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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.
German Version: Nürnberg GLOBAL 1300-1600

The prosimetrical treatise De consolatione philosophiae or simply Consolatio Philosophiae by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (around 480-524) is one of the most important philosophical writings of Late Antiquity and is a part of world culture. The complexity of the multifaceted world of thought in the Consolatio is reflected in the Strasbourg woodcut series, which was printed in 1501 in the Latin edition by Johann Grüninger. A complete concept, that encompasses all chapters, opens up several possibilities for individual interpretations of religious-mythological and philosophical views due to the unique and polysemantic imagery.

Frontispieces in early modern art literature were used primarily to visually stage the profession of the artist-author and the book as a carrier of knowledge about art. Through the interaction of personifications, art theoretical, didactic and moral considerations were depicted. The motifs participate in contemporary visual discourses. During the 16th century, a pictorial language with a pan-European range of influence developed, which remained valid until the 18th century. This study examines topoi that shaped the title illustration of art literature in the early modern period. This is the first comprehensive survey of the pictorial material.

Women rarely appear in the traditional history of photography. Their tracks are lost in historical reception, they are virtually 'hidden' or are assigned the status of an exception. Based on biographies, the author traces the development of female photography. The social, educational and technical conditions that women encountered from the end of the 19th century are also examined. The young and liberal professional field of photography enabled well-trained women to work creatively and achieve economic independence. With this study, Nathalie Dimic does pioneering work by depicting the social figure of the female photographer in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary way for the first time.

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This thesis presents an ontology to describe iconographical and iconological interpretations, an RDF dataset based on Erwin Panofsky’s work, and a quantitative analysis of it. Iconology and iconography are often recorded in unstructured texts, limiting retrieval and reuse. Structuring such knowledge as LOD enables new ways to explore cultural heritage through experts’ narratives. Results show that data-driven approaches can support traditional art historical questions and offer new insights into scholarly methods.

The ‘European Capital of Culture’ is regarded as the European Union's flagship cultural policy initiative. A total of eight German cities applied in a selection process for this title for 2025, which was ultimately awarded to Chemnitz. Cultural and cultural policy events and, for example, public discussions in the cities preceded the submission of the bid books. The article provides an insight into the selection process, the city's application activities and the local urban, cultural and European policy debates. It shows how different interpretations of the EU format intertwine and favour its success.

Since 2021, institutions have been able to apply to the German Lost Art Foundation for short-term projects under the funding line ‘First Check: Colonial Contexts’. These projects, with a duration of up to six months, enable urgent provenance research – particularly in response to specific information or restitution requests, or to gain a preliminary overview of suspected cases. As of June 2025, a total of 13 such projects have been initiated. To take stock of this development and to situate their own research on collections from sub-Saharan Africa within a broader framework, the Network for Provenance Research in Lower Saxony and the Museums Association for Lower Saxony and Bremen hosted two workshops. These gatherings brought together project teams, applicant institutions, and representatives from decolonial networks to exchange ideas and experiences. This publication presents the outcomes of those workshops: It brings together diverse contributions that reflect on challenges, share findings, and explores how initial checks can be conducted as effectively and sustainably as possible.

This transdisciplinary dissertation innovatively bridges art history, organology, and violin-making craftsmanship to interpret the depiction of the violin in Italian and Netherlandish paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries. Focusing on the precision and authenticity of these representations, the study collaborates with distinguished violin-making experts to assess the playability of the instruments and trace potential links to specific workshops or masters. Groundbreaking findings — particularly regarding violins painted by Caravaggio — challenge established interpretations, revealing the instrument’s dual role as both a symbolic motif and a testament to contemporary craftsmanship. By transcending disciplinary boundaries, this research not only deepens our understanding of the violin’s cultural and artistic significance but also pioneers a dynamic field of inquiry uniting art history, musicology, and lutherie. Through exemplary analyses, it demonstrates how the violin served as a mirror of societal and artistic evolution during this transformative era.

Portraiture was undoubtedly the most prolific artistic genre of the early modern period. Nevertheless, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris, founded in 1648, remained almost completely silent on the subject of portraiture, thereby denying its significance not only in artistic terms, but also in social, political, and religious terms. This study reconstructs the discourse surrounding portraiture in 17th-century France and traces an astonishingly lively debate in which it was even considered whether portraiture – rather than history painting – should be accorded first place among the artistic genres.

