On Monday, 27 January 2025, 7:30–9:00 pm (Lecture Hall 102, Philosophikum, Domplatz 23) Prof. Dr. Johannes Grave (Jena) will give his Fellow Lecture on the topic of “Access Dynamics of Romantic Art: Two Spotlights on French Painting” (in German). Based on the realisation that access to cultural goods has a considerable influence on their production and reception, especially in the visual arts, the lecture will examine the concrete dynamics of access using two examples from French Romantic painting.
On Monday, 20 January 2025, 4:15–6:30pm (Room 201, Philosophikum, Domplatz 23), Dr. Regine Ehleiter (Berlin) will give her Fellow Lecture on the topic “’Page Not Found‘: On the (in)accessibility of artistic publication and exhibition projects in the digital age – a stocktaking”. In her lecture, she will reconstruct striking examples of digital artistic publishing from the 2000s and raise the question of the extent to which the ideal of a ‘dematerialisation’ of art that emerged in conceptualism has been realised in the digital age, to the point of making it untraceable. The lecture suggests breaking new ground in the documentation and preservation of digital practices of making art public by drawing on findings from neighbouring disciplines. The lecture will be held in German.
On Monday, 9 December 2024,Prof. Dr. Sophia Prinz (Zurich) held a lecture on the topic “Die Ausstellung als Interface. Analoge und digitale Displays” (“The exhibition as an interface.Analogue and digital displays”) (in German). Using the example of the exhibition ‘Mobile Worlds’, the lecture showed the extent to which digital forms of exhibition offer opportunities that go far beyond the usual, one-sided digitisation of the analogue and thus also offer the possibility of questioning the museological order of knowledge and practice together with its immanent power relations. At the centre of the considerations is the display, which should be conceived not as analogue, but as digital and therefore interactive. Succeeding, this could be understood as a central step towards a post-digital ‘pluriversal museum’.
On Tuesday, 26 November 2024, as part of the lecture series “Making of: Rethinking Places of History” of the Villa ten Hompel, Prof. Dr. Lioba Keller-Drescher (Münster) spoke on “Fülle und Leere. Kuratieren als Ermöglichen” (in German).The lecture used historical and current examples to examine the changing tasks and practices of curating. In recent years, curating has become a kind of buzzword for cultural action. On the other hand, curating has become a sophisticated programme term for extended exhibition practice in cultural institutions. If we translate ‘curating’ as ‘enabling access’ to cultural heritage, the culture of remembrance and cultural artefacts, then a broad field of possibilities and demands on the activity of curating and on the people and institutions working in this field becomes apparent.
On Monday, 25 November 2024,Prof. Dr Hubert Locher (Marburg) gave his Fellow Lecture on the topic “Art for all? Art history, the concept of art, the canon – accessibility and questions of value in the digital age”. The lecture aimed to show how ‘digitalisation’ has already changed the practice of art history in order to then attempt outlining the effects the ubiquity of the digital has had on the concept of art that is effective today. In the context of the Centre's topic, the lecture will focus especially on questions of ‘accessibility’ in relation to ‘works of art’ and in general with regard to cultural goods, problematizing questions of selection and evaluation from the perspective of the history of science and media. The lecture will be held in German.
On Wednesday, 20 November 2024, Prof. Dr. Ossi Naukkarinen (Helsinki) gave his guest lecture on the topic “Slow humanities and computerized sciolism”. The talk focused on the question of how the unavoidable and positive slowness of the humanities can be preserved and even strengthened in the age of digital technologies and how we gain the skills and patience to use fast tools slowly. Both academic humanistic education and research as well as memory institutions such as museums and archives play a crucial role in this.
On Monday, 18 November 2024, Dr. Johanna Laakkonen (Helsinki) gave a guest lecture on the topic “Does digitalization force us to forget? Performing arts as an example”. In her presentation, she examined the issues of documenting and preserving the cultural heritage of the performing arts from the perspective of practical museum work. She asked what kinds of demands memory organisations storing intangible cultural heritage face in the digital age and whether the material turn will change the practices and ways of documentation.
