Director
The broadcast (transmitted by Sender Freies Berlin/ARD, 10.40pm, 15 April 1969) begins with a studio-recorded opening that has something of the atmosphere of a vernissage. Following short speeches by Schum and Jean Leering, the director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the artists' contributions are shown with no commentary. The eight artists from different countries (Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Dennis Oppenheim, Marinus Boezem, Robert Smithson, Jan Dibbets, Walter de Maria, Mike Heizer) co-operated closely with Schum. The filming concentrates on the works of art that are created in rural sites, and there is none of the usual TV portrayal of the artist in a ‹studio atmosphere.› The elaborate productions were shot in Europe and the USA. Schum expanded the message of the emergent Land Art movement, which avoided the conventional ‹studio – gallery – collector› distribution channels.
Cinematography
Advertising posters for the Berliner Kindl brewery in the stands of Berlin’s sports arena show beer drinkers through the ages, from an organ-grinder at the turn of the 20th century to a fashionable "Beatle wannabe". A critical analysis of the images leads to the parody motto "Berliner Kindl is a swindle".
