arthistoricum.net

Searching museum collections for works looted by the Nazis is an important and challenging task for institutions entrusted with preserving our cultural assets. In Darmstadt, provenance research is conducted in a number of institutions now for many years: the provenance of objects is researched and documented systematically.  Besides casting light on the objects’ biographies and details of their acquisition, such research adds to our knowledge of the history of each individual collection and institution. For the first time experts in provenance research and other fields provide close insights into structures and networks of important municipal and state owned cultural institutions of Darmstadt and Mainz during the Nazi era.

Game-changing technologies are at the heart of the EVA-Berlin 2023 conference. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, NFT and XReality applications are the innovative drivers in the ecosystems of the cultural sector, in creative industries and in artistic production. Haptic components of a work can be made tangible and pictorial representations can be put into appropriate words. A landscape painting gains an acoustic horizon of experience as a soundscape, or it is embedded in a game setting as an animated weather backdrop

Silke Tammen (1964–2018) has had a significant influence on the study of medieval art. Her particular contribution lies in raising awareness about unusual objects and themes. In context of an art history that emphasizes the diversity of visual cultures, she has developed new theoretical and methodological approaches to the perception of images. A two-part publication is now dedicated to the memory of Silke Tammen. Volume 1 comprises a collection of annotated essays of Silke Tammen. Volume 2 presents contributions by companions from various disciplines, who take up Tammen's ideas, themes, and approaches in their own research.

Visual practices of climate protests generate visibility in a highly politicised and interest-driven environment. They often follow familiar visual traditions and tried and tested narratives. With the help of visual studies and media sociological observations, access to the activist image publications and the categories of temporality and personalisation visible in them can be found. Of central importance here are the visual strategies of witnessing, relating perpetrators and victims, civil disobedience and landscape depictions. Her analyses reveal both different image politics of the climate movement and visual voids.

The 28th EVA Berlin conference ties in with the ongoing disruptive changes in culture and digitality. Topics discussed include the rise of artificial intelligence, digital projects in the cultural sector, web-based research, communication collaborations, and information technology and multimedia services for libraries, archives, museums, and performing arts institutions. Since 1994, the Berlin event has been part of the international EVA conference network, which also includes venues in London, Florence and Paris. It has served as a platform for broader international exchange and European cooperation.

The miraculous horse Bucephalus, who speaks, foresees events, sheds tears and possesses incredible power, leads Alexander the Great victoriously through his conquests. In medieval knight culture, close relationships between horse and rider are familiar. However, the affinity, the playing with boundaries and the merging of human and animal, as described in the literature on Alexander, requires explanation. Especially in late medieval illustrations, in which Alexander the Great serves as a role model, and often even as an ancestor, for the recipient, this unusual blending of two beings of mysterious origin must be integrated into known cultural patterns. With fascinating creativity, the illuminators in early humanist Augsburg and courtly Paris debate the inexplicable nature of this exceptional pair.

“Nothing is without the word”: Thinking through photography is one of the central working principles of the artist couple Korfmann-Bodenmann in their long-term project “Through Different Lenses.” Practical interactions, intellectual dialogues, and, last but not least, the pure joy of thinking play a central role. The joint photography projects always focus on understanding and realizing the self in relation to others, rather than isolating oneself and excluding others. – This decidedly scientific publication presents and analyzes eight portfolios from 2021 to 2023, featuring 192 photographs.

This publication focuses on the collection of glass negatives by Wilhelm Weimar (1857–1917), which has been made accessible for the first time. From 1883 onwards, the first employee produced drawings and photographic reproductions of art objects from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. The book sheds light on the use and distribution of the photographs, their perception, and evaluates the impact of the transition from handmade to mechanical reproductions. The negatives and prints provide insights into the development of photographic technology around 1900 and reflect the desire at that time to produce images that were as objective as possible. Originally produced as illustrative material, they are now perceived as photographic objects in their own right: they have become second originals. But how can newly gained status be visibly continued in the digital environment?

This dissertation includes a catalog that is permanently available free of charge (open access) on ART-Dok. Publication Platform for Art History and Visual Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00009760

The Traumgesicht (Dream Vision) is considered one of Albrecht Dürer’s most significant works. Created in 1525, during a time of immense panic over the impending apocalypse, Dürer’s watercolor of a deluge is commonly interpreted as the direct expression of a deeply personal vision experienced by the artist. This book, however, proposes a contrasting interpretation. Drawing on other works from the Reformation period, such as Michael Ostendorfer’s famous woodcut The Pilgrimage to the Schöne Maria of Regensburg, it presents the Traumgesicht as a highly constructed and ambiguous image – as nothing less than a summation of Dürer’s art theory.

