Ulrike Ottinger

Mongolia – Mexico – Europa
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden

„ … denn nur im nahen Vergleich sind die Unterschiede oder Gemeinsamkeiten zu erkennen.“

In the early 1960s, Ulrike Ottinger (b. Konstanz, 1942; lives and works in Berlin and Allensbach) set up a studio in Paris where she forged a career in painting as a leading exponent of Pop-Art in Europe. In the late 1960s, she branched out into film, writing screenplays and, from the 1970s onward, making a name for herself on the international film scene with experimental documentaries and feature films. In works like Madame X—An Absolute Ruler (1978), Freak Orlando (1987), China—die Künste—der Alltag. Eine filmische Reisebeschreibung (1985), Joan of Arc of Mongolia (1989), and Paris Calligrammes (2019), Ottinger jettisons familiar narrative structures, replacing them with complex reflections on gender, identity, and power. The insights and materials she gathered during her travels and extended stays in places all over the world have allowed her to make contributions of international significance to the discourses of ethnology, anthropology, and other fields. Numerous retrospectives, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Cinémathèque française, Paris, the Centre Pompidou, the Biennale di Venezia, and the Louvre in Paris have paid tribute to her work.

In 2021, Ottinger received the State of Baden-Württemberg’s Hans Thoma Prize in recognition of her oeuvre. In the exhibition mounted in conjunction with the award and organized by Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, the artist transforms the galleries into a multilayered immersive installation. The accompanying publication Mongolia—Mexico—Europa reads as a kind of ethnographic travel diary, presenting paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and documentary materials to contrast and interweave different cultures and rites from Mongolia and Mexico: the comparison reveals differences as well as similarities and reveals that geographical distance does not preclude affinity. With a foreword by Petra Olschowski, a preface by Çağla Ilk and Misal Adnan Yıldız, and notes and writings by the artist.