BUNKER VISION: Ulrike Ottinger - by skot armstrong

Ottinger for Anglophones

BY SKOT ARMSTRONG

BUNKER VISION

One of the things that always made the French New Wave cinema special was that one of the leading figures, Agnes Varda, was a woman. American underground cinema had Maya Deren. But based on what one could find available in the United States with English subtitles, the New German Film movement of the 1970s was an all-male affair. Somehow the films of Ulrike Ottinger never made it to the Anglophone world. This is currently being rectified.

Aside from the usual problems that women face from the male-dominated gatekeepers of the art world, Ottinger’s tendency to hop between disciplines has made it harder to reduce her to an elevator pitch. When The New York Times weighed in, they pronounced that she was “a one-woman avant-garde opposition to the sulky male melodramas of Wenders, Fassbinder and Herzog.” Aside from her gender, there are some other important parallels to Varda. They both produced things that can be shown in museums without projectors.

Ottinger’s father was a painter, and she too started out as a painter; even running a gallery for a while. At one point she was a lithographer, and her photography is well-known on its own merits. When it was most difficult to release her films, she released books about them. The visuals make for wonderful coffee table books. Think Alejandro Jodorowsky without the meanness, or a lesbian Cockettes. All of her movies focus on the female point of view, and her casts mostly consist of women. Ottinger has been out as a lesbian from Day One, and she defies lesbian stereotypes. Among these is the notion that lesbians and camp are mutually exclusive. Even if she shoots a documentary in Mongolia, she has everybody’s finery in its most vivid form. She makes the sort of films that one would expect from a painter.

The best place to start the Ottinger experience is with her most gonzo films. Madam X: an Absolute Ruler is a tale of dissatisfied women throwing off the chains of their daily existences to run away with an all-female pirate ship. She describes Freak Orlando as “a history of the world from its beginnings to our day, including the errors, the incompetence, the thirst for power, the fear, the madness, the cruelty and the commonplace.” This is the one that most frequently draws comparisons to the visual excesses of Jodorowsky. The production values are great by underground movie standards, and one can sense that the lack of big budgets make for a more creative approach.

As Ottinger’s growing renown takes hold, she is getting interviewed more. Many of these interviews (in English or subtitled) have found their way onto YouTube. They are fun to watch because she has such an all-encompassing worldview. Although she currently has no films available on DVD with English subtitles, she is sufficiently well regarded to have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Pictures in 2019. Her most recent work Paris Calligrams (2020) is a collage of formats used in the service of documenting her early years as a painter in Paris. It would not look out of place as an installation in a show of her paintings and photographs. If any curators are looking for an established artist to “discov-

June 18, 2022–January 22, 2023

June 18, 2022–January 22, 2023 Collidoscope was developed in partnership between The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum Collidoscope was developed in partnership between The Cheech and the National Museum of the American Latino. Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino. This exhibition received federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. This exhibition received federal support from the Latino Initiatives Additional support provided by: Cal Humanities, Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Assemblymember Jose Medina, and Unidos. Additional support provided by: Cal Humanities, Image: Einar & Jamex de la Torre, Oxymodern, 2002 Assemblymember Jose Medina, and Unidos. The Cheech Marin Collection Image: Einar & Jamex de la Torre, Oxymodern, 2002 The Cheech Marin Collection

Cheech Collects Cheech Collects

Image: Judithe Hernández, Juarez Quinceañera, 2017 The Cheech Center permanent collection Image: Judithe Hernández, Juarez Quinceañera, 2017This exhibition is made possible in part by: Unidos The Cheech Center permanent collection This exhibition is made possible in part by: Unidos

The Cheech Center is NOW OPEN! The Cheech Center is NOW OPEN! Purchase your tickets at Purchase your tickets at www.thecheechcenter.org. www.thecheechcenter.org.

LA River Confidential

BY ANTHONY AUSGANG

OFF THE WALL

In the 1970s, The East Los Streetscapers promoted the idea that graffiti muralism was part of the struggle to claim urban space. This concept was shared by the Los Angeles Fine Art Squad, a group of artists also taking art to the street using murals. This activist approach was always part of street art, but it wasn’t until Wild Style hit the left coast in the ‘80s that graffiti became Art; mostly because the result was large-scale graf burner throw ups in every neighborhood across LA.

Since then, many young contemporary muralists are introduced to their craft through street art and graffiti but seem to be artistically inspired by lowbrow imagery and/or the flowing cursives of “calligraffiti.” One of these artists is Tristan Eaton, described by writer Carlo McCormick as “the heir apparent of a delinquent cultural lineage that involves a variety of media… including graffiti.” Recently commissioned by the Aster Members Club to produce a pair of four-story tall murals for its Hollywood and Vine location, Eaton anticipated that his Street Art piece “saluting Tinseltown groundbreakers” would be seen by thousands of people every day. Consequently, he made it teem with cultural, racial, and political references, providing a sort of non-factual education of data without context for a public mostly ignorant of Hollywood’s backstory. Still, although Eaton believes the mural successfully shares his story “of the Hollywood he knows and loves,” the worth of Eaton’s piece relies on it being seen by the throngs promenading Hollywood Boulevard, whether they get what he’s putting down or not.

