Ulrike Ottinger: Journée d'un G.I.

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"Journée d'un G.I." features paintings and serigraphs from the 1960s. Ulrike Ottinger's often multi-part works, or works divided into several pictorial fields, reveal a passion for storytelling that ultimately finds its fulfillment in the medium of film. She became somewhat of a cult star in cineaste circles with her Berlin trilogy and its outstanding second film "Freak Orlando" (1981). In 2019, in the diary "Paris Calligrammes", she went on to show memories of her formative decade in Paris in a cinematic collection, which brings us right to the heart of the pictorial narratives of "Journée d'un G.I." It's the mid-1960s, Ulrike Ottinger is a painter, when Paris is shaken by images of war and revolution. At home in Nouvelle Figuration, a Parisian form of Pop Art, it is everyday scenes, comics, photography and advertising that determine the narrative style of Ottinger's images. Day-to-day rituals mingle with references to historical figures and literary heroes. While the daily battles rage, her heroes are taking a break; Che Guevara as "Le penseur" is lolling on a sofa while sipping a drink; Allen Ginsberg has "No more to say and nothing to weep for."