Deconstructionist architecture has long since become part of everyday urban life around the world. Yet the intellectual positions it represents are in danger of being forgotten. This book has a twofold aim: firstly, it analyses theoretical texts and built works by Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, Coop Himmelb(l)au and Rem Koolhaas (OMA) and shows that the targeted use of disruptions reveals contingent, constructed orders in the sense of a self-reflexive critique of the (re)presentation of architecture. Secondly, it reveals the intensive and ambivalent engagement of deconstructivist architecture with Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, which has been critically discussed since the 1980s but never fundamentally analysed.

This volume assembles the contributions to the conference „Pflanzen – Tiere – Menschen: Präparieren, Konservieren, Ausstellen. ‘Doing Objects’ in historischer und aktueller Perspektive,“ that took place at the University of Göttingen  in October 2024. The Chair of Medieval and Modern History at the University of Göttingen and the Network for Provenance Research in Lower Saxony cooperated for this conference’s organisation. The event was funded by the “zukunft.niedersachsen” programme. Its purpose was to connect actors with different perspectives, including cultural and natural scientists, taxidermists and conservators. They discussed debates on the handling of preparations and models based on human, animal, and plant materiality. Furthermore, thematic overlaps regarding conservation practices as well as "doing objects" in historical and current perspectives were explored.

Contradictory, the fragment is the remain of an artwork that has disappeared or been left unfinished, that was or was never. Vestige of a lost wonder, it is critical to restore the paradigmatic nature of the fragment, and the remarkable changes to which it is and has been subjected, one that informed imaginative works of great diversity, and which reshaped the relationships between past, present, and future, contributing therein to the understanding of distant worlds in space and time. Whatever its appearance, whatever its purpose, the fragment’s relevance resides in what seems straightforward enough but is in fact anything but. It is unearthed at the crossroads of new intrigues and desires.

„We simply tried out lots of series—not just individual images—and then tried to offer them to newspapers as a sequence of images, as a story." – Marta Astfalck-Vietz

Bold and witty, technically adept and characterized by a spirit of experimentation, at the pulse of modernity and with a distinctly feminist attitude – these are the works of the two photographers Marta Astfalck-Vietz and Marianne Breslauer, as well as the graphic designer Hanna Nagel. During the Weimar Republic, the three artists collaborated closely with the contemporary press and helped shape progressive discourses on equality, body politics, and fashion.

Feminismus im Zeitschriftenformat? is the first art-historical examination of a selection of these press publications, focusing on the artists as contemporary cultural actors and not shying away from taking a nuanced look at developments after 1933.

In this commemorative publication, companions, colleagues, and former students pay tribute to art historian Johann Michael Fritz on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Fritz has had a lasting influence on research into European gold and silverwork in the Middle Ages and early modern period.
The contributions reflect the main areas of research and the biography of the honoree: examples include the art and architecture of Westphalia, goldsmith’s work from the Middle Ages to the late modern period, and other genres of decorative arts. In addition, fundamental questions of monument preservation are discussed using selected examples. The volume concludes with studies on Christian iconography.

The approximately 2,100 works on paper make up more than two-thirds of Paul Cezanne’s oeuvre. However, compared to his paintings, they have rarely been the focus of attention. Instead, they have been subject to extensive fragmentation, both materially and conceptually.

This study aims to reconstruct the original material context of all the drawings and watercolors. To this end, a systematic survey of the originals was conducted, allowing for a general differentiation between the sketchbooks and loose sheets. In doing so, the individual depictions can be situated within the œuvre, helping to clarify a deeply confusing and convoluted situation.

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The book presents the contributions to the opening section “Guest Country Japan” at the 2022 annual VKKS conference, held at the Institute of Art History, University of Zurich (https://arthist.net/archive/36083). The section offered an interdisciplinary group of scholars key insights into Japan’s museum history, the historiography of art history as a discipline, and research topics ranging from the medieval period to the modern era—from color woodblock prints to photography. The contributions, now brought together in this volume, explore complex inside–out perspectives on the relationship between “East” and “West” within global networks. With contributions from Bettina Gockel, Ikeda Yuko, Susanne Pollack, Judith Rauser, Christian Rümelin, Satō Naoki, Shimizu Minoru, Hans Bjarne Thomsen, and Yamamoto Satomi.

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SKATEBOARD MUSIK STADT is a book and record production that examines skateboarding as an urban phenomenon. Alongside an analytical look at skateboarding as cultural practice, the project features an artistic perspective in Lea Letzel’s concert performance 2 Second Manual. Here, skateboard sounds are creatively blended with musical instruments like violin and percussion, presenting a unique auditory experience.

The vinyl record accompanying the publication offers an acoustic impression of the performance, bringing its soundscapes to life. An essay by Konstantin Butz provides theoretical and historical reflections on the intersection of skateboarding and sound, contextualizing the movements and sounds associated with skateboarding in urban environments.