This book examines the function and status of parergonal elements as well as the transformation and dispersion of the so-called “work” in New York conceptual art from 1966 to 1972. Three art-historical case studies discuss paradigmatic projects by On Kawara (“Today”), Lee Lozano (“Drawing for Lucy's Peace Show”), and Lawrence Weiner (“Done Without”). These are supplemented by theoretical and methodological case studies on Gérard Genette’s “paratext” and Jacques Derrida’s “parergon”, which focus on the hitherto insufficiently explored zone of transaction between exhibit and discourse, text and context, work and interpretive framework. This study explains in detail why conceptual artworks should rather be described as open and multi-part “parergonal constellations” and how the division into a seemingly primary work and its seemingly subordinate accessories is parasitically and paradoxically suspended in these constellations.

Democracy is a fragile creature. So is cultural heritage. Heritage designation, interpretation and management are always affected by political circumstances. Democracy can take various forms, but the common thread is the emphasis on the empowerment of the people, the Demos, in shaping the policies and direction of the state. Whatever the approach taken towards heritage in democratic societies, it has to be subjected to the scrutiny of the public, and that includes a dialogue and discourse beyond heritage professionals. This raises the questions: Who defines, interprets, uses or instrumentalises heritage and for what purposes? The publication on Heritage and Democracy brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on the topic, examining heritage under the categories of the public good, civil society, politics and polity.

Nameless gravestones; a sneaker flaunting the word ‚Belanciege‘ on its side, instead of the brand name ‚Balenciaga‘; a smiling agate geode listed on eBay for one million dollars… With works by Luke Willis Thompson, Hito Steyerl, and Lindsay Lawson in mind, Katharina Weinstock recasts the reception and transformation of Duchamp‘s ‚Readymade‘ and Breton's ‚Objet Trouvé‘ in order to develop the new concept ‚Post-Readymade‘ which captures today‘s artistic uses of found objects. Instead of art objects on pedestals, this book deals with drifting, precarious, resonant things, and the human destinies interwoven with them.

In early humanism, the imperial city had developed into a German carnival stronghold – with the Schembartlauf (mask run) performed from 1449 to 1539 as its highlight. At the same time as the parades accompanied by themed floats from 1475 onwards, the Nuremberg carnival games developed into another focal point of local carnival culture. And that's not all: craftsmen paraded through the city in their own groups and also performed folk dances, the patricians not only ran their masked run, they also proved themselves in tournaments such as the Gesellenstechen (journeymen's jousting), and the Nuremberg city council kept an eye on everything. For carnival, as a topsy-turvy world, was a counter-model to the social order and thus turned urban norms upside down. This volume explains the contradiction that Carnival also served to maintain the council's power.

The contributions are based on the lectures given in November 2024 at the conference Carnival in Nuremberg: More than the Schembartlauf at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.

The interiors of Italian churches have regularly been the subject of extensive transformation campaigns. The interior shell and furnishings were adapted to changing representational needs, religious and profane uses and changing artistic taste. This book examines this phenomenon using the church of S. Pietro in Perugia as an example and outlines the overarching history of church interiors in Umbria, Milan, Veneto and Rome. Special consideration is given to the early scholarly study of Italian church and saint history as well as the building legislation of the Cassinese Congregation. 

With numerous photographs, graphics and reconstructions, these illustrated books document the church interior of S. Pietro in Perugia in its current and historical state. They also record the interiors of numerous other Umbrian Romanesque churches, including their later transformations and churches that were remodelled in Milan, Veneto, Tuscany and Rome, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries. This catalogue thus not only provides the necessary pictorial evidence for the first two volumes of text, but can also serve as a starting point for further research into the overarching history of church interiors in Italy.

This volume is based on a conference held in Halle in 2023. The theme was the artistic design of the 1936 Olympic Park in Berlin and its cultural context.
For the first time, the artistic design of the Olympic Park in Berlin is embedded in the cultural context of the artistic movements at the beginning of the 20th century. It is seen as a continuation of the newly founded Olympic Games of 1896, which laid the foundations for Olympic iconography. This concerns the development of the park during the imperial era, the Weimar Republic, and the post-war period. However, the Nazi state's instrumentalization of the 1936 Games pushed the “layers of time” of the Olympic Park into the background.

