Ulrike Ottinger
China. The Arts – The People
Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s
Daily screenings of Exile Shanghai and Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia will be presented in The Single Screen on alternating days.
The exhibition China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s by acclaimed filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger (b. 1942 in Constance, Germany) is the first large-scale exhibition by the award-winning filmmaker and artist in Asia. The selection of works focuses on Ottinger’s research and travels in China and Mongolia during the 1980s and 1990s, comprising four films and more than one hundred photographs. The photographs, created largely in parallel with the production of her films, will be unfolded along the artist’s leitmotifs.
Starting with China. The Arts – The People (1985), the exhibition leads a journey through the cultures and geographies of China, while also exploring the relationship between moving image and still life. The three acts of the documentary are presented on a three-screen installation, documenting everyday life in Beijing (February 1985), Sichuan Province (March 1985), and Yunnan Province (March 1985). While meeting the film director Ling Zifeng in one chapter, a Bamboo factory is visited in another, and in parallel the Sani people, a minority group, show their habitat, the Stone Forest.
Taiga. A Journey to Northern Mongolia (1992), a documentary over eight hours long that will be presented on multiple monitors throughout the exhibition space, looks into the everyday life of nomadic peoples in Mongolia. Furthermore, on view in the cinematic space of the Centre, The Single Screen, will be Exile Shanghai (1997), a film telling the six life stories of German, Austrian, and Russian Jews intersecting in Shanghai after their escape from Nazi Germany, as well as Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia (1989), Ottinger’s only feature fiction film presenting a cast starring Badema, Lydia Billiet, Inés Sastre, and Delphine Seyrig.
From 1962 to 1968, Ulrike Ottinger was living as an independent artist in Paris, where at the University of Paris-Sorbonne she attended lectures on ethnography and religion of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Louis Althusser, and Pierre Bourdieu. Over the decades, she has created an extensive image archive, including films, photographs of her own as well as collections of postcards, magazine illustrations, and other iconographic documents from times and places worldwide. Driven by her curiosity for people and places, the artist’s images alternate between documentary insight and theatrical extravagance, presenting encounters with everyday realities at the intersection of the contemporary, the traditional, and the ritual.
The extraordinary filmic and photographic oeuvre from China and Mongolia of the 1980s and 1990s prove her outstanding practice and beyond. Fighting for permission to travel and film in communist China, Ottinger’s interest in Asia also broke with the Cold War stereotype of that time. Her inimitable universe of provinces and regions of China is filled with rich imagery of various provinces in China and nomadic societies in Northern Mongolia and their history, paying attention to the presence of local details and reaching far beyond its described territory.
The exhibition is accompanied by an intensive public programme, starting with a Behind the Scenes discussion with the artist on her practice as photographer and filmmaker. The programmed talks and screenings will reflect on the notion of the documentary, the intersection of documentary and fiction, and the potential that artistic production can have for anthropology, cultural studies, and history.
Initially a painter, Ottinger came to filmmaking in the early 1970s. She furthermore produced operas, several theatre plays, and radio dramas. Her films have received numerous awards and have been shown at the world’s most important film festivals, as well as appreciated in multiple retrospectives, including Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival (2013), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010), Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2004), The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2000), and Cinémathèque française, Paris (1982). Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions such as Documenta (2017, 2002), Gwangju Biennale (2014), Berlin Biennale (2010, 2004), and Shanghai Biennale (2008). Recent solo shows include, among others, Johanna Breede Photokunst, Berlin (2015, 2013), Sammlung Goetz, Munich (2012), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2011), Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2011), and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2004). Major monographs include Ulrike Ottinger: World Images (2013), Ulrike Ottinger (2012), Ulrike Ottinger: N.B.K. Ausstellungen Band 11 (2011), Floating Food (2011), and Image Archive (2005). In 2011, she was awarded the Hannah Höch Prize for her creative work, and in 2010 honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s is curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, and Khim Ong, Deputy Director, Exhibitions, Residencies and Public Programmes.
Supported by:
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Shanghai Gesture, 1996. Context: Exile Shanghai, China. Courtesy the artist.
Public programmes
Read More
A “behind the scenes” discussion with the acclaimed artist Ulrike Ottinger on her practice as photographer and filmmaker. The artist will share her experience travelling through China, as well as reflect on the different topics raised by her work, such as the intersection of documentary and fiction and notions of culture and cultural difference.
