Introducing the Chair
The Chair of Visual studies and art history was established at the Institute of Art and Music in 2019. In the broad field of visual culture, we at TU Dresden focus on the digital image cultures of the 21st century.
© Kerstin Schankweiler
About Us
Professor Kerstin Schankweiler an her Team pursue a variety of thematic focuses on research and teaching:
The term "Visual studies" already makes it clear that we are not only concerned with art in the narrower sense, but with "visual culture" in general. In the subject of art history, competencies in image description and analysis, image comparison and historicisation are taught, which can also be applied to other fields. Accordingly, we also devote ourselves to images, media and things that are not art, but which demonstrate manifold links to the history of art. In the broad field of visual culture, we at TU Dresden focus on the digital image cultures of the 21st century, for example, image phenomena in social media. Especially the worlds of digital images represent a promising field of research, which is imposing itself on visual culture today.
We represent the scientific model of transcultural art historiography. This takes a relational perspective and focuses on the transfer between cultural spaces. Such an approach is based on an understanding of interwoven (art) histories and visual cultures.