documenta Institute: University fills two professorships for exhibition research

"I am delighted that we have found two distinguished individuals who will contribute both to research and teaching at the university and to the documenta Institute with their research and drive," said University President Prof. Reiner Finkeldey, commenting on the appointments. "The Institute and our scientific contribution are taking more and more shape."

The appointees are literature and cultural studies scholar Prof. Dr. Liliana Gómez and art historian Prof. Dr. Felix Vogel. Both are moving from Switzerland to the university in northern Hesse.

"With Liliana Gómez and Felix Vogel, a young scholar is coming to Kassel and to the documenta Institute, who will explore the global resonance of the documenta model with fresh curiosity and profound knowledge. I look forward with great pleasure to a fruitful collaboration," commented Prof. Dr. Heinz Bude, founding director of the independent research institute and professor of macrosociology at the University of North Hesse.

Dr. Liliana Gómez will take over the department of "Art and Society" at the Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies as of August 1, 2021, and the professorship will also be linked to the Kassel University of the Arts. Gómez received her doctorate from Freie Universität Berlin and her habilitation from the University of Zurich, where she was most recently an SNF-funded professor (Swiss National Science Foundation) leading a research project on dissonant narratives and aesthetic practices in changing civil societies in the Global South and the associated junior research group. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the history and theory of media in modern and contemporary literature and art, and on the interplay between the arts and social transformation processes in a global context. For the documenta Institute as a place of art and exhibition research, she brings her interdisciplinary approach to orient the research on documenta in a global perspective.

Art historian Dr. Felix Vogel has held the professorship for "Art and Knowledge" at the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning, Landscape Planning since April, also with an affiliation to the Kunsthochschule. After holding positions at the art history institutes of the University of Hamburg and Zurich, he was most recently senior assistant professor of modern art history at the University of Basel. He received his doctorate from the Université de Fribourg. The research and teaching of the professorship is at the intersection of art history, architectural history and theory, and the history of knowledge. Vogel also takes a decidedly global perspective on art, architecture, and knowledge.

A third professorship, "Art and Economies," in the Department of Social Sciences, which will join the Institute, has also been established; here, the appointment process has not yet been completed.

The university established the three professorships with financial support from the state of Hesse. In addition to their activities in research and teaching at the university, the professors are affiliated with the institute, which is currently being established, and will strengthen the university's scientific contribution there. The documenta Institute will be an independent, non-university research institution conducting research on documenta and international exhibitions. It is being established in cooperation between the State of Hesse, the City of Kassel, documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH and the University of Kassel with the Kunsthochschule. The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media is providing financial support for the construction project for the institute.

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