Introduction

Tabea Blumenschein (1952–2020) made her mark with the roles she played in films by the internationally renowned director Ulrike Ottinger (*1942). This exhibition celebrates the artistic bonds between these two protagonists and their influence on the Berlin art scene, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
While working with Ulrike Ottinger, Tabea Blumenschein acquired professional skills as a make-up and costume designer and became a versatile actor. In later years she explored drawing as a particularly powerful form of expression. In hundreds of portraits sketched in her flat, comic-like style, Blumenschein works up characters and symbols from a variety of sub-cultures. These often androgynous figures have colourful tattoos, funky outfits and an aura of glamour.
The drawings are matched here by Ulrike Ottinger’s photographs of Tabea Blumenschein, taken during various film projects and on shoots. They illustrate a spectrum of roles that knows no boundaries and respects no gender norms, stylistic genres or historical eras. In these pictures Ottinger highlights the beauty and expressive artistry of her friend, who was her companion for nine years. They remained in contact even after separating.
This exhibition is being held on the occasion of a large donation of works by Blumenschein from the collection of Ottinger to the Berlinische Galerie. It underpins the museum’s deep, unwavering interest in the artistic accomplishments of twentieth-century women.
The exhibition upholds the tradition of Das Verborgene Museum and has been funded by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF).

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Early work

While training at the Bodensee Art School in Konstanz from 1968 to 1972 Tabea Blumenschein experimented with several media and painting techniques, not least with pen and ink, coloured inks and gold paper. The style of her early work flits between surrealism, folk art and pop art. A constant feature over the years was the integration of text and stories.
Blumenschein drew many portraits of Ulrike Ottinger. Her friend’s curly mane of hair lent scope for subtle waves and patterns. The brightly coloured renderings are richly adorned with heads of angels, birds, flowers and stars. The exuberant splendour bears comparison at times with Christian icons.

Hand-coloured photographs

Ulrike Ottinger and Tabea Blumenschein lived in an old apartment block in Berlin. At night they often held photo sessions, trying out themes and characters for whatever screenplay Ottinger was writing at the time. Different moods were created by the choice of light, setting and costumes. Ulrike Ottinger would find clothes in second-hand shops and textile markets. Tabea Blumenschein would arrange them into outfits and pose for the camera.
Blumenschein coloured some of these photographs by hand, using the paint to glaze or highlight. This technique adds a further layer to their artistic interplay.

Images of Germany

Blumenschein’s obsession with “Germanness” was especially pronounced in the first half of the 1990s, just after East and West Germany united. The topic “Germany” gave rise to a range of motifs which, in changing variations, became an integral part of her visual vocabulary.
The drawings dispense with lavish ornamentation and the scenes are easy to read. They reflect Blumenschein’s fascination with German myth and fairy tales and with cultural clichés like the Oktoberfest in Munich. Out of this she constructs her own interpretation of “homeland” and “home”. Tabea Blumenschein was homeless for a while and found shelter in social facilities.

Beauties
Between 1988 and 1990 Tabea Blumenschein perfected her motif of the beautiful woman with a wealth of attributes. She sometimes appears as a pirate queen with a low-cut bodice, tattooed arms and a cigarette drooping from her mouth, sometimes as an empress framed by skulls and with a fiery red cloak covered in big, black, poisonous spiders.
Blumenschein’s motifs are distinctive for their strong contours and simplified figures. The ornamentation of the beauties is lavish. Such detailed working demands time and patience from the artist. Love of detail is love of the motif.

Bearded ladies

In the last ten years of her life Tabea Blumenschein returned frequently to “bearded ladies”. They were exhibited in so-called freak shows on 19th-century fairgrounds. In mythology they occur as androgynous beings. Blumenschein herself had morphed into a young man with a thin “Menjou” moustache in two films by Ulrike Ottinger. But the “bearded ladies” are not just about switching roles. They appeal to the imagination because there is potential here to merge characteristics that are usually connotated as either male or female. Blumenschein’s “bearded ladies” proudly display their breasts and their long silken beards, plaited or adorned with ribbons.

Sailors

From 1990 Tabea Blumenschein often chose sailors as her motif. Popular symbols – hearts, anchors, flamboyant Disney characters – appear as tattoos, on clothes and in the background. Facial features range from angry and aggressive to gentle and friendly.
The depiction of these “marines” and “sailors” draws on a queer aesthetic. Since the 1950s they have supplied stereotypes for “beefcake art”: muscular male bodies in a variety of poses catering for homoerotic phantasies. Blumenschein confronts hypermasculinity with a feminine aspect.

Exoticism

A fascination with depicting non-European cultures is an integral part of Tabea Blumenschein’s oeuvre. She drew inspiration from her film projects with Ulrike Ottinger and from Ottinger’s expeditions to locations in distant lands as well as from popular TV formats.
Blumenschein was also captivated by the diaries of the British seafarer James Cook (1728–1779). In her mind’s eye Blumenschein followed his literary journey to the Pacific, writing short stories to go with her drawn palms, “Hawaiian girls” and pirates. Images like these often reproduce stereotypes and clichés which are racialised.