This is the fundamental tenet of graffiti: to spread a message or image by bombing any available surface, using everything from tags and murals to pens, stickers, and stencils. The endgame is a dispatch from a writer or crew to as many members of the public as possible. But beneath the streets of Los Angeles, graffiti exists rejecting this usual arrangement and interested individuals must go to extreme efforts to view the work. The Los Angeles River is joined by many “tributaries” of drainage channels and some of these tunnels have been hit so thoroughly that layered full-color pieces can be seen as far back as sunlight can penetrate the shaft. But the large and elaborate burner pieces don’t stop there, they continue into the darkness, seemingly without end, the “date stamps” and placas reaching further into the past. This is graf that shares none of the ambitions held by Eaton or the muralist liberators of the streets. According to the graf-legend Mear One, “True Graffiti artists enjoy the aspect of going places others wouldn’t. So, I guess we’re looking for that legacy location, a spot time forgot; maybe a place that can survive the next ice age and be discovered by future generations.” He pauses, then adds, “Plus, we can smoke weed with no hassles from the streets or the cops.”

Foreign Language Film

I dream of two strangers having sex. There’s a song on in the background, it’s not in English, I don’t know what language it is.

This was the night after the night I cried into my wine at a fried chicken restaurant.

It’s never the person, it’s the fact it was possible – that a front or calculated silence, a passive rejection, whatever you want to call it, was possible, plausible

The worst part is: when I was surest of my direction that’s the exact point I realized I had none.

It does seem possible I could have watched the trailer for this rather than living it out,

I would still have seen enough to say I saw it.

—CAITLIN BRADY

Reality (Slight Return)

As the morning light seeps through frayed and faded lace curtains, the memory of various recent mortifications begins to sting and cling to me afresh, while older, evergreen sources of irritation, hardy perennials of chagrin and crushing desolation, also burst forth through the cracks in the driveway of my mind: the first stale surge is felt in the head, then it spreads... to the heart and the gut, and once started, it is hard to suppress. Not that I really try.

Re-Entering the Art

World

Dear Babs, What advice might you give to an older artist who would like to return to making art after a two-decade hiatus? I experienced a dead-end art career in my mid-40s, showing in copious group shows and occasional college gallery solo shows. I want to return to making art, but I am terrified about re-entering the art world and that no-man’s land where I seemed to have been stuck with no gallery representation. —Over-the-hill career artist

Dear Over The Hill, The bad news is that breaking out of that old exhibition cycle is still hard. As you probably know, it’s extremely unlikely for any artist to get the kind of gallery representation you desire. But the good news is you don’t need to keep chasing the expectations from your past life.

A few hundred years ago, the people we call “modern artists” escaped the Academy—where success depended on one’s ability to appease a conservative system of gatekeepers—by embracing new venues for exhibiting, selling and talking about art. The art world of 20 years ago seems ancient as well, given it was defined almost entirely by in-person connections, analog technologies and outdated notions of what it meant to be successful. In 2022 there are many ways to succeed as an artist in many art worlds that don’t necessitate gallery representation. These days you can make your art, put it online and immediately have a larger global audience willing to look at, respond to, and buy your work than ever before. Nothing is guaranteed, but you have better chances at sustaining your art practice now than you did two decades ago.

Sure, you might not get the acclaim you were conditioned to want back in the day, but why should you care? Your job now is to get your art into the lives of people who want and need it. If you need a gallery to do that, then so be it, but don’t wait for them to find you. Just make your art and get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. I’d love an update from you in the next year or so. I’m sure you’ll surprise yourself and all of us in the process.

Celebrating Black Women Artists in Collaboration and Community

Curated by Julia Bullock and Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY

JULIA BULLOCK

SAT NOV 5 8PM SUN NOV 6 2PM A MUSICAL PORTRAIT: PRICE AND BONDS

Los Angeles Philharmonic Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor Michelle Bradley, soprano Jasmin White, mezzo-soprano Michelle Cann, piano Nathaniel Gumbs, organ From art songs to solo showpieces and symphonic excerpts, Julia Bullock curates an evening showcasing the enduring musical voices of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.

SUN OCT 30 7:30PM CHAKA KHAN

Chaka Khan is a force of nature as a live performer, and an exceptional songwriter and collaborator. The voice of hits “Sweet Thing,” “You Got the Love,” “I Feel For You,” and the triumphant “I’m Every Woman” leads o the Rock My Soul Festival.

JERI LYNNE JOHNSON

FRI NOV 11 8PM BRYAN, BONDS & PRICE

Los Angeles Philharmonic Jeri Lynne Johnson, conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson leads a program that brings the historic fi ght for acceptance and dignity by Bonds and Price into conversation with the modern day.

SAT NOV 12 8PM RHIANNON GIDDENS

Los Angeles Philharmonic Jeri Lynne Johnson, conductor Resistance Revival Chorus

Both with The Carolina Chocolate Drops and in her own solo work, Rhiannon Giddens has used her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present.

SAT NOV 5 11AM SAT NOV 19 11AM SYMPHONIES FOR YOUTH: ROCK MY SOUL

Los Angeles Philharmonic Linhan Cui, conductor

Our Symphonies for Youth concerts o er family-friendly art activities and invite children ages 5 to 11 to take in the sounds of a world-class orchestra.

See more concert details and learn about our festival Humanities events at laphil.com/rockmysoul.

Tickets On Sale Now!

laphil.com/rockmysoul | 323 850 2000 Groups (10+) 323 850 2050