Read More
Exile Shanghai (1997) tells the stories of six German, Austrian, and Russian Jews that intersect while exiled in Shanghai. Through narratives, photographs, documents, and music and images of the contemporary city, the film is a real-life epic with significant historical value. Albeit the film focuses on the life of Jewish refugees, it stresses at the same time the very condition of the exiled, preserving their culture in midst of another.
Visually, the interconnectedness of different histories and people is emphasised by the diversity of cultural influences. This moment of openness of Shanghai created a whole cosmos within the city. Presented through the lens of the exiled, its tone is nonetheless optimistic, converted through the enthusiasm of the characters.
Exile Shanghai is part of the daily screenings of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s. It is presented at The Single Screen on every other day, alternating with Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia.
Exile Shanghai is screened on the following dates:
6 June 2017, Tuesday
8 June 2017, Thursday
10 June 2017, Saturday
14 June 2017, Wednesday
16 June 2017, Friday
18 June 2017, Sunday
20 June 2017, Tuesday
22 June 2017, Thursday
24 June 2017, Saturday
28 June 2017, Wednesday
30 June 2017, Friday
2 July 2017, Sunday
4 July 2017, Tuesday
6 July 2017, Thursday
8 July 2017, Saturday
12 July 2017, Wednesday
14 July 2017, Friday
16 July 2017, Sunday
18 July 2017, Tuesday
20 July 2017, Thursday
22 July 2017, Saturday
26 July 2017, Wednesday
28 July 2017, Friday
30 July 2017, Sunday
1 August 2017, Tuesday
3 August 2017, Thursday
5 August 2017, Saturday
9 August 2017, Wednesday
11 August 2017, Friday
13 August 2017, Sunday
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Regen (Rain), 1996. Context: Exile Shanghai, China. Courtesy the artist.
27 May 2017, Sat - 13 Aug 2017, Sun 04:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Read More
Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia (1989), starring Badema, Lydia Billiet, Inés Sastre, and Delphine Seyrig, is Ottinger’s only feature fiction film shot in East Asia. Staged in the legendary Trans-Siberian Railroad, the film starts by introducing four different Western women, each representing a story from different epochs, and who meet on this train. A group of Mongolian female warriors kidnap them, and the story unfolds amidst multiple cultural misunderstandings. The intersection of the fictional and the documentary arises from the encounter with the foreign, which intervenes unpredictably and filled with humour along the plot.
The entire film is a homage to the way nomadic cultures leave their mark along the travelled paths, and embraces the migration of culture. Different kinds of narration are explored within this feature, emphasising cultural relations, similarities and contrasts, as well as how misunderstandings can be productive.
Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia is part of the daily screenings of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s. It is presented at The Single Screen on every other day, alternating with Exile Shanghai.
Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia is screened on the following dates:
7 June 2017, Wednesday
9 June 2017, Friday
11 June 2017, Sunday
13 June 2017, Tuesday
15 June 2017, Thursday
17 June 2017, Saturday
21 June 2017, Wednesday
23 June 2017, Friday
25 June 2017, Sunday
27 June 2017, Tuesday
29 June 2017, Thursday
1 July 2017, Saturday
5 July 2017, Wednesday
7 July 2017, Friday
9 July 2017, Sunday
11 July 2017, Tuesday
13 July 2017, Thursday
15 July 2017, Saturday
19 July 2017, Wednesday
21 July 2017, Friday
23 July 2017, Sunday
25 July 2017, Tuesday
27 July 2017, Thursday
29 July 2017, Saturday
2 August 2017, Wednesday
4 August 2017, Friday
6 August 2017, Sunday
8 August 2017, Tuesday
10 August 2017, Thursday
12 August 2017, Saturday
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Tsam Zeremonie im Grasland, Abt und Lamas vom Tempel Xili Tu Zhao, 1988. Context: Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia, Grassland, Mongolia. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
This workshop was developed in collaboration with Kelly Reedy, a former lecturer at the National Institute of Education, who specialises in teaching how museums and galleries can be used to enhance student learning through visual arts. This workshop is created to engage educators in contemporary art and artistic practices. Highlighting the educational aspects of the various works presented in Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, it will allow the teachers to prepare for visits with their school classes.
