Conception of Conferences and Lecture Series

How can one practice art history/art theory in a global world? What does «Global Art History» mean? Is today’s art on the road to becoming global? Questions such as these marked the beginning of a lecture series that began under the heading «Global Art History» in October 2015. Two years later, the event, conceptualized together with Julia Allerstorfer, finds in «Global Art History [2]» a continuation, extension and deepening.

At L.I.S.A., dem Wissenschaftsportal der Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the lectures are available online.

the Faculty of Philosophy and of Art History (KU Linz), the Department of Cultural Studies (Kunstuniversität Linz) and the IDA – Institute of Dance Arts (ABPU Linz).

The twentieth-century stood under the sign of the sign. Since Ferdinand de Saussure different tendencies arose: an orientation towards a language-analogue structure of extra-linguistic contexts (culture as text), a discovery of the materiality of signs in art and science within the game of signifiers, and observations of the efficacies of language (Wittgenstein’s language games). The conference, which was conceptualized with Karin Harrasser, did not ask about the what of the sign, but the when / where / how of marking and evoking signs.

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The results of the conference, that are extended by additional contributions, were published under the title ZEICH(N)EN. SETZEN. Bedeutungsgenerierung im Mäandern zwischen Bildern und Begriffen at transcript: Bielefeld 2020.

How can one practice art history/art theory in a global world? What does «Global Art History» mean? Is today’s art on the road to becoming global? For the lecture series, conceptualized together with Julia Allerstorfer, leading figures are engaged, among them Monica Juneja, Hamid Keshmirshekan, Christian Kravagna und Silvia Naef.

At L.I.S.A., dem Wissenschaftsportal der Gerda Henkel Stiftung all lectures are available online.

Additionally, the contributions are published in an edited volume: “Global Art History”. Transkulturelle Verortungen von Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft, transcript: Bielefeld 2017 (with texts in German and English).

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«The future belongs to phantoms», says Jacques Derrida in the film Ghost Dance of the British film director Kevin McMullen in 1983. Thirty-one years later and ten years after Derrida’s death in 2004 an international colloquium took this quotation as a motto, to address oneself to the topical field of art and politics in/of deconstruction. The event, which was conceptualized together with Artur R. Boelderl gathered leading figures like Alain David, Safaa Fathy and Georg Christoph Tholen as well as emerging researchers.

The conference proceedings, that are extended by a number of additional contributions, were published under the title «Die Zukunft gehört den Phantomen.» Kunst und Politik nach Derrida at transcript: Bielefeld 2018.

Beautiful, ugly, sublime – these words are quickly voiced when one wants to characterize art, or, more commonly, perceptions and observations. Similarly, one uses concepts like sign and performativity, mimesis and temporality. In the lecture series, which was conceptualized together with Max Gottschlich and Susi Winder, eight classical and contemporary aesthetic categories were questioned from art historical and philosophical perspectives.

The lectures, that are extended by additional contributions from notable academics, were published under the title Ästhetische Kategorien. Perspektiven der Kunstwissenschaft und der Philosophie at transcript: Bielefeld 2017.

Artists develop specific forms of research and by doing so query traditional methods of science. The symposium, which was conceptualized together with Hannes Langbein (Berlin), aimed to reflect the relation between art and theology under the paradigm of artistic research in a new manner. It obtained both to open new qualities for theology as a theoretical and practical discipline, and to questions of artistic research.

The conference proceedings, that are extended by a number of artistic and theoretical contributions, were published in a volume of kunst und kirche under the title kunst forscht.

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Georges Bataille (1897–1962) is one of the most important French thinkers of the twentieth-century. The event on occasion of the 50^th anniversary of his death, which was conceptualized together with Artur R. Boelderl and Ansgar Kreutzer, aimed to approach Bataille’s multi-faceted thinking as broadly as possible. It considered not only aspects of Bataille’s philosophy, but also of sociology and cultural studies, religious studies and theology, art history and literary criticism.

The conference proceedings were published at Turia + Kant (Wien) in 2015.

After nineteen artistic positions have been shown in the context of the exhibition series Im Vorbeigehen (curated together with Johanna Schwanberg), where one could meet contemporary art in all its facets, it was time to pause and reflect on the presented works; the various efficiencies and incitements of art; and the dialogue between art and science. The result was the book Was spricht das Bild?, which was presented at a symposium where artists, authors and academics discussed the aforementioned questions.

in cooperation with the Department of Church History, University of Fribourg

In the context of the course «Christliche Spiritualität. Geschichte, Quellen, heutige Praxis» I conceived and executed the module, Ways of Seeing. It involved three lectures and accompanying workshops:

1. Prohibition of Images and Visionary Perception
2. Visions and Representation of Visions in the Writings of Hildegard von Bingen
3. Seeing of Images. Pictures of the Side Wound of Christ in Late-Medieval Book Illumination

to the course

In everyday language, the terms «art» and «beautiful» are often linked to each other. And not least, refusing judgements show how much art is considered to be beautiful. In the lecture series, which was conceptualized together with Marianne Betz, four representatives of the four universities at Linz reflected the relationship between the arts and the beautiful from four different perspectives. They reconstructed the development of these relations throughout history and questioned their impetus and relevance for today.

We are surrounded by pictures and we use them in multiple ways. They are natural in common life as well as in the humanities and sciences. He who can show pictures, thinks to be armed with certainty. But at the same time a deep mistrust of pictures accompanies occidental cultural and intellectual history: are not they phantasmagoria that are taken for reality? In the Ringvorlesung, which was conceptualized together with Michael Hofer, academics from different disciplines of the four universities in Linz took a stand on this complex and current range of topics.

The lecture proceedings were published under the title Evidenz und Täuschung at transcript: Bielefeld 2017.

INST Institut zur Erforschung und Förderung österr. u. internat. Literaturprozesse, Wien

Section Chair at the Conference Innovationen und Reproduktionen in Kulturen und Gesellschaften / Innovations and Reproductions in Cultures and Societies / Innovations et reproductions dans les cultures et les sociétés_IRICS.

INST Institut zur Erforschung und Förderung österr. u. internat. Literaturprozesse, Wien

Section Chair at the Conference Das Verbindende der Kulturen / The Unifying Aspects of Cultures / Les points communs des cultures.

on the occasion of the exhibition project n e x u s im Rahmen des Europäischen Kulturmonats 1998 in the context of the European Cultural Month.

Nexus stands for both “connections” and “entanglements”, it penetrates the area of the bridgehead of Urfahr, on the left bank of the Danube. At n e x u s symposium, which was conceptualized together with Johanna Schwanberg, representatives of the involved institutions (Georg Ritter, Gerfried Stocker and Rainer Zendron, among others) took a stand on this spatial, sociological, ideological and aesthetic texture. The research outcomes derived in advance from fieldwork in this place, as well as the contributions to the symposium, and the documentation of the artistic projects, were published under the title n e x u s. Künstlerische Interventionen im Stadtraum m Springer-Verlag publiziert at Springer: Wien/New York 1998. (out of print).

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Organizer: KSÖ Wien

Advisor for (feminist) Theology