The conference “Zugänge zum Textilen. Wissenschaftliche, kuratorische und digitale Perspektiven.”(Approaches to Textiles. Scholarly, Curatorial and Digital Perspectives. Conference of the Commission for Material Culture and Museum in the DGEKW, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaften e. V.) took place from 11 to 12 November 2024 at the Erbdrostenhof in Münster (in German). Among other topics, it addressed the following questions: How can access to textile collection areas be regained or re-established, and what role can digitization play in the scientific and curatorial re-examination? How does digitality change access to textiles? The conference was organised by Prof. Dr. Lioba Keller-Drescher (Institute for Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, Inhouse Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”) and Dr. Kirsten Bernhardt (LWL-Museumsamt für Westfalen, Münster).
Since 1 October 2024, Prof. Dr. Hubert Locher has been a new Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study. He is Professor of History and Theory of Visual Media at the Philipps University of Marburg and Director of the German Documentation Centre for Art History – Bildarchiv Foto Marburg. Hubert Locher’s research interests include art literature and theory of the modern and contemporary era, the history of art history and its methodology, word-image relations since the early modern era, reception aesthetics and history, museum and exhibition history, theory and history of photography as a medium of documentation and art, theory and use of the digital image.
Since 1 October 2024, Dr. Thomas Kater has been a new Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study. Dr. Thomas Kater’s research focuses on literary theory and aesthetics, German literature of the 17th and 18th centuries and contemporary literature. After working at the University of Münster, he was a research assistant at the Chair of Modern German Literature with a systematic focus at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, most recently substituting the junior professorship for children’s and young adult literature. His work focuses on publishing and distribution practices as well as the materiality and mediality of literature.
Since 1 October 2024, Prof. Dr. Johannes Grave has been a new Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study. He is Professor of Modern Art History (with a focus on European Romanticism) at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. In 2023, he was elected a member of the Academia Europaea; since 2024, he has been one of the vice presidents of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Grave’s research focuses on questions of image theory and historical image concepts; temporality of the image and image reception; practices of comparison; art, art theory and art history around 1800; Italian painting of the early Renaissance, and French painting of the 17th to 19th centuries.
Since 1 October 2024, Dr. Regine Ehleiter has been a new Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study. She was previously a research associate at the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities. Doing Literature in a Global Perspective” at the Freie University Berlin, the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and the University of Hildesheim. Her work focusses on modern and contemporary art. Her research interests include transnational exhibition history, artistic writing and publication practices and ecological discourses.
A week of researching and teaching, learning and living in (the middle of) the museum: from 22 to 27 July 2024, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology organized a one-week practical course on current topics and tasks of museums together with the LWL Open-Air Museum Detmold (“Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Alltagskultur”). Participants gained in-depth insights into the museum as a field of practice, as a place of research, as a collection and educational institution and much more. It was headed by Prof. Dr Lioba Keller-Drescher, in-house fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study. Guest curator was Dr. Birgit Johler, Senior Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study.
On 15 July 2024, the senior fellows Dr. Prathiba Mahanamahewa (Univ. of Colombo), Prof. Dr. Nishantha Sampath Punchihewa (Univ. of Colombo) and Prof. Dr. W. K. M. Mervin Kumara Weerasinghe (Univ. of Kelaniya) gave an insight into the topic „Digital Access to Library Content – Legal Frameworks in Germany and Sri Lanka“ in their lecture.
On 8 July 2024, Prof. Dr. Thomas Gutmann held his Fellow Lecture “‘Cultural Appropriation’. Questions about a concept“. In his lecture, he discussed whether cultural appropriation is suitable as a tool of criticism, how other concepts are important to be differentiated from it and what makes a group a possible legal entity with regard to cultural property and inheritance. Thomas Gutman’s lecture was followed by a vivid discussion containing both positive comments as well as critical questions.
On 17 June 2024, Dr. Fatmeh Masdari presented in her lecture titled “Embodied Aesthetics – Exploring the Creation and Perception of Artistic Works in the Realms of Human Cognition and Artificial Intelligence” some theses from the project of her second doctoral thesis, dedicated to the investigation of AI-based art. In addition to discussing the societal impacts of AI-generated artworks on the accessibility of art in general, Masdari also explored how AI art could alter our understanding of human aesthetic experience.