Image credit: Previous workshop conducted by Kelly Reedy for the exhibition Charles Lim Yi Yong: SEA STATE, 7 May 2016. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.
Read More
Beijing Taxi is a timely, uncensored and richly cinematic portrait of China’s ancient capital as it undergoes a profound transformation. The film takes an intimate and compelling look at the lives of three cab drivers as they confront modern issues and changing values against the backdrop of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Through their daily struggles infused with humour and quiet determination, Beijing Taxi reveals the complexity and contradictions of China’s shifting paradigm.
This Screening is part of the public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.
Image credit: Miao Wang, Beijing Taxi, 2010, film still. Courtesy the artist.
24 Jun 2017, Sat 03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
24 Jun 2017, Sat 05:00 PM - 05:30 PM
7 Jul 2017, Fri 07:00 PM - 07:30 PM
4 Aug 2017, Fri 07:00 PM - 07:30 PM
Read More
Tours of on-going exhibitions led by NTU CCA Singapore curators are held every first Friday of the month. To register, email NTUCCAeducation@ntu.edu.sg.
Note: Tours on 24 June (Saturday) are held on the occasion of Art Day Out x School Holidays at Gillman Barracks. In addition, tours are also arranged for Mandarin speakers on 24 June at 3.00 – 3.30pm, and on 7 July (Friday) at 7.00 – 7.30pm.
For more information on Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, click here.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Familie von Seminomaden vor ihrem Winter-Lehmhaus, 1987. Context: Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia, Xi Wu Zhu Mu Qi Banner, Mongolia. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
In this four-and-a-half-hour documentary or filmic travelogue, Ulrike Ottinger imparts new ways of seeing a foreign culture. Divided in three parts, the film depicts everyday life in Beijing, Sichuan, and Yunnan, being highly sensitive to detail and allowing the viewer to follow Ottinger’s journey almost without commentary.
This screening is specially arranged to provide the opportunity for the audience to experience the work as a full film instead of the divided version installed in the exhibition space.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, An der Strecke Chengdu – Kunming, 1985. Context: China. The Arts – The People, China. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
This eight hour long documentary film is divided into 38 stations and depicts the daily life of the Darkhad and Sojon Urinjanghai nomads, as well as their ceremonies such as weddings, festivals and shamanistic practices.
Ottinger portrays particular characters, sometimes with their families, and documents gatherings, offerings, songs, dances, professions. The camera dwells on the different moments, mostly rendering the scene in real time and conveying a sense of being there. As we accompany the nomads preparing to move to their winter camp, or visit the children on their first day of school, we get familiar not only with the startling landscapes, but most importantly with the way of living of these nomadic peoples, their relationship to each other, to the animals, and to the land.
This screening is specially arranged to provide the opportunity for the audience to experience the work as a full film instead of the divided version installed in the exhibition space.
Presented on the occasion of Art Day Out x School Holidays at Gillman Barracks.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Jurtentür, Aufbau der Jurte am Bagchtara Gol, 1996. Context: Taiga, Mongolia. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
Organised for children aged 7 to 12, the idea of “Wunder” serves as a starting point. By exploring some of the diverse cultures within and around Singapore, the artist and the participants will think about how tales are told and invent new personas and characters associated with flying, fight good causes, feed the hungry, and… to be somebody wonderful. Focusing on stories the region has to tell and the images that those stories summon, ways of sharing experiences, visions, and emotions will be analysed, by reinventing “ritualistic” actions and creating personalised objects. For enquiries and to register your child, email NTUCCAEducation@ntu.edu.sg
Presented on the occasion of Art Day Out x School Holidays at Gillman Barracks.
Image credit: Courtesy the artist.
Read More
What can be glimpsed from Ulrike Ottinger’s images of China in the transitional period following the Cultural Revolution? Dr van Dongen will discuss the images through the lens of the changing economic, social, and cultural fabric of 1980s and 1990s China. Apart from reflecting on what we can gain from placing the images in their historical context, the presentation will also explore various other layers of the relation between art and history.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Polizisten in Hongkew, 1996. Context: Exile Shanghai, China.
