Research

Ecology and Aesthetics. Environmental Approaches in Art History

Ecological and aesthetic theories are intertwined in multiple ways. The project opens a dialogue with archeology, anthropology and history of science concerned with the "anthropocene", rethinking the nature/culture divide in a transcultural perspective, including notions of heritage and sustainability, creation and consumption.

Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices. Kunstgeschichte und ästhetische Praktiken

A Berlin based research and fellowship program that questions and transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries in a transcultural, global horizon. By creating a space of dialogue for scholars from all continents, it discusses the potential and contours of a plural history of art.

Sacred Landscapes:
Between Materiality, Transportability and Narration (Jerusalem Project)

Sacred Landscapes, in particular deserts and mountains are liminal spaces and also places of aesthetic production or response. Their dimensions are material, narrative and iconic, and they are connected to monumental sacred sites. The long-term Jerusalem project is concerned with all these aspects and analyses the ways in which they are intertwined.

Il Progetto EUPLOOS

Il Progetto Euploos intende promuovere un dialogo internazionale tra la comunità dei ricercatori e degli studiosi offrendo uno strumento di ricerca in...

Bilderfahrzeuge. Warburg's Legacy and the Future of Iconology

Der Forschungsverbund hat zum Ziel, die Migration von Bildern, Artefakten und Ideen aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive zu erforschen. Dabei geht es besonders um Beziehungen zwischen Kulturen, die sich in Zeit und Ort, Sprache, Religion und politischer Ordnung unterscheiden, und um die theoretischen Implikationen von solchen Migrations-, Transformations- und Interaktionsprozessen.

Doctoral Projects

Pompeji als Restaurierungsarchiv und Ausstellungslabor (1748–2014)

Eine natur- und geisteswissenschaftliche Untersuchung der Restaurierungs- und Musealisierungsgeschichte Pompejis verbunden mit dem Ziel der Entwicklung innovativer, nachhaltiger Restaurierungsmaterialien und Verfahren.

Transregional Art Histories Actors, Spaces, Ecologies from the 13th Century to the Present

Research in this unit focuses on the history of art and of aesthetic practices in transregional and ecological perspectives. With a strong interest in the materiality of art and of artistic practices, it investigates works of art in relation to place, space, and environment.

Georgia and the Caucasus: Aesthetics, Art, and Architecture

While most debates regarding intercultural dynamics between Christianity, Islam and Judaism are concerned with the Mediterranean, this project is concentrating on the art and architecture of South Caucasus, an under these premises hardly studied region comprising Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Georgian and Armenian heritage in Eastern Turkey.

Connecting Art Histories in the Museum: Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe, 400-1900

The program combines academic and museum research with curatorship, focusing on artistic and cultural interactions in and between Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Mediterranean and Europe.

The Art of Containment

The Art of Containment is a recently started long-term collaborative research and exhibition project. It is concerned with all kinds of vessels and containers, their materiality, shape and decoration, their functions and agency, their biographies and itineraries. The project is the next step in the research focus on concepts and theories, relations and constellations of image and object (Ding/Bild).

Art, Dialogue, History: Sources and Practice Discourses of Italian Art from a Historical Perspective

Understanding the complex objects of art history in their material and technical disposition and functionality requires deeper insight into the histor...

Convivencia: Iberian to Global Dynamics (500–1750)

Using the term CONVIVENCIA with a question mark, the project investigates the cooperative and conflictual interactions of different cultural and religious communities in the Iberian "world" from the sixth to the eighteenth centuries, also including comparative studies in other areas.

Postdoctoral Projects

Etho-Ästhetiken des Visuellen

Die weitreichenden Beziehungen zwischen Kunst, Visualität und Ethik benötigen eine grundlegende Untersuchung. Die Kunst- und Bildgeschichte hat sich d...

Storia dell'arte e catastrofi (I): L'Italia sismica (sta-sis)

Il progetto elabora nuove forme d'impegno della storia dell'arte nel mondo contemporaneo, soprattutto di fronte ai disastrosi eventi sismici che hanno colpito L'Aquila (2009), il territorio emiliano (2012) e il centro Italia (2016), e più in generale considerando le sfide catastrofiche al patrimonio monumentale e artistico.