In her lecture “The Sculptural in the (Post-)Digital Age” on 13 May 2024, Prof. Dr. Ursula Ströbele discussed if it is still possible to give a definition of the sculptural in times of digital art (and art permeated by the logic of the digital). To this end, she examined traditional dictums from art theory with regard to their validity in relation to artworks based on augmented, virtual or mixed reality technologies. Ströbele also pointed out the institution-critical potential of digital technologies in art – especially with regard to questions of access to artworks.
On 6 May 2024, Dr. Jiang Jun presented the curatorial concept of the China Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in his lecture “Physical Loss and Digital Reclamation – The Curatorial Concept of the China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale”. At the China Pavilion, digital access is provided to ancient Chinese paintings which would otherwise be lost for the public. Dr. Jiang Jun is curator, art critic and postdoctoral fellow at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, and co-curator of the China Pavilion of the 60th Biennale di Venezia.
From 4 to 6 April 2024, the Centre for Advanced Study hosted the workshop “Protecting and accessing cultural goods in wartime – Case Studies and Lessons from Armenia and Ukraine”.War not only threatens the lives and physical integrity of people; cultural goods are also at risk of damage and total loss during war. Protecting them in the event of war is an important task for every community, and digitalisation enables new forms and modes of preserving cultural goods or their blueprints that give people access to them in times of war and even more so afterwards. Based on examples and experiences from Armenia and Ukraine, the workshop discussed practical questions and ethical aspects of the protection of cultural goods during war.
In the winter semester 2023/24 the study project “Kunststoffalltage” of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology presented its results with an exhibition. Plastic artefacts were presented as “roommates” of student daily life: Objects such as remote controls and toothbrush mugs were used to interpret the everyday dimensions of plastic use. The project was directed by Prof. Dr. Lioba Keller-Drescher, Professor for European Ethnology and in-house fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study. This video provides an insight into the exhibition.
Students from the University of Münster learned how access to art is created in museums at the students' day at the Bremen Kunsthalle on 23 January 2024. In tours, lectures and discussions with curators, they gained insights into museum work and were able to find out how an exhibition is created – from the initial idea to the installation of the pictures shortly before the opening. Jule Welling, Adelina Meyer and Felix Bomkamp, who are studying at the Institute of Art History at the University of Münster, talk about their experiences at the students' day in a TV report on SAT.1 (in German).
On 15 January 2024, Prof. Dr. Mariya Rohozha, Professor of Philosophy at Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev, was a guest of the Centre for Advanced Study. Her lecture “Memes in Transformation of the Ukrainian Media Landscape in the Context of War” took place as part of the sub-project “How to Deal with Cultural Goods in War and Post-war Times: An Ethical Analysis. Also a Contribution to the Foundation of an Ethics of Access to Cultural Goods in an International Perspective”.
Prof. Dr. Ruben Apressyan has been a new member of academic staff at the Centre for Advanced Study since 1 January 2024. He is heading the sub-project “How to Deal with Cultural Goods in War and Post-war Times: An Ethical Analysis”. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Centre.
Arslan Sheikh is a Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study from 1 January 2024. He is based at the Junaid Zaidi Library, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is currently a PhD student at the Institute for Library and Information Science, Humboldt University, Berlin. His research topic is “Open Science in the Pakistani Perspective”, which is being supervised by Prof. Dr. Eric Steinhauer, who is a Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study.
On 4 December 2023, Prof. Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz gave the Fellow Lecture „Die Öffnung des Museums und das Geheimnis der Sammlungen“ (“The opening of the museum and the secret of the Collections”). In his lecture, Erhard Schüttpelz contested the most famous founding myth of the modern museum which is attributed to the French Revolution, in the course of which the iconoclastic vandalism of the revolutionaries turned into the public display of national cultural assets. The former secret of feudal, monastic and scholarly collections became the public trusteeship of several modern institutions: Museum, academia and the art trade. The lecture aimed to counter this reduction to a single European history and its generalisation through the perspective of a Long Duration („Lange Dauer“), including Christopher Bayly’s characterisation of an archaic globalisation and Mary W. Helms’ theory of a fundamental exoticism of all cultures and the anchoring of its passion for collecting in their respective religious and political centres of power.