Read More
Reflecting on Mao’s famous saying, “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend”, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film—whose title refers in part to a Chinese guessing game—is a unique excursion into the maze of allegorical naming and storytelling in China. The film ponders questions of power and change, politics and culture, as refracted by Tiananmen Square events. It offers at the same time an inquiry into the creative process of filmmaking, intricately layering Chinese popular songs and classical music, the sayings of Mao and Confucius, women’s voices and the words of artists, philosophers, and other cultural workers. Video images emulate the gestures of calligraphy and contrast with film footage of rural China and stylised interviews. Like traditional Chinese opera, Trinh’s film unfolds through “bold omissions and minute depictions” to render “the real in the illusory and the illusory in the real.” Exploring color, rhythm and the changing relationship between ear and eye, this meditative documentary realises on screen the shifts of interpretation in contemporary Chinese culture and politics.
This Screening is part of the public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.
Image credit: Trinh T. Minh-ha, Shoot for the Contents, 1992, film still. Courtesy the artist.
14 Jul 2017, Fri 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
28 Jul 2017, Fri 05:00 PM - 06:30 PM
28 Jul 2017, Fri 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Read More
Admission fee: $15 (excludes booking fee of $1)
Tickets available here
Tote Board Arts Grant here
This performance responds to Ulrike Ottinger’s penchant to making films/documentaries based on everyday life and in diverse settings, from urban to rural environments. The title Shaman/Peasants alludes to the two factors related to the rise of communism in early 20th century China. The Chinese Communists built their revolutionary momentum with the support of the “Peasants” and later sealed their faith with the Land Reform Movement that changed the destiny of old China forever. “Shaman” is the intermediary between the deep-seated connection of human and land, who breed myths and beliefs among the people. The contemporary dance will encompass incongruous movement motifs that aim to build tension by pitching bizarre individual characters against a repressive, conforming performing ensemble.
30-min performance with post-show dialogue with Arts Fission Artistic Director Angela Liong
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore and co-produced with Arts Fission.
Shaman/Peasants is endorsed and supported by the National Arts Council Arts Education Programme (NAC-AEP) under the Public Arts Programme. Schools may use the Tote Board Arts Grant to subsidise 50% of the programme ticket cost. Performance booking form here. NAC-AEP programme information here.
This is a public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People.
Read More
Fiction or reality, images produce their own narratives and temporal connections and are open to many interpretations infused with the personal experiences of individual viewers. Working with photography, sound, and video, different practices consider and question everyday life, and intersect with memory and notions of displacement and the self. Join the panel of artists for an open conversation about image/meaning making in contemporary art practice.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, China. The Arts – The People, 1985, film still. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
Throughout her artistic practice, Ulrike Ottinger has accumulated a large collection of objects and images, the latter including not only photographs taken by her, but also postcards, illustrations, iconographic documents, etc. The pictures, when released from the hoard to be assembled and recombined, become active objects that “perform” various appearances of realities. Does a collection —or more precisely a hoard of objects and images —create meaning for its bearer or other audiences? Hear from curator Kan Shuyi as she offers a museological perspective towards looking at repositories as potential meaning-bearers.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Marble decoration in the (inner) yard of a country house, 1985. Context: China. The Arts – The People, Yunnan. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
The documentary film Three Sisters tells the story of Ying (10 years old), Zhen (6 years old) and Fen (4 years old) who live alone and in extreme poverty in the high mountains of the Yunnan region. The father works in the town a few hundred kilometers away and the mother has left long ago. The little girls spend their days working in the fields or wandering in the village. Through Wang’s compassionate eye, the daily struggle of the villagers is captured, testifying to the inequality and unfairness present in the midst of the country’s economic boom.
This Screening is part of the public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.
Image credit: Wang Bing, Three Sisters, 2012, film still. Courtesy the artist.
Read More
Ulrike Ottinger’s work translates a powerful research into a portrait of the world in images. These investigations, in Ottinger’s case often referred as travelogues, result in films that take time to encounter. By exploring her films and photographs, we are challenged to define the meaning of “documentary”, “narration”, or “experimental” anew. They take us on a journey during which we get to know foreign lands and cultures, and we are forced to constantly renegotiate the understanding of ourselves and the “other”. In this conversation, Dr Marc Glöde and Ben Slater will take a closer look at how Ottinger’s practice continuously invites us to become travellers and reformulate our discourses.
Image credit: Ulrike Ottinger, Exile Shanghai, 1997, film still. Courtesy the artist.