Magister degree in Art History and Philosophy at Free University Berlin (2011). Since 2008 freelance work in the field of editing, curatorial assistance and public relations, for amongst others Esther Schipper (Berlin), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin) und Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst (Berlin). Research grant from DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) for archival work in New York, Cambridge (MA) and Rochester (NY) in 2009. Since 2012 PhD studies in Art History at the Department of Art History and scholarship holder of the Research Training Group 'Interart Studies' of Freie Universität Berlin. Guest at the Department of Art History, GSAS (Graduate School for Arts and Sciences) of Columbia University, New York, funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) during fall term of 2013. PhD research travel grant to Harvard Film Archive (Cambridge, MA), funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) from July 2014 until September 2014.

Hollis Frampton. Photography, Film, Performance, Text (working title)

The artist Hollis Frampton (1936-1984) has created a vast oeuvre, which comprises not only films but also photography, xerographs, paper collages, computer software and hardware, performances, lectures and critical writing. Anglo-American scholarship has focused primarily on Frampton’s films. P. Adams Sitney’s essay on 'Structural Film', whose basic assumptions resemble Clement Greenberg’s modernist views on painting, still represents a dominant point of reference for a historical location of Frampton’s producing in film studies and art history. In my doctoral thesis, I want to dissociate myself from these perspectives on Frampton’s artistic endeavour and elaborate an understanding of his multi-medial findings that considers all parts of Frampton’s work – photography, film, performance and writing. In this framework, selected writings, performances and other public appearances of Frampton will be looked at 'as art works' themselves for the first time.

In a second step, a methodological approach to a more holistic understanding of Frampton’s multi-medial producing will be developed, guided by the assumption of three lines of interest of the artist. Firstly, Frampton’s idea of a ‘Metahistory of Film’ seems to be only one moment in his work with which the artist questions the dyadic relation of art theory and artistic practice. Secondly, the dealing with language – as a means of understanding the world, as an object of science, and in its relation to the image – is a constant occurrence in Frampton’s art works and writings. And, thirdly, Frampton’s interest in contemporary developments such as the transition from analog to digital technology, the transgression of classical art disciplines into new forms of producing and the appearance of post-modernist theory will be considered as a condition for his producing at large.

My project, which asks for the complex relation of Frampton’s photographs, films, performances and writings, opens up methodological questions that relate to InterArt’s research objectives. How can an interlocking of artistic practice and theory in the oeuvre of Frampton be engaged with adequately? Can Frampton’s artistic practice be understood as a result of his theoretical discourse, and vice versa? What methodology is needed to understand art like Frampton’s in its inter-medial and transgressive qualities as such?

The project is supervised by Professor Gertrud Koch and Professor Gregor Stemmrich.