Ulrike Ottinger’s early practice was influenced by the figuration narrative or nouvelle figuration, which she practiced as a painter in 1960s Paris. OTTINGER’s cheerful paintings and serigraphs stand closely to the aesthetics of the movement, as they tell tales that develop through time in form of sequences and polyptychs, drawing inspiration from scenes of everyday life, comics, photography and advertising. The eternally dynamic distinction between life and the form it finds in art is mirrored in the tension between image and sequence, between the individual and society.
Ottinger’s creative output, however, encompasses not only painting but also photography and film. Last year, she was the subject of a comprehensive solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and, in the past few years, has been established as a fixture of European Pop Art through exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art in Nice, Kunsthalle in Kiel and Lehnbachhaus München. In 2024, she received the German Documentary Film Award for her life achievement, and in 2021, she was awarded the Hans-Thoma-Preis. In 2011, the Hannah Höch Prize was bestowed upon her for an outstanding artistic life’s work. Her work has been shown at the Biennale di Venezia, the documenta and the Berlin Biennale.
