Ulrike Ottinger: Film, Art and the Ethnographic Imagination

Join us for an evening dedicated to the work of Ulrike Ottinger. We will be screening Ottinger's experimental feature film "Ticket of No Return" (1979), followed by a conversation led by Angela McRobbie and Dominic Paterson.
Ticket of No Return (1979)
Bildnis einer Trinkerin (Ticket of No Return) 1979 marks the start of Ottinger’s Berlin trilogy of feature films. With a queer-punk and fashion sensibility it centres round the ‘flaneur’ figure of an unnamed ‘Madame’ played by Tabea Blumenschein who is dressed extravagantly as she embarks on a drinking tour of the city. The film brings an intoxicated gaze to many of the divided city’s disreputable spaces, working class pubs, lesbian bars, a dingy skating rink, railway sidings, canal-side locations and a sleazy casino. Fashion, sculpture and architecture enter into a choreographic encounter while Ottinger also memorialises now out-of-use but seminal spaces such as the remarkable Tegel Airport where the film opens.
About Ulrike Ottinger
Ulrike Ottinger's work spans over 50 years. She began work as a painter training in Paris in the early 60s, a period that is vividly accounted for in her most recent film Paris Calligrammes (2020). From 1970 Ottinger returned to Germany, first to Constance where she had grown up and then to Berlin where she has now lived since 1973. With this move there was a shift in her work towards film-making and she has continued to make feature films of the queer avant-garde alongside experimental ethnographic films from her times and commissions in Japan, Korea, China and Mongolia. Her photographic as well as sculptural work and object-based installations have been shown in exhibitions internationally. Ottinger lives and works in Berlin.
About "Ulrike Ottinger: Film, Art and the Ethnographic Imagination" by Angela McRobbie
Angela McRobbie is author of "Ulrike Ottinger: Film, Art and the Ethnographic Imagination", the first English language collection of articles about the renowned german artist. The book comprises 19 chapters written by scholars from the UK, the US, Germany and Korea. It also comprises interviews with four of Ottinger’s team. The publication of this work has been welcomed by many within film studies, German studies, visual culture and feminist cultural studies. Authors are Patricia White, Gertrud Koch, Katherina Sykora, Angela McRobbie, Esther Leslie, Mandy Merck, Erica Carter, Hyojin Yoon, Tim Bergfelder, Cassandra Guan, Laurence Rickels, Adrian Rifkin, Dominic Paterson, Nora Alter and Thomas Love.
About the Speakers
Angela McRobbie is a Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths London, specialisms include feminist theory, creative economy, critical fashion studies.
Dr. Dominic Paterson is Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Curator of Contemporary Art at the University of Glasgow. He has written widely on contemporary art: recent publications include the monograph Fellow Travellerand essays on Ilana Halperin in Felt Events, on Ulrike Ottinger in Ulrike Ottinger: Film, Art, Ethnography and Phil Collins. Recent curated exhibitions include Jimmy Robert: Tobacco Flower (2021), Flesh Arranges Itself Differently (2022), Elizabeth Price: UNDERFOOT(2022), The Trembling Museum (2023, co-curated with Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis), and Cathy Wilkes (2024). Paterson's current curatorial work Digging in Another Time: Derek Jarman's Modern Nature will be on view at The Hunterian from 2 November 2024 to 4 May 2025.

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