Le livre de la cité des dames (The Book of the City of Ladies) by the French writer and philosopher Christine de Pizan (1364 – ca. 1430) is among the most widely-read texts of the early 15th century and is considered to be one of the first feminist works in European literature. As the fruit of a highly-educated author’s broad range of reading, it reflects the intellectual and socio-political debates of its time, and the aesthetics of the book also demonstrate how Christine de Pizan took care to publish her verbal and visual compositions in a complex and self-assured form.

Multidisciplinary engagement with the many aspects of “Christine de Pizan” as a research topic continues today in an unbroken tradition. The art historian and philosopher Monika Leisch-Kiesl, an expert in both historical gender studies and book illumination, now convincingly succeeds in bringing observers and readers into the often-surprising intellectual world of a young female writer at the French court in the early Renaissance. She emphasises not least the still-powerful utopian potential of this poet who worked in early 15th-century Paris. Furthermore, Sibylle Ryser’s exceptional and perfectly-matched design for this bilingual edition brings a gem of medieval book art into an enlightening dialogue with its scholarly analysis.

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Book presentation on Dec. 07, 2021_online

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How do images gain relevance? On the basis of the large-format drawings by artist Toba Khedoori, Monika Leisch-Kiesl’s study situates itself between semiotic and phenomenological theorems. The author investigates the specific qualities of drawing in an examination of the 1990s and 2000s and asks: How does an image become a sign? This permits, or even evokes a contextualization with various social and cultural correlations. The second question: How does a sign become an image? implies a specific form of attention. Jacques Derrida’s concept of brisure – «hinge,» as he introduced it in De la grammatologie – leads to a conversation between the images of Khedoori and the texts of Derrida and opens up an area of reflection «in the blank space of the inter-text» / «dans le blanc de l’entre-texte.»

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English Appetizer (2018) online

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with a text by monika leisch-kiesl and drawings of the author

first edition 2020
75 copies, for family and friends
25 numbered copies with an original drawing

edition hofkabinett

How do images gain relevance? On the basis of the large-format drawings by artist Toba Khedoori, Monika Leisch-Kiesl’s study situates itself between semiotic and phenomenological theorems. The author investigates the specific qualities of drawing in an examination of the 1990s and 2000s and asks: How does an image become a sign? This permits, or even evokes a contextualization with various social and cultural correlations. The second question: How does a sign become an image? implies a specific form of attention. Jacques Derrida’s concept of brisure – «hinge,» as he introduced it in De la grammatologie – leads to a conversation between the images of Khedoori and the texts of Derrida and opens up an area of reflection «in the blank space of the inter-text» / «dans le blanc de l’entre-texte.»

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English Appetizer

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Religion and aesthetics take a key position within the filmic oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman and Luis Buñuel, two significant, but nonetheless very different twentieth century film directors. The divergences between these two filmmakers can be outlined with regards to both their specific filmic languages, and to their formative cultural and religious milieus. Bergman emerged from the context of Swedish Protestantism, and Buñuel from Spanish Catholicism. […]This volume provides fundamental reflections on film and on religion, as well as a number of analyses of selected films.

book review in: MEDIENwissenschaft 2007/01

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Eve as the Other examines both the model of woman drawn by a male perspective, and it is a draft of autonomous woman being within and beyond that occidental tradition. Max Beckmann’s painting on the cover of this book points to the actuality of this complex of themes which continue to persist in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Reviews:
Die Philosophin 5/9 (1994)
Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 116/3 (1994)
Mediaevistik 7 (1994)

out of print.
Croatian translation: Eva kao drukcija, Zagreb 2014

Digitalisitat der vollständigen Dissertation (incl. der Quellentexte in Originalsprache) abrufbar über die Universitätsbibliothek der KU Linz

At the close of the twentieth century, questions concerning cultural self-conception focus on the relevance of memory, remembering and oblivion. This study of the work of Arnulf Rainer offers a reinterpretation of his oeuvre. It aims to grasp his artistic strategies of drawing and painting-over, against the background of the aforementioned cultural and philosophical horizon.

Book Review by Anselm Wagner, in: kunsthistoriker aktuell 1/97

out of print. remainders can be ordered::
office@leisch-kiesl.com

Edition A: Concrete, 2020. Pencil and watercolor on paper, 30 x 21 cm
als Fine Art Print, 1–20

Edition B: Clean Up, 2020. Pencil and watercolor on paper, 30 x 21 cm
als Fine Art Print, 1–20

together with a signed book: 180,– €
for both editions: 300,– €
plus postage

for further information and orders:
office@leisch-kiesl.com

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This book enquires not so much about the “what” of the sign but about the when / where / how of evoking a sign (Zeichensetzung). How can we recognize a mark or a trace as a sign. What are the aesthetic, mediatic and politic preconditions? What (different) roles does the evoking of signs in everyday life play in culture and in the arts? Which theoretical approaches from antiquity, the modern era or current discussions are worth taking up and exploring again?

In four panels, a prelude, an intermezzo and a coda, artistic positions such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Paul Valéry, Birgit Jürgenssen, Thomas Fatzinek and representatives of art, dance, culture and media scholarship as well as of semiotics and philosophy – including Claudia Jeschke, Karin Krauthausen, Sebastian Egenhofer, Aloisia Moser, Barbara Schrödl, Ludwig Jäger and Sarah Sander – engage in an inquisitive and lively discussion and make some surprising discoveries.

