Theory and history of art and visual culture
Theory and history of art and visual culture
We are interested in art, its history and theory in context. The question is how they are involved in social and political processes and, not least, in media history and how they are determined by them at the same time. After all, art as a specific, historical form of aesthetic practice is always in dialogue with other forms of cultural, not just visual, practices. The term "visual culture" refers to practices of visualisation that encompass far more than art - such as architecture, illustration, advertising and web design, i.e. practices that are an integral part of everyday life and science. In this respect, it is also about questions that are often discussed under the heading of visual studies. This is linked to inter-/transdisciplinary issues as well as questions of intermediality.
read more
The concept of art has become historical and at the same time is in a constant state of change, as are the institutions of art education, be they exhibitions or museums or even technical reproductions. They not only promote different approaches to artistic works, but also different evaluations, each containing specific inclusions and exclusions.
Questions about history are always formulated from the present. This also applies to the history of art. The focus of our teaching and research practice is on the field of (Western) European and North American modernism as well as postmodernism and late modernism. However, we also look at earlier artistic practices and objects, especially if they are necessary for understanding the present (even if only for contrast). This can apply to images of the body and gender, for example, but also to ideas of space and time as well as theorems of art criticism and art historiography. Without a look back, the present remains misunderstood and it is impossible to formulate truly well-founded plans for the future.
Processes of globalisation have long since taken hold of the art world, have thoroughly questioned the traditional understanding of (European) art history and challenge the institutions of the art world. The extent to which concepts of a "global art history", as they are currently being discussed in many places, can represent an adequate response to these challenges remains questionable. Postcolonial movements in various parts of the world not only demand that we question our traditional ideas of modernity, centre and periphery, but also that we revise the way we deal with whiteness as a hierarchical principle of order, for example.
Last but not least, they are also forcing questions about the role of art and visual cultures in the creation and consolidation of inequalities - between genders, ethnicities, classes and social strata, questions that are also posed by social movements such as the women's movement, lesbian, gay, trans and queer movements and anti-racist movements (see also "Gender Studies in Art and Cultural Studies").
Current research projects
Securities of art. Authentication as an artistic concept in times of financial crises 1720-2020
A DFG project by Prof Dr Tobias Vogt with the collaboration of Dr des. Lukas Töpfer. gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/514731806
With the advance of digitalised and globalised information technologies, the use of authentication has gained attention not only in economics and law, but also in the visual arts. This research project is the first to examine artistically conceived certificates and contracts, which have become constitutive for the status and value of works of art as authentication procedures since the early 18th century due to increased capitalist and colonial trade relations. The guiding assumption is that artists in particular have reflected on these specific procedures of authentication themselves and integrated them into the structure of their works. At the centre of the project is, firstly, the question of an art history of authentication in overarching social and financial-historical contexts and, secondly, the question of the conception of authentication between accessory and work. In other words, it works through historically and theoretically what has so far only been researched marginally and in a particular way in art history, but is currently even reaching a broad public using the example of digital certification practices of reproduced artworks. The hypothesis is that authentications emerge as artistically conceived in particular when a prevailing value structure in the financial system is radically transformed. The aim is to reconstruct how these authentications become "securities of art" in five neuralgic periods between 1720 and 2020, which not only react to these crises, but also act as commentary, criticism or even corrective. The project aims to demonstrate this using subscription notes and related prints from around 1720 in London, caricatures and trompe-l'œils of paper money during the French Revolution, artistically interwoven bonds in the Roaring Twenties, authentications in New York Conceptual Art and contracts and certificates in contemporary installations. A financial-historical spectrum thus appears in the background, ranging from the burst "South Sea Bubble", an early speculative bubble caused by the transatlantic slave trade, to the global and digital markets of the present day. The project is divided into two parts, which are interlinked in such a way that they each give different weight to art-historical constellations and art-theoretical analyses. The central research questions thus concern both the interweaving of art history with financial history and a reorientation of the understanding of the "work" beyond the terms "parergon" and "paratext" in order to analyse from two sides - historically and theoretically - the shift from the authentication of art to authentication as art that is asserted here.