Category: Germany

Ulrike Ottinger’s Shadows ?>

Ulrike Ottinger’s Shadows

screening + conversation

Thurs Oct. 2, 2025

7pm – 8:30pm (doors open 6:45), tickets here

Microscope Gallery | 525 W 29th St, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001

Chamisso´s Shadow, photo Ulrike Ottinger, 2014 © Ulrike Ottinger

Ulrike Ottinger is described by Richard Brody of the New Yorker as “One of the crucial modern filmmakers… For Ottinger, the play of imagination is an essential realm of freedom, a way for women to defy and liberate themselves from the misogyny that’s embedded as deeply in consensus styles as in consensus politics.” As part of her New York tour, Ulrike Ottinger will screen an hour-long excerpt of her 12-hour long film, Chamissos Schatten (Chamisso’s Shadow, 2016) and then take part in a short conversation with scholar Dr. Nora Alter, who has written extensively about Ottinger’s work. More event info here. 

Chamisso´s Shadow, photo Ulrike Ottinger, 2014 © Ulrike Ottinger

6:45 PM – Doors Open

7:00 PM – Film Screening: Excerpt of Chamisso’s Shadows

8:00 PM – Post-Film Conversation with Nora Alter

8:30 PM – Program Concludes

Trockenfisch, das Brot der Nordländer, 2014 © Ulrike Ottinger

Chamisso´s Shadow, photo Ulrike Ottinger, 2014 © Ulrike Ottinger

About the film:

Chamisso’s Shadow (Germany 2016, 720 min [excerpt is 53 min])

Adelbert von Chamisso accompanied the Romanzow research expedition on the Rurik from 1815 to 1818 as a botanist. Inspired by his descriptions as well as those of the other great explorers such as Forster and Anderson with Captain Cook, Steller with Bering and Humboldt I came up with the idea to create a cinematic evocation of these travel experiences, both past and present. I believe the past and the present of these journeys belong together and can’t be separated just like poor Schlemihl and his shadow in Chamisso’s ‚Wondrous Story’, where Schlemihl seeks to recover and reinstate his lost shadow as he travels through the world.

“But there on the sunny sands, a human shadow, not unlike my own, slid past, wandering alone and seemingly strayed from his Master. This sight awakened in me a powerful drive: shadow, thought I, are you looking for thy Master? Your Master I will be.” – From Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso

Readings from the many, very vivid, observations from those early explorers will be combined with my visual materials. Together they contrast and complement and enter into a dialogue that tells of the loss of knowledge of ancient cultural techniques and about learning a new. The desperation and the disintegration will be manifest but maybe, in some cases, this will provide a sense of relief, for it may show that it is only through comparison with the past that progress and change can be made visible.

Learn more about Ulrike Ottinger and Nora Alter:

Ulrike Ottinger 

Nora Alter

This event is presented by Fordham University and Microscope Gallery as part of the Fordham course Intro to Art & Engagement: Protest, Participation, the Public, and Other Performance Practices, taught by Catalina Alvarez.

Admission is free for all Fordham students with ID.

The event is conceived and organized by Catalina Alvarez, with co-organization by Jennifer Moorman. Support comes from Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning and the Departments of Theatre and Visual Arts, Communication and Media Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The film excerpt is courtesy of the Arsenal – Institute for Film & Video Art.

IN DER FREMDE | PICTURES FROM HOME. A haunting photobook on Berlin & the search for home by Romeo Alaeff ?>

IN DER FREMDE | PICTURES FROM HOME. A haunting photobook on Berlin & the search for home by Romeo Alaeff

New on the Fordham University Galleries website.

Internationally exhibited artist, Romeo Alaeff, presents a haunting, cinematic photobook on Berlin & the search for “home.” The book features haunting, never-before-seen images of Berlin at night—a city infamous for its nightlife—now presented in a desolate, eerie, and deeply personal light.

Framed by six essays by renowned writers, the photographs are tinged with a deep sense of longing & touch on themes of migration, alienation, and the search for home. Essay contributions by: Yuval Noah Harari, Christian Rattemeyer, Charles Simic, Eva Hoffman, Rory MacLean, Joseph Kertes (+ Romeo Alaeff).

The book will be published by the esteemed Hatje Cantz, “one of the leading publishing houses for art, photography, design, and architecture books with a focus on contemporary art” — a 75 year old publisher with over 800 titles. The book has already received half of its publication funding via a generous grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds.

THE PRE-ORDER KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN – FULLY FUNDED IN 48 HOURS

Immediately labelled by Kickstarter as a “Project We Love”, the campaign reached over 80% of its goal in the first 24 hours and surpassed it within 48 hours (almost to the minute), record time for a photobook. Books and prints will still be available for the duration of the 30 day campaign, while they last. Nocturnal street-photo workshops and night-portrait sessions, as well as postcards sets are also available as rewards. The kickstarter campaign runs from June 9th, 7pm – July 9th, 2020 (Berlin time).

The link to the campaign, which includes a cinematic photobook trailer, is: here. More info about the project can be found on Degrasse Projects and a Press Kit can be downloaded from Google drive here.

Romeo Alaeff

Romeo Alaeff was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1970. He received his BA in Photography from Tulane University in 1993 and his MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1996. He has exhibited internationally in exhibitions and film festivals and has produced work in a range of media, including photography, film/video, drawing, and writing. In addition, Alaeff has been a guest artist at the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, Pratt, Parsons, The University of Georgia and Georgia state University. Alaeff is the author of “I’ll be Dead by the Time You Read This: The Existential Life of Animals” (Penguin/Plume, 2011), a humor/philosophy book of drawings. His stickers also appear in “Stickers: Stuck up Piece of Crap: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art” (Rizzoli, 2010) Alaeff is also the founder and Editor-in-chief of Lines & Marks, an online publication dedicated to the role and practice of drawing across the arts and sciences. He currently lives in Berlin.

The 2014-2015 Ildiko Butler Travel Grant Recipients ?>

The 2014-2015 Ildiko Butler Travel Grant Recipients

The 2014-2015 Ildiko Butler Travel Grant Recipients

Featuring: Qinrui Hua, Giovani Santoro, Aubrey Vollrath
Curators: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and Joseph Lawton

Hayden Hartnett Project Space
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
(Inside the office of Undergraduate Admission room 203)
New York, NY 10023
haydenhartnettprojectspace.com

Dates: May 2015 – May 2016
For more images of the recipient’s work, please visit the exhibition website.

The Ildiko Butler Travel Grant is awarded to four photographers in the Department of Theatre and Visual Art each year who demonstrate exceptional promise. The grant amount is $3,500 and enables students to generate a substantial body of work while traveling abroad in their proposed countries. The Department of Theatre and Visual Art is pleased to present the photographs of Qinrui Hua, Giovani Santoro, and Aubrey Vollrath made in Japan, Italy, and Germany respectively. Their work represents a range of locations and interests; however, despite the differences in their individual focus, each photographer is engaged in the process of carefully studying the world and representing it in a straightforward, descriptive manner.

Applications are accepted each year in March. Please direct questions regarding the application guidelines to the Department of Theatre and Visual Arts in room 423.

Image captions left to right: Giovani Santoro, Italy; Qinrui Hua, Japan; Aubrey Vollrath, Germany

The Hayden Hartnett Project Space presents yearlong exhibitions of work produced by students from the Department of Theatre and Visual Art. It is located on the second floor in the Office of Undergraduate Admission, room 203. The hours for the Hayden Hartnett Project Space are 9 – 5, Monday through Friday.