Cabinet of Curiosities
16th May 2025 – 28th June 2025
A solo exhibition by OtGO
Curated by Thomas Eller
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Detail from a work by OtGO & Exhibition poster of Cabinet of Curiosities
Cabinet of Curiosities
A solo exhibition by Otgo
Curated by Thomas Eller
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"Breathing in ... breathing out ... in ... out – drawing a line. Repeat.”
This is the meditative artistic practice of Otgonbayar Ershuu, who goes by the short name, OtGO. He is one of Mongolia's most remarkable artists and has been living in Berlin for about twenty years. A fact that has expanded his cultural experiences and also impacted on the material basis of his artistic work. His spiritual core, however, remains firmly routed in Mongolia's cultural heritage.
Drawing line after line, after line, OtGO's works form to become complex textures of pictorial traces, interwoven with layers of meaning. His work is meditative and iterative in many ways. Being a studied Thangkha-painter, he comes from a long tradition of religious image making in Lama-Buddhism, a tradition in which painting and meditation never were separate activities. In this tradition each line, each patch of colour is both, premeditated and meditation in itself. Lamaist monks were only allowed to apply their craft to to Thangkha-painting after long years of rigorous training.
In essence, art in Mongolia today is fuelled by its cultural heritage rooted in Tengrism first, Lama-Buddhism second, and the achievements of what Pope Francis, when visiting Mongolia, called the “Pax Mongolica”, a period of 250 years of peace after the revolutions of Genghis Khaan.
The work of OtGO is not only witness to these energies. His work is channeling notions of art from and in Mongolia. OtGO is not just part of it – he is a driving force in this dynamic.
Portrait of OtGO
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OtGONBAYAR Ershuu was born in 1981 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. His artist name is OtGO. His talent was discovered and by the age of 15 years he had his own solo exhibitions. He studied traditional Mongolian painting in Ulaanbaatar (1996 – 1998). After studying, he became a painter and restorer on several research trips to historical sites in Mongolia. In the Buddhist-Lamaist monasteries, he studied various techniques and the iconography of miniature painting as well as their spiritual background (1998 – 2004).
Beside his free artistic creations, his work includes about six hundred „research miniaturen“. From 2007 – 2010 he studied at the Institute of Art in Context of the University of the Arts Berlin, which he completed with the Master of Arts. After studying, OtGO opened the first Mongolia Cultural Center in Berlin (2010 – 2013) and founded Gallery ZURAG Berlin (2010 – 2014) It is the first gallery founded and operated by a Mongol outside of Mongolia. In 2015 OtGO was awarded the „GRAND PRIX“ of the International Biennial of Painting, Chisinau, Moldova. Since 2018, he has been working on a voluntary basis as "Chief Curator and External Affairs of The National Art Gallery of Mongolia" parallel to his artistic work. In 2019, he participated in the "Curating" project of the Berlin Universität der Künste and received the university certificate.