BILDERSAMMLUNGEN ALS DENKMATERIAL
Materialismen, Realismen, Kunst (1900–1960)

PICTURE COLLECTIONS AS FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Materialisms, Realisms, Art (1900–1960)

Workshop
Florence, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
7-8 December 2016

A materialistic theory of art evolved in the first half of the twentieth century, one that was informed by Karl Marx's historic criticism but also drew upon contemporary art historical methodologies and the emerging cultural sciences in order to broaden them. After earlier approaches by Eduard Fuchs, it was Max Raphael, Walter Benjamin and Frederick Antal in particular who addressed art's economic and social developmental conditions to use this as a foundation to develop a materialistic concept of art. The workshop will consider various material and pictorial collections of the twentieth century and map out how these were compiled on the basis of theoretical assumptions and how these assumptions reflected back on the collections. The selection of objects and their arrangement as a working foundation should receive just as much attention as the theories drawn from them. This will also take into account biographical, historical and political circumstances under which collections were established or even thwarted. Those techniques, that came into being as alternatives due to persecution and exile as well as political marginalization, will be juxtaposed with the established instruments of knowledge generation. The workshop is conceived as a critical approach to a historical field of which the constellations, issues and problems have remained relevant in today's debates about "new” realism, materiality and objecthood.