Connecting Art Histories in the Museum:
Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe
A research and fellowship program of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Running time: 2010 – 2019
Connecting Art Histories in the Museum combines academic and museum research with curatorship. Set up as a joint project between the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums of Berlin), the innovative fellowship program focuses on artistic and cultural interactions in Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe. Up to six outstanding international young art historians spend one to two years investigating artistic and cultural interactions of this region, based on the objects from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Additional emphasis is placed on the objects’ display in the museums.
The scholars study objects or groups of objects with the aim of fostering the dialogue between Western, Byzantine, Islamic, Asian and African art histories in the museums. Instead of concentrating exclusively on the objects' place in the history of pre-modern art, the research program is concerned with the modern repercussions and relationship between diverse historical topographies. These dynamics are examined in the light of the following questions: How can art historical research deal with the transfer and exchange of moveable or immoveable cultural heritage? How did museums in the past articulate political and cultural attitudes towards historical sites of the production, accumulation, and translation of artifacts? And how do museums, especially new museums, do this today? How do museum displays evaluate and present the ritualistic and aesthetic dimensions of objects? What possible dynamics can be created by the constellations of objects in the museums that are alien to each other in provenance and historical context of consumption?
Museums play a key role in the ongoing redefinition of art and art history and their relation to aesthetics, anthropology, and politics in the decentralized, globalized twenty-first century. With their "universal" collections and ongoing remodellation, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin offer a unique opportunity for research using multidisciplinary approaches on artifacts from different cultures and civilizations.
International doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in art history and related disciplines can apply for the fellowship program. Fellows also have the chance to provide curatorial assistance on individual exhibitions, as well as contribute to the development of new concepts for exhibition practices. Through joint activities of the research group, such as seminars, workshops, excursions, and conferences, its interaction with the Art Histories and Aesthetic practices program the scholarly exchange and research collaboration both within and outside the museums have been optimally developed. A joint book series (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz) presenting the results of the individual projects was started in 2014.
> Projects and Fellows 2010 – 2019 (PDF, 127 KB)
Direttori del progetto
Hannah Baader
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz
Max-Planck-Institut
Via Giuseppe Giusti, 44
50121 Firenze
Gerhard Wolf
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz
Max-Planck-Institut
Via Giuseppe Giusti, 44
50121 Firenze
Michael Eissenhauer
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Generaldirektion
Stauffenbergstraße 41
10785 Berlin / Germania
Jörg Völlnagel
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Generaldirektion
Stauffenbergstraße 41
10785 Berlin / Germania
in cooperazione con
Lars-Christian Koch
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Ethnologisches Museum
Stefan Weber
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Museum für Islamische Kunst
Moritz Wullen
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Kunstbibliothek
Raffael Dedo Gadebusch (commissariale)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Museum für Asiatische Kunst
Paola Ivanov
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Ethnologisches Museum
Lilla Russell-Smith
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Museum für Asiatische Kunst
Partner
in cooperazione con
Dr. Nadia Ali, based at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, SMB
Deconstructing the Muslim Self and its Relevance to the Study of Early Islamic Art
Bruno Brant Sotto Mayor, M.A., based at the Ethnologisches Museum, SMB
Rethinking /nkishi/ Art History in Central Africa
David Horacio Colmenares, M.A., based at the Kunstbibliothek, SMB
The Egyptian Conjecture: Material Crossovers in Early Modern Antiquarianism
Dr. Sabiha Göloğlu, based at the Kunstbibliothek, SMB
Multi-, Paraline, Perspectival, and Photographic Views: Travelling Images of the Islamic Pilgrimage and Visitation Sites
Dr. Satomi Hiyama, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
The Transmission of the Ornamental Motives in the Wall Painting of Central Asia
Dr. des. Regina Höfer, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB Waddell's Tibetan and Indian Collection in the Museum of Asian Art and the Museum of Ethnology, Berlin
Provenance Research in the Spectrum of Scientific Collecting and Colonial Ideology
Dr. Subhashini Kaligotla, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Argument and Ornament in the Architecture of Deccan India
Dr. Alya Karame, based at Museum für Islamische Kunst, SMB
The lives of Qur'anic manuscripts from 11th century CE Khurasan: Palimpsests of Religious and Political Meanings
Dr. Ines Konczak-Nagel, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Kulturaustausch an der nördlichen Seidenstraße im Spiegel der Wandmalereien Kučas (Xinjiang, VR China). Überlieferung und Wandlung der Darstellung materieller Kultur
Dr. Max Koss, based at the Kunstbibliothek, SMB
The Magazine Pan (1895-1900): Print Culture, Applied Arts and the Politics of the Senses
Dr. Amanda Phillips, based at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, SMB
Actively Seeking Consumers: Everyday Objects of Islamic Art in their Social-Historical Context
Priyani Roy Choudhury, M.A., based at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, SMB
The Fashioning of a Mughal City: Fatehpur Sikri
Dr. Eva-Maria Troelenberg, based at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, SMB
Mshatta in Berlin. Keystones of Islamic Art
Dr. Ching-Ling Wang, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Praying for Ten Thousand Goodness: On Ding Guanpeng's "The Buddha Preaching" in the Berlin Collection
Dr. Friederike Weis, based at the Kunstbibliothek, SMB
Prozesse der Bildfindung. Rezeption und Interpretation von Geschichten biblischen Ursprungs in der islamischen Buchmalerei
Dr. Magdalena Wróblewska, based at the Kunstbibliothek, SMB
Between artifacts and their representations. The Rhetorics of Artworks' Reproductions from the Photographic Collection of Art Library in Berlin
Dr. Ning Yao, based at Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Reframing Portrait Paintings in Late Imperial China
Short-term fellows
Aifeng Chen, M.A., based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Study on the Avalokiteśvara Imagery of Turfan in the Qočo Uighur Period
Dr. Mathias Fubah Alubafi, based at the Ethnologisches Museum, SMB
Beyond the Bamum Throne: The Cameroon Collection and the Ethnological Museum, Berlin
Dr. Zhihua Liu, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Object, Collection and Identity: Yizing Teapots in the late Ming Dynasty
Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Vignato, based at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB
Survey and Study of the Rock Monasteries of Kucha
