Ulrike Ottinger

Foreign cultures, exotic pictures: the most important works of the photo and film artist. After starting out as a painter, art educator and publisher in the 1960s, Ulrike Ottinger (* 1942 in Constance) found her artistic home in the medium of film. In numerous projects, she has developed an unmistakable, idiosyncratic imagery that rarely allows a clear separation between the documentary and the fictional: her work lives precisely through the dialogue between the two poles. With the trilogy Portrait of a Drinker - Aller jamais retour (1979), Freak Orlando (1981) and Dorian Gray in the mirror of the tabloid press (1984) Ottinger made a memorial to her hometown Berlin and created a bizarre, theatrical and historically charged universe. The publication presents her most important works, including the current 8-channel installation Floating Food (2011), in which the artist summarizes her travels to distant countries and cultures in an audio-visual manner and focuses on cultural phenomena and rituals. – Hatje Cantz Verlag