The study substantiates a new thesis on the Berlin drawing collection with the famous drawings of Rome. Its author was not, as traditionally assumed, Maarten van Heemskerck, but Cornelis Floris (1514-1575), creator of numerous figurative tombs, architect of the Antwerp town hall and inventor of the Dutch grotesque. Floris' engagement with the works of antiquity and the Renaissance - documented in three sketchbooks created between 1535/6 and 1538 in Mantua and Rome - was central to his later work.

In Kooperation mit dem Deutschen Zentrum Kulturgutverluste führte die KPF.NRW von September 2023 bis April 2024 ein Projekt zur Erforschung der Kunsthändlerin Dr. Andreina Schwegler-Torré (1908–1991) und ihrem Handel mit Kunst- und Kulturgütern aus der ehemaligen SBZ und DDR durch. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg stand sie nachweislich in Kontakt mit Institutionen und Personen in der ehemaligen DDR. Beispielweise pflegte die gebürtige Mailänderin, die durch ihre Ehe mit dem Schweizer Alfred Schwegler Schweizer Bürgerrecht erhielt, geschäftliche Verbindungen mit den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Für die Untersuchung ihrer Person von Bedeutung war aber auch ihr Handeln und ihre Verstrickung in der NS-Zeit. Ziel des Projektes war daher die Rekonstruktion ihrer Biografie, ihrer kunsthändlerischen Aktivitäten und Handelsnetzwerke sowie die Identifizierung von Objekten, mit denen Schwegler-Torré u.a. in ihrer Züricher Galerie Ars Domi handelte.

Die Ergebnisse dieses Projekts, aber auch die noch vorhandenen Desiderate sollen in der Publikation veröffentlicht werden, damit auf der Grundlage des generierten Sachstands und der Schlüsseldokumente eine weiterführende Forschung erfolgen kann. Dabei sollen sich die verschiedenen, teils divergierenden Facetten der Kunsthändlerin in der Gliederung sowie durch die (farbliche) Gestaltung des Layouts widerspiegeln. Neben eines biographischen Abrisses sollen die Persönlichkeit Schwegler-Torrés, ihre Händlertätigkeit sowie ihre Netzwerke in Form von „Spotlights“ charakterisiert werden. Diese „Spotlights“ orientieren sich an einzelnen geographischen Stationen ihrer Biographie und enthalten neben verschiedenen Beiträgen, Zitate befragter Zeitzeug:innen, Zitate aus den Quellen sowie Fotografien/Abbildungen. Daneben werden in den einzelnen „Spotlights“ auch die Quellen und Schlüsseldokumente abgebildet, um sie für die Forschung direkt zugänglich und nutzbar zu machen.

Blanché's book uses a cultural studies approach to examine how images of apes and monkeys changed and migrated massively between 1859 and 2014 in art, caricature, film, pop culture, etc. It shows that apes do not appear as “animals per se,” but rather as different projection surfaces for human ideas—earlier as devils, sinners, or fools, and then, during the period under investigation, as mirrors, threats, or positive alter egos of humans. Works by Frémiet, Picabia, Kahlo, Bacon, Koons, Fairhurst, Banksy, Huyghe, and others are analyzed, as well as films and music videos. Images featuring apes negotiate boundaries between nature and culture, humans and animals, as well as power, gender, and identity, the West and the rest, etc.

Der vorliegende Band präsentiert Beiträge und Ergebnisse des Workshops "Erwerbungen und Provenienzen islamischer Kunst zwischen 1933 und 1945 – Aktuelle Forschung und Vernetzung", der im Oktober 2023 von der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, den Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin und dem Deutschen Zentrum Kulturgutverluste organisiert wurde. Als erste Veranstaltung dieser Art bot der Workshop eine Plattform für den interdisziplinären Austausch und die Vernetzung von Forschenden zur Provenienz islamischer Kunst während der NS-Zeit.

The subject of the study is the retable of the high altar in the church of St. Michael in Niederrotweil am Kaiserstuhl, created by the monogramist H.L. It is one of the highlights of wooden sculpture in the Upper Rhine region at the end of the Late Gothic period. Based on the material and technical findings as well as taking into account the long history of research, the original appearance and the changes made later are clarified. A further focus is the detailed analysis of the representations. These are - hitherto unrecognised - to be seen as extremely critical artistic confrontations of H.L. with works by Hans Baldung and Albrecht Dürer. The peculiarities of the artistic design and the question of dating are also discussed.