many levels. He embezzled Eggeling’s estate, ‘stole’ from his wife Erna Niemeyer [Re Soupault] objects she had opted for in separate estate, censored and eventually blocked a doctoral thesis by Louise O’Konor that was 12 years in the making and finally even forged paintings by Eggeling which he then tried to sell to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. And in all likelihood, he even forged the film Symphonie Diagonale. A sad chain of stories, all too eagerly swept under the carpet.

Ingo Petzke was born in 1947. Professor Emeritus (Film) at Technical University Würzburg, Germany; Associate Professor, Bond University, Australia; Adjunct Professor, James-Cook University Townsville, Australia; Guest Professor, Film Institute of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Affiliations: (German) Film Critics Association; Australian Screen Production, Education & Research Association; Society for Media in Science (Germany) Filmmaker, film curator, festival founder, author of 15 books and numerous articles. Lectures, seminars, workshops in 36 countries around the globe. Supervision in excess of 2,000 student films/videos, including approximately 70 films as Diploma/Bachelor/Masters final works. Research focus: history of experimental/avant-garde film; Australian cinema.