Image, Object, Site.
Mediterranean / Transcultural Art Histories
Department Gerhard Wolf

The projects of the department investigate the ways in which objects and images partake in the formation and transformation of environments, and vice versa. The environments studied are shaped partly or fully by humans and technology (including museums and the digital world), and they involve specific temporalities and interrelated spatial dimensions: they are historical phenomena. Objects and images in turn are viewed in their materiality, mediality and mobility, inviting a critical cross reading of recent debates on images and things. Under these premises, the projects of the department (with a pre-modern focus) map and analyze constellations and the interactions of images, objects and sites; interfaces between cultural heritage and environment, between ecology and aesthetics. Major fields of inquiry are transcultural dynamics of various scales in relation to time and space; the transformative aspects of the migration of objects and mobile memories; locative practices and the multiple nature of sites (social, religious, political, artistic); catastrophes (such as earthquakes and wars) and the responsibilities of art history in the face of these.