Ulrich Wiesner

‘I always had the longing to work with found footage, but did not consider anything in specific until I met Ulrich Wiesner. At this time I was working on an archive for the best works by former students of Peter Kubelka in Frankfurt. My aim was to make internegatives of the films that were done on reversal with magnetic sound and thus protecting them from decay. The last person missing on my list was Ulrich Wiesner, who was more or less living underground as a painter, using the name Max Franz.Another friend of ours who just had started a new Gallery in Frankfurt was preparing an exhibition with him and so we met for the first time around 1998. Around this time I saw for the first time two of his films \”Afrika Bonus\” and \”Deutschland Lacht\” on VHS. Wiesner had no idea where the originals were, so he brought to me everything that looked like film or a film can, also giving me permission to use the footage. I had the idea we should work together, which we started to do some time around 1999, after his exhibition.’
Thomas Draschan