Dear friends,

We are pleased to share with you an overview of photographs and maps by Ulrike Ottinger currently on view at Bridget Donahue through March 3rd. Curated with Julia Trotta, the exhibition presents a selection of Ottinger’s photographs shot on the sets of her films from the 1970s through the 1990s and hand-embroidered maps that trace her world travels and relationships forged throughout her five decades long career.
Johanna Fateman reviewed the exhibition in The New Yorker last week with the following synopsis:

Ottinger, a German filmmaker and artist, deserves to be much better known. If you’ve seen her indelible film “Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia from 1989, in which documentary and ethnographic modes abut exquisitely staged satire, it will come as no surprise that the stills lining the walls in this welcome mini-survey are almost stupefyingly beautiful, despite their sometimes dark heart. Dungeon scenes from the carnivalesque “Freak Orlando,” from 1981, echo the most tortured visions of Goya; a shot from a lesbian pirate film “Madame X”, from 1977, sets a human sacrifice on a ship’s prow. Works of a very different tone occupy the center of the gallery: vintage world maps, which are augmented, and also complicated, by postcards. The souvenir images – brutal relics of colonialism, attached with red cord or visible behind flaps cut into continents – convey Ottinger’s critical eye for disrupting hegemony. – J.F.

Please find links to Ottinger’s Biography/CV, Press Pack, Press Release, a PDF of images and installation shots.

We welcome you to join us at the Museum of Modern Art on March 2nd at 1PM, when Ottinger will screen “Under Snow” (2011) followed by a Q&A as part of the larger series “Carte Blanche: Mariette Rissenbeek on German Women Cinematographers.” Later on the same day at 4:45PM, presented by The Metrograph, co-programmed by Aily Nash, Ottinger will screen Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia with a Q&A. Finally, on March 5th, Ticket of No Return will screen at The Metrograph at 6PM with Ottinger in attendance.

On March 3rd, we will host a walkthrough and reception for the closing of the exhibition with Ottinger at the gallery beginning at 5PM at 99 Bowery (2nd Floor). Please let us know if you will be able to attend by RSVPing to erin@bridgetdonahue.nyc.

Should you be in the San Francisco area next month, The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) will be presenting a retrospective of Ulrike Ottinger’s films from March 1st to April 5th. She will be giving the University of California Mosse Lecture in the form of a conversation with Deniz Göktürk at 6:30pm on March 12th also at BAMPFA.

Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with any questions and we hope to see you at the gallery in the coming weeks.

All best,
Bridget, Erin and Julia

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.