Plants produce images, nature is an artist. What reads like an avowal of contemporary eco-art was already a subject of intense interest in early modern times: after all, there are many forms in nature that are reminiscent of a human figure - such as the mandragora or mandrake root. Explanations ranged from superstition and speculation about divine messages hidden in creation to scientific theories. At the same time, the relationship between natural and artificial products and the conditions for precise observation were also considered. One highlight of these discussions was the publication of an anthropomorphic beetroot in 1670 in Germany's first scientific journal.
German version: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1369

This book brings together contributions from artists, scholars, and cultural practitioners who explore paths to the decolonization of knowledge through art-based practices and activist strategies. How do approaches to artistic research merge with decolonial strategies? On the unsaid, the situated knowledge, the knowledge of the body, and transformative knowledge. On shared dérives and detours.

Few films in recent years have provoked such contrasting reactions as Jonathan Glazer’s harshly criticized and highly acclaimed Auschwitz drama “The Zone of Interest” (2023). On the one hand, the film was seen as an unusually accurate reconstruction of the past; on the other, as a controversial commentary on the present. Based on a careful comparison with historical sources about the commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp and his family, this book focuses primarily on one question that the film seems to pose. Provocatively simplified, the question sounds like this: Are we all like Rudolf Höß?

The term "early work" refers to a group of artworks that mark the beginning of an artistic œuvre. The central claim of this anthology is that such early works represent a variable and retrospective construct: early works only become a field of interest for artists, curators, and art historians once a main body of work—and thus artistic significance—has been established, prompting the search for development and continuity. The question of what constitutes an early work and the various practices in dealing with early creations are the core of the texts.

Exhibition catalog: Nürnberg GLOBAL 1300-1600, GNM Nuremberg, September 25, 2025 - March 22, 2026

Between 1300 and 1600, Nuremberg evolved into a trading hub with networks spanning the globe. Economics, politics, the arts, and culture were closely entangled with one another. Featuring fascinating works of art, this exhibition catalog traces the city’s expanding networks from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
Nuremberg’s success as a center of knowledge and an innovative seat of industry laid the groundwork for Nuremberg’s cultural flourishing during Dürer’s time. However, part of the city’s prosperity was based on intensive mining, the arms trade and colonial enterprises. The catalog sheds light on this hitherto little-researched facet of the city’s history and critically reflects upon Nuremberg’s role in an increasingly globalized world.
English Version: GLOBAL Nuremberg 1300-1600

Redaktionelle Mitarbeit: Rostislav Tumanov

Drawings on colored ground are a striking phenomenon in early modern art. Especially in German art around 1500, the possibility of working with white on color-prepared papers was used to create especially sophisticated pieces.
The contributions collected here are written by art historians working in universities and museums as well as specialists in the field of art technology who have been analyzing the original works in European collections for several years as part of a research network. On the one hand, the ten texts offer detailed introductions to the technique and the medial characteristics of the sheets as well as the historical terminology. On the other hand, they contain case studies on artists such as Altdorfer, Baldung, Dürer, and Holbein the Younger as well as on specific motifs, the relationship between colored ground drawings and prints, on inscriptions as well as on the practice of copying.

Hubertus Kohle is among the most distinguished art historians of his generation. As a scholar and university professor, he has had a lasting impact on the discipline, advancing modern art history, and providing trend-setting impulses as a pioneer of digital art history. Published on the occasion of his retirement, the volume Hyperframes refers to the many frameworks that shape our understanding of art—whether aesthetic, political, or media-related—and to the overarching structures that characterize Kohle’s scholarly work. In addition, the contributions situate the honoree within the art-historical frameworks that are the focus of his research and academic practice.

Particularly in art history, the human form is nearly ubiquitous, not only as a subject of representation but also as a carrier of meaning—along with the postures it conveys. Despite this, art-historical discourse has largely overlooked posture as a singular focus of investigation. This book seeks to address that desideratum: utilizing the ‘artificial eye’ of computational methodologies, it constructs a virtual space of possibilities—of associations, references, and similarities—for historically embedding the human figure, and its posture, in the visual arts.

With the NEO Collections project, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G), together with the Übersee-Museum Bremen and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm set out to reimagine access to their collections and discover new ways of working - with each other, within the museums and with multidisciplinary teams and external communities. 
The publication explores the challenges of the open approach and the opportunities to engage meaningfully with the collections. The focus lies on the different methods and formats explored during the project at the MK&G, such as a fellowship and a data exploration sprint.