Professorship for Contemporary Art

Organisational unit: Professoship

Organisation profile

Research and teaching at the Professorship of Contemporary Art focuses on art from the 1960s to the present. We understand art as a material and an intellectual practice, which requires an intensive engagement with artistic processes as well as a reflection on theories of art and culture and socio-political discussions. The emphasis of the professorship is placed on the transcultural interconnections of art, decoloniality, gender issues, art theory, and art criticism.

Main research areas

Contemporary art is characterized in particular by dissolving traditional genres, questioning the formation of canons, inventing new genres and formats, critically examining its own conditions of production, and intervening in social processes. Thus, in addition to analyzing artworks and exploring artistic objects, thinking about the socio-political horizon of art is also an essential part of the study of contemporary art. In this way, the study of contemporary art not only gives students a good knowledge of contemporary art, artistic thinking, agency, research, and an insight into most recent developments of art historical research and methods, but also enables students to participate in current socio-political debates through the lens of art.

The teaching offered by the Professorship of Contemporary Art has most recently included undergraduate seminars such as Methods of Art Studies, Introduction to Art History as Cultural Studies, Transcultural Art History, as well as seminars on topics such as Ownership and Property in Art and Cultural Theory, Critique of Subjectivity in Contemporary Art, Documenta 15 - Artist Collectives, Production/Reproduction - Female Labor in Art and Cinema, Curating Video Art, Forms of Documentary Film, Canon/Canon Criticism, Photography and Feminism, Science Fiction, Visual Culture and the Afterlife of Colonialism, and many more.

Leuphana University is one of the few universities that has its own artistic project space: The Kunstraum, with its archive of more than thirty years of exhibition practice. Working with artists is an essential part of studying contemporary art at Leuphana. In exchanges with artists and curators, in project seminars and excursions, students deal intensively with artistic processes and participate in the production of exhibitions. In this way, students get to know professional fields of practice. 

The Archipelago Lab also regularly invites contemporary artists and cultural producers.

The Halle für Kunst in Lüneburg offers students further opportunities to engage intensively with contemporary art.

With the Leuphana Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture and Society, the university established its own Artists-in-Residence program, where international contemporary artists are invited to develop new work. Their activities will become visible in public presentations, participation in seminars, and exhibitions at the Kunstraum.

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Publications

  1. Unternehmensflexibilität
  2. Editorial: Sexualdevianz
  3. Gütermarktorientiertes Umweltmanagement
  4. Other-regarding preferences, spousal disability and happiness
  5. Mit uns die Zukunft. Nachhaltige Transformationen brauchen andere Geschlechterverhältnisse
  6. Operationalising Competencies in Higher Education for Sustainable Development
  7. The course of research into the economic consequences of German works councils
  8. Demokratiemuster und Leistungsbilanz von Regierungen
  9. Zum Einfluss der Mentoring-Beziehung auf die Kompetenzentwicklung von Lehramtsstudierenden im Langzeitpraktikum
  10. Effects of elevated CO2, O3 and K deficiency on Norway spruce (Picea abies)
  11. Fatty acid feedstock preparation and lactic acid production as integrated processes in mixed restaurant food and bakery wastes treatment
  12. Das Fettsäureprofil des initialen oralen Biofilms (Pellikel) - eine In-situ-Studie
  13. "... ein ungeheuerliches Ding mit plumpen, ungeschickten Gliedern"
  14. Die Einheiten der Diskursforschung und der Streit um den Methodenausweis
  15. „Abschluß des Menschlichen“
  16. Les villes artificielles comme espaces de formation de l’ordre politique
  17. Kunst zur Sprache bringen
  18. Neue Rollen für Lehrer und Schüler?
  19. Trends in environmental education for biodiversity conservation in Costa Rica
  20. Die neuen Lebenszentren der Stadt
  21. Nachhaltige Entwicklung durch Bildung
  22. Bildungsstandards und Verstehenskompetenz
  23. Was bleibt? Einige Überlegungen zum Medienereignis WikiLeaks
  24. From hashtag to cashback
  25. Abschluss des Vertrages
  26. Zurückweisungen von Migranten durch zivile Schiffe auf See