Ulrike Ottinger

Since 1974, German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger has created a substantial body of films that explore a world of difference defined by the tension and transfer between settled and nomadic ways of life. In many of her films, including Exile Shanghai, an experimental documentary about the Jews of Shanghai, and Joan of Arc of Mongolia, in which passengers on the Trans-Siberian Express are abducted by Mongolian bandits, she also probes the encounter with the other, whether exotic or simply unpredictable. In Ulrike Ottinger Laurence A. Rickels offers a series of sensitive and original analyses of Ottinger’s films, as well as her more recent photographic artworks, situated within a dazzling thought experiment centered on the history of art cinema through the turn of the twenty-first century. In addition to commemorating the death of a once-vital art form, this book also affirms Ottinger’s defiantly optimistic turn toward the documentary film as a means of mediating present clashes between tradition and modernity, between the local and the global. Widely regarded as a singular and provocative talent, Ottinger’s conspicuous absence from critical discourse is, for Rickels, symptomatic of the art cinema’s demise. Incorporating interviews he conducted with Ottinger and illustrated with stunning examples from her photographic oeuvre, this book takes up the challenges posed by Ottinger’s filmography to interrogate, ultimately, the very practice-and possibility-of art cinema today. Laurence A. Rickels is professor of German and comparative literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including The Case of California, The Vampire Lectures, and the three-volume Nazi Psychoanalysis (all published by Minnesota). He is a recognized art writer whose reflections on contemporary visual art appear regularly in numerous exhibition catalogues as well as in Artforum, artUS, and Flash Art.

With hair slicked back and shirt collar framing her young patrician face, Katherine Hepburn's image in the 1935 film Sylvia Scarlett was seen by many as a lesbian representation. Yet, Amy Villarejo argues, there is no final ground upon which to explain why that image of Hepburn signifies lesbian or why such a cross-dressing Hollywood fantasy edges into collective consciousness as a lesbian narrative. Investigating what allows viewers to perceive an image or narrative as "lesbian," Villarejo presents a theoretical exploration of lesbian visibility. Focusing on images of lesbians in film, she analyzes what these representations contain and their limits. She combines Marxist theories of value with poststructuralist insights to argue that lesbian visibility operates simultaneously as an achievement and a ruse, a possibility for building a new visual politics and away of rendering static and contained what lesbian might mean. Integrating cinema studies, queer and feminist theory, and cultural studies, Villarejo illuminates the contexts within which the lesbian is rendered visible. Toward that end, she analyzes key portrayals of lesbians in public culture, particularly in documentary film. She considers a range of films—from documentaries about Cuba and lesbian pulp fiction to Exile Shanghai and The Brandon Teena Story—and, in doing so, brings to light a nuanced economy of value and desire.

"She, a woman of high beauty, created like no other to be Medea, Madonna, Iphigenia, Aspasia, decided one sunny winter day to escape her loneliness and to leave La Rotonda. She bought a ticket 'Aller jamais retour. Berlin Tegel'." This is the opening scene of Ulrike Ottinger's momentous 1979 film Ticket of No Return -the woman of high beauty was Tabea Blumenschein. Unconcerned by all conventions, Blumenschein adored transformation: in a distinctive, avant-garde aesthetic, the two women embraced various different identities and challenged many norms, in the process revealing the performativity of gender. Initiating a dialog between the two artists' perspectives, these books bring together for the first time Blumenschein's drawings with Ottinger's photographs from their joint performance sessions. ULRIKE OTTINGER (*1942, Constance) is one of the most import- ant German filmmakers. Moving to Berlin in 1973, she became a pioneer of avant-garde cinematography. Ottinger's photographic works, feature films and documentaries have been shown at major international festivals and retrospectives, including the MoMa in New York, Berlinale, the documenta and the Venice Biennale. TABEA BLUMENSCHEIN (1952-2020) was a cult figure of West Berlin's queer feminist subculture in the 1970s and 80s. For about ten years, she played a key role in Ottinger's films as leading actress and costume designer, and was part of legendary avant- garde punk collective Die tödliche Doris. In the 1990s she withdrew from the public, yet remained active as an artist until her death.

Using detailed studies of stars such as Mae West, Joan Crawford and Madonna, Guilty Pleasures examines the tradition of feminist camp - a female form of aestheticism related to masquerade and rooted in burlesque, parallel but different to gay male camp.

