Prof. Dr. Margarete Vöhringer
Chair for the Materiality of Knowledge
Executive Director
History need not only be studied on the basis of written sources. Objects also contain traces of historical change. Research into material culture has unearthed a complex network of a range of human-object relationships that play a central role in the emergence of knowledge.
Art history offers important methods to trace complex knowledge practices by analysing objects and make them more tangible. Moreover, a concrete examination of materials, their conditions of origin and their distribution highlights their independent contribution to the formation of cultures and societies.
The guiding questions here are: What epistemic, social, economic and political interests play a role when silent objects are declared to be objects of knowledge? What practices in dealing with knowledge and objects are at work here? What role do exhibitions play as spaces of knowledge, and how are the arts employed?
Interview (in German)
New teaching formats
- The Certificate Programme "Object Competencies” (in German)
- The "Material Humanities" specialisation in the Master's programme (in German)
- Materiality and aesthetics of the sciences
(Studies on the cultural techniques of seeing, on the history of the reflex since the 18th century, on the relationship between theory and practice, on local and global knowledge formations, on collecting and exhibiting things of knowledge). - Interrelations between art & science
(Studies of the Russian avant-garde, Fluxus, conceptual art, pop art, stereophotography, modern architecture, video installations, mixed media). - Dr. des. Jana August, research associate
- Ida Becker, research assistant
- Lukas Dammann, student assistant
- Laura Lohmann, student assistant Hilfskraft
- Angelique Werner, student assistant
Focal points in research and teaching
Staff and collaborators