Ulrike OttingerJournée d’un G.I.

“Journée d’un G.I.” is Ulrike Ottinger’s third solo exhibition at Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin and shows paintings and screen prints from the 1960s. Ulrike Ottinger’s works, mostly multi-part or divided into several pictorial fields, reveal a passion for storytelling that would ultimately find its fulfilment in the medium of film. In cinephile circles Ulrike Ottinger became a cult star with her Berlin trilogy “Bildnis einer Trinkerin” (1979) and above all with “Freak Orlando” (1981), later followed by “Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse” (1984). In the diary “Paris Calligrammes” she then presented, in 2019, a cinematic collection of memories of her formative decade in Paris – which places us in the midst of the pictorial narratives of “Journée d’un G.I.” The mid-1960s: Ulrike Ottinger is a painter, Paris is shaken by images of war and revolution. At home in Nouvelle Figuration, a Parisian form of Pop Art, everyday scenes, comics, photography and advertising determine the narrative style of Ulrike Ottinger’s pictures. Rituals of everyday life mingle with references to historical figures and heroes of literature. While the daily battles rage, Ulrike Ottinger’s heroes take a break: Che Guevara as “Le penseur” lounges on a sofa sipping a drink; Allen Ginsberg, Beat poet of the first hour, has “nothing more to say and nothing more to weep.” The revolution, as the artist seems to have realised early on, always devours its children.

Exhibition:
Contemporary Fine Arts CFA Berlin, 22/6 – 28/8/2021