Dieser Band bietet mit Stephan von Gumpenberg Ansichten des Heiligen Landes um 1417/18, gewährt mit Roland von Waldenburg Einblicke in das Italien des 16. Jahrhunderts, läßt das Japan des 17. Jahrhunderts mit den Augen Engelbert Kaempfers sehen und das Ägypten des Jahres 1994 mit denen Salzburger Studierender. Der Leser durchleidet die Qualen eines polnischen Landadligen auf der Meerfahrt von Danzig nach Lübeck und die Schiffbrüche des Alvar Núñez als Bericht über eine gescheiterte Expedition nach Florida. Er besucht mit Sigmund von Herberstein das Moskowitische Rußland im 16. Jahrhundert und erfährt im Gegenzug allerlei Unterhaltsames über Europa aus der Sicht der russischen Reisenden Nikolaj Karamzin und Fedor M. Dostojevskij. Und das sind nur einige Themen dieses faszinierenden Gießener Symposionsbandes, der nach Untersuchungen mythischer Strukturen im Reisebericht und zur Konstruktion von Weiblichkeit in mittelalterlichen Weltkarten eine Reise durch Länder, Zeiten und Kulturen beginnt: er macht den Leser mit byzantinischen, hebräischen sowie arabischen Reisenden des 11./12. und 17. Jahrhunderts und ihren Berichten vertraut, zeigt die Sicht europäischer Adliger des Spätmittelalters auf die Fremde und “besingt” die Reiselieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein. Der Band endet mit einem Blick auf den Traum von der Insel des Glücks. Dazwischen spannt sich der Bogen der Untersuchungen von Nahreisen in die Landschaften Koreas im vormodernen koreanischen Reisebericht, in die Bergwelt Chinas in den chinesischen Bergmonographien oder in die Mark Brandenburg Fontanes über die Reisen des Fürsten von Pückler-Muskau in Franken, Europa und Nordafrika bis hin zu den großen Fernreisen eines Amerigo Vespucci in die Neue Welt und des Odorico da Pordenone nach Asien (mit einer Edition der Aufzeichnungen nach dem mündlichen Bericht des Reisenden). Asien ist auch das Thema der Autorin Sir Galahad und der Filmemacherin Ulrike Ottinger, denen ein weiterer Beitrag gewidmet ist. Den Band beschließt ein umfangreiches Namen- und Werktitelregister, das die Fülle der gebotenen Informationen aufschlüsselt.

Das neue Wiener Pratermuseum - die Publikation zur Ausstellung Mitten im Zentrum des Wiener "Wurstelpraters", am Standort einer ehemaligen Spielhalle, entsteht 2024 das neue Pratermuseum, einer der ersten öffentlichen Holzbauten Wiens. Der Wiener Prater als traditionsreicher Ort des Freizeitvergnügens ist ein besonderer Sammlungsschwerpunkt des Wien Museums. Neben Originalobjekten - darunter Ringelspielfiguren, Teile einer Grottenbahn, frühe Spielautomaten und Kasperlfiguren - umfasst die Prater-Sammlung Pläne, Modelle, Fotos, Eintrittskarten, Programmhefte, Plakate sowie Kunstwerke. Das Buch stellt die Highlights der mehr als 300 Objekte des neuen Pratermuseums vor. Es geht um die großen Themen des modernen Lebens - das Verhältnis von Natur und Stadt, Mensch und Tier, moderner Technik und menschlichem Körper. Der Katalog zur Ausstellung des neuen Pratermuseums des Wien Museums Erscheint gemeinsam mit dem Aufsatzband Der Wiener Prater. Labor der Moderne anlässlich der Eröffnung des neuen Wiener Pratermuseums im März 2024 Mit zahlreichen großformatigen Abbildungen

Ulrike Ottinger belongs to those pioneers of art cinema who recognised the possibilities of film as a continuation of their work early on. Her output goes far beyond that of a film-maker, however: she is an artist, photographer, author and director.She has been making film history since the 1970s, and her works have been shown at the most important international festivals and have won numerous prizes. Her artistic work caused a sensation at the Biennale di Venezia (1980), documenta 11 (2002) and the 3rd Berlin Biennale (2004).This catalogue accompanies the exhibition at kestnergesellschaft in Hannover. The various aspects of her œuvre – film, opera and theatre directing, stage design, photography and ritual objects inspired by her travels – all flow into a large-scale installation extending through several spaces.For the first time this catalogue comprehensively documents Ulrike Ottinger's exhibitions from the 1960s up to the present.English and German text.

This collection reflects on the development of disability studies in German-speaking Europe and brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on disability in German, Austrian, and Swiss history and culture.