Here’s to Art!

After a bank apprenticeship and several years as a guest student at the Academy of Arts in Munich, Ulrike Ottinger moved to Paris at the age of 20. Driven by the desire to become an artist, she sought out her role models among the writers, artists and intellectuals for whom Paris grew from being a place of exile to one of creative work.

The lively cafés and cinemas, the nightlife and the artists from all over the world, as well as the visible effects of the Algerian War and political movements of the 1960s on the streets influenced Ulrike Ottinger and her work. Paris Calligrammes is her attempt to trace these early impressions. Ottinger’s multifaceted creative phases are distinguished by an almost anthropological urge to research but also to deliberately let herself drift. If she hadn’t spent those years in Paris, would her work be completely different?

Ulrike Ottinger joins the writer Yoko Tawada and the artist Henrike Naumann for a conversation across generations and artistic disciplines. Visitors are invited to sit down with them. At a long table, guests can enjoy drinks and snacks while listening to the artists converse about art, the cosmopolitan spirit and the embodiment of places and times, about life’s works in retrospect or in the making. Joining in the discussion is expressly requested. Only the conversation will dictate when the evening ends.