With drawings by Maria Bussmann and a letter from Hélène Cixous.

DOI: 10.14361/9783839451281
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online access: Academia.edu
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Günter Rombold (1925–2017), Professor of Philosophy, Art History and Aesthetics at the Catholic Private University Linz, collected contemporary art throughout his life: primarily graphic art, but also paintings and sculptures. The majority of his high-caliber collection, which comprised nearly 1,100 works, was entrusted to the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Upper Austrian State Museum) through two donations (in 2000 and 2016) and a bequest (2017); approximately 200 works remained at the University’s Institute for Art History as a study collection. A collection catalogue has been published in connection with the exhibition A Passion for Art: The Rombold Collection; in addition to a complete catalogue raisonné, it contains essays by Sabine Sobotka, Monika Leisch-Kiesl, Alois Kölbl and others, as well as a biography of Günter Rombold.

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«The future belongs to phantoms», says Jacques Derrida in the film Ghost Dance 1983. In his future – which is our present – the authors of this book search for its traces in art history, literary criticism and musicology, in political philosophy, art and psychoanalysis. Pursuing the guideline of his treatment of the (non)shape of the phantom, connoisseurs and readers of Derrida draw an impressive image of deconstruction. […] The book includes contributions by Alain David, Safaa Fathy, Georg Christoph Tholen and Jane Tormey (in English) among others, as well as an initial German translation of Prägnanzen. Lavierungen Colette Deblés by Jacques Derrida.

DOI: 10.14361/9783839442227

book review in: Portal Kunstgeschichte 10/2018

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This volume examines the controversial term «Global Art History». It includes internationally prestigious art historians who focus on specific regions and artistic practices to analyze them in global and transcultural correlations. Global Art History stages definitions of standpoints, theoretical foundations and methodical clarifications – and not least questions about how to think and write art histories beyond Euro-American contexts. The volume includes contributions by Monica Juneja, Hamid Keshmirshekan, Christian Kravagna and Silvia Naef, among others.
Texts are in German or English, abstracts are in German and English.

DOI: 10.14361/9783839440612

book presentation (Nov 7th, 2018) at DEPOT Wien

book review in: KUNSTFORM 20 (2019) Nr. 6

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Without thinking too much we speak about a beautiful outfit, a sublime landscape or a dense atmosphere. An occasionally excessive use of aesthetic categories like these, is a prompt for art history as well as for philosophy to examine their significance. The contributions to this volume consider eight classical and contemporary aesthetic categories: the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, mimesis, atmosphere, temporality, sign and performativity. Their probable semantics are sharpened by a promising interplay between art historical and philosophical approaches.
The contributors include Isabella Guanzini, Dieter Mersch, Barbara Schrödl and Christian Spies, among others.

DOI: 10.14361/9783839435915

Book Review by Ursula Bauss, in: merlowes.de 01/2018
Book Review by Martin A. Hainz, in: fixpoetry.com 08/2017

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Which cognitive processes and dialogues may be initiated by photos, installations or sculptures? What connotations might arise for a philosopher from a watercolor of a dissected plastic flower? What may a theologian combine with prints of undersurfaces of food-packages? And which theories come to mind for a cultural scientist seeing a video-project about the war-torn Sarajevo?
In this text-and-image-volume, nineteen varying medial and content-based artistic positions provoke discussions concerning contemporary art’s contribution to both thousands-of-years-old and highly topical questions. The volume shows, by means of a meeting of art, the humanities and cultural studies, how artists and theorists from very different disciplines often circle similar topics and questions, forming an inspiring texture of observations and reflections.

DOI: 10.14361/transcript.9783839414965

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We are surrounded by pictures and we use them in multiple ways. They are not just natural in common life, as well as in the humanities and sciences, but they are also powerful: he who can show pictures appears to act with certainty. But can one believe pictures? A deep mistrust of pictures accompanies occidental cultural and intellectual history: are not they phantasmagoria that are taken for reality?
The contributors include Karin Bruns +, Thomas Macho, Peter Revers und Petra Velten, among others.

DOI: 10.14361/9783839410035

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«The restructuring of existing churches, especially sanctuaries, is the core task of ecclesiastical building activity during the last twenty years, when almost no new churches were built. The reader of this book becomes acquainted with the broadness of the topic and receives a wide range of suggestions for what may be indispensable reorganizations of church interiors.» (Klemens Richter, Theologische Revue [transl.by M.L-K.])

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A place that fascinates as it gathers a «Museum of the Future», a church, a center for architecture and media, a retirement home and a fair – a miniature edition of urban life. What happens when (twelve) artists light up this seemingly inconspicuous place, and uncover the complexity of the social fabric of buildings, interests and ideologies?
Alongside the project and the exhibition n e x u s, this volume asks questions about art and public space. It connects the artists’ contributions to the inputs of participating theorists, as well as comments from diverse inhabitants. Furthermore, it adds art historical, philosophical and media critical articles and essays which outline the theoretical context around art in public space.

out of print. remainders can be ordered:
office@leisch-kiesl.com

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