Fall 2020

Lecturer: Dr. Axel Langer

Friday, 12:15-13:45

Due to the ambitious endeavours of Shah ‘Abbas I (r. 1587 - 1629), Safavid Persia maintained intensive diplomatic contacts with European courts and city states as well as the Mughal Empire and the Deccani principalities in South India. The presence of Indian and European gifts and trade goods, especially paintings and prints, as well as Armenian, Dutch and Indian artists in royal service had a lasting effect on Persian book painting. While adopting foreign iconographic motives and embracing new painting techniques Persian artists enriched the traditional repertoire and gradually developed a new style. Long considered as a phase of decline by Western art historians, this fascinating period has sparked new scholarly research in the last ten years. It is now known as farangi-sazi or "painting in the European mode". Although widely accepted, this term merely concentrates on the reception of European art while totally ignoring the important role of Mughal and Deccani book painting from the first half of the 17th century.

Accordingly, the course focuses on the one hand on three culturally distinct areas, its relevant artistic production and its agents as well as the ways of transfer of ideas, artefacts and artists between Europe and India, India and Persia and Europe and Persia. On the other hand, the oeuvres of a series of late Safavid artists will be analysed by concentrating on the following question: What pictorial models and techniques did they adopt and why? What kind of strategies did they apply? What implications did this have on the artistic tradition of Persia? How can this outcome be described in accordance or contrary to the prevalent terminology used in global art history? 

Lecturer: Dr. Nicolas Galley

Block seminar: October 15th-16th-17th and November 5th-6th

This series of lectures, discussions and student’s presentations will focus on the art market as one of the prevailing globalization platform. Cross-border transactions involving works of art have been endlessly executed and intensified with the emerging of the Modern art market during the 19th C. International dealers, gallerists and auctioneers have been influential agents active in a globalized environment. Whereas historical perspectives will address art trade mechanisms and systems, subject-oriented seminars will question concepts related to the global art sphere. The exchange of symbolical and cultural value will be compared to commercial value based exchanges.

Lecturer: Dr. Maria Bremer

Block seminar: September 25th 10:15-17:00, and September 26th 10:15-19:00

This course intends to stress the role that exhibition practice holds for the development of what we know today as ‘global contemporary,’ the transnationalized art field since 1989. Not only did the amount and dissemination of exhibitions increase worldwide, contributing to expand the art field under markedly globalized geopolitical conditions; exhibition practice, too, has undergone significant transformations. Large-scale periodical exhibitions – in particular, biennials, triennials, and the recurring survey documenta – take on a central role in questioning Western foundations. While perpetuating an art fair model embedded in (neo-)liberal economies, these formats nonetheless expand the Western art canon and contribute to subvert its categories and temporalities. To examine the unresolved position of transnational and -cultural exhibition practice, we will consider foundational texts, public debates, and selected case studies since the 1990s (such as Magiciens de la terre, the Third Havana Biennial, 1989, documenta X, 1997, Documenta11, 2002 and The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989, 2011-12). What are the main claims of transcultural exhibition practice throughout this period, and where do its potential pitfalls lie? How do inclusive, revisionist, diversifying, or collectivizing strategies act against the various risks of othering, commodification of difference, universalization, or ahistoricity?

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Liliana Gómez-Popescu

Wednesday, 12:15-13:45

Lecturer: Christine Grundig M.A.

Die Übung bietet eine allgemeine Einführung in die digitale Kunstwissenschaft. Es wird zum einen der Bereich der Digitalen Bildwissenschaft/Digital Visual Studies erschlossen, zum anderen stellen automatisierte Verfahren der Texterschliessung (von z.B. Archivmaterial) sowie automatisierte Texterkennung innerhalb von Bildern (OCR) einen weiteren thematischen Schwerpunkt der Übung dar.

Thursday, 10:15-12:00

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Joris van Gastel

Tuesday, 12:15-13:45

Lecturer: Prof. Sabrina Rastelli

Tuesday, 12:15-13:45

Lecturer: Prof. Benno Wirz

Monday, 16:15-18:00

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen

Description: Elements of Art History in a Global Context is a mandatory self-study module that builds the methodological basis for the Art in a Global Context teaching program. Students have access to a corpus of digitized texts online. These cover a relevant choice of approaches, terms and questions concerning a wide chronological and geographical range of artistic phenomena that students will encounter in their studies. The knowledge acquired is examined at the end of the semester in an oral exam carried out by Prof. Weddigen.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen

The research colloquium is the forum for presenting and discussing the current research undertaken by master's students, doctoral candidates and postdocs at the Chair for the History of Early Modern Art and by master's students of the Art in a Global Context program.