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Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet

Department of Art History, University of Bonn

Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet studied German and English Studies at the Faculté des Lettres in Aix-en-Provence as well as Art History, German and Romance Studies at the University of Heidelberg, where she also successfully graduated with a Magister degree in 1980. At the University of Heidelberg, Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet was awarded her doctorate in 1982 with a dissertation on the subject “Rodenegg und Schmalkalden, Untersuchungen zur Illustration einer ritterlich-höfischen Erzählung und zur Entstehung profaner Epen-Illustration in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 13. Jahrhunderts”. In 1992, she earned her habilitation with the work “Der ‘Akt’ bei Dürer und die Rezeption durch zeitgenössische Künstler” at the Department of Art History at the University of Munich. From 1993 to 1996, Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet was Lecturer of “Deutsche Kunst – Kunst der Moderne” at the University of Leipzig. During the winter term in 1996, she worked as Professor for “Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts” at the University of Freiburg before moving to the University of Bonn in 1997. Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet has since held the professorship for “Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte” at the Department of Art History at the University of Bonn. Since 1999 she has also been playing an active role in various commissions, executive boards, and foundations, including the Kunstverein Bonn since 2005 and the Federal Commission on the Acquisition of Contemporary Art for the Art Collection of Germany from 2007 to 2011. She likewise served as a member on the advisory board for the jubilee exhibition 450 Jahre Kunstsammlungen Dresden from 2009 to 2010.

Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet was Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center “Law as Culture” from October 2018 to March 2019.

Research Project

"Künstler, Künstler-Status und Künstler-Mythos im Netzwerk juristischer Kontingenz oder die Legende von der ‚Autonomieʻ moderner Kunst"

The so-called freedom or autonomy of art in modernity, meaning its detachment from being bound to commissioners, at the same time signifies surrender to the laws of the free market economy. There are big gaps between theoretical artistic self-design and self-reflection in manifests and other texts, on the one hand, and the actual economic and legal situation as well as artists’ self-determination, on the other. 

In the so-called ‘classical modernity’ in the first few decades of the 20th century, previous notions of art were radically questioned for the first time, namely in Nihilism Dadaism and Duchamp’s Institutional Critique. The so-called neo-avant-garde artists from the late 1950s to the 1970s intensified this self-questioning by sometimes extending auto-thematic reflections to the exploration of one’s own economic and legal status. What did these working strategies have? Artistically? Economically? Legally?

With the help of an in-depth examination of some example cases from Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol?, Seth Siegelaub, Yves Klein, Maria Eichhorn, and Tino Seghal? – who created pieces in which they dealt with the questioning of personal economic and legal conditions artistically – these aspects, which have thus far received too little attention, will be differentiated. A revision of their theoretical and artistic potential in the field of tension between art theory and actual juristic constitutionality will also be undertaken.

Publications (selected)

Monographs

  • Brian O‘Doherty, Collected Essays, by Brian O‘Doherty (Author), Liam Kelly (Editor), Anne-Marie Bonnet (Introduction), Oakland: University of California Press, 2018.
  • Was ist zeitgenössische Kunst oder wozu Kunstgeschichte, Series Opaion, Vol. 2, (in print).
  • Albrecht Dürer, Die Erfindung des Aktes, Munich 2014.
  • Malerei der deutschen Renaissance, with G. Kopp-Schmidt, in cooperation with D. Görres, Munich 2010 (2014: 2. Vol.).
  • ‘Akt’ bei Dürer (= Atlas, Bonner Beiträge zur Renaissanceforschung, Vol. 4), Cologne 2001, Kunst der Moderne – Kunst der Gegenwart. Herausforderung und Chance, Cologne 2004 (2008: 2. Vol.).
  • Auguste Rodin, Erotische Aquarelle – Rodins späte Zeichnungen – Für eine Kultur der Begierde, Munich 1995 (also in english, american and french version).
  • Rodenegg und Schmalkalden. Untersuchungen zur Illustration einer ritterlich-höfischen Erzählung und zur Entstehung profaner Epenillustration in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 13. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1986 (Diss.).

Editorships

  • Louisa Clement, as found, exhibition catalogue, Department of Art History, University of Bonn, Cologne 2013.
  • Unanymously Condemned. Video Art and Performance Documentary from Iran. International Conference, 19-20 May 2012, Kunstverein Bonn, ed. by H. Barabi and K. Corsepius, Teheran 2012.
  • Christus. Zur Wiederentdeckung des Sakralen in der Moderne, ed. together with G. Cepl-Kaufmann, K. Drenker-Nagels and J. Grande, Düsseldorf 2012.
  • Auguste Rodin – Der Kuss, Die Paare, exhibition catalogue ed. together with H. Fischer et al., Art Gallery of the Hypo-Kulturstiftung Munich and Museum Folkwang Essen, Munich 2006.
  • Ilja Kabakov, Stimmen hinter der Tür, exhibition catalogue of the installation in Leipzig, 1996, cooperation of the Förderverein der Leipziger Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst with the HGB and the Department of Art History, University of Leipzig, ed. together with K. Werner et al., Leipzig 1996.
  • since 2010: advisory board of the Journal of Art Historiography, ed. by Richard Woodfield (Glasgow).
  • since 2010: Idea, Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunsthalle.
  • since 2005: ATLAS Bonner Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte NF.
  • 2004-2005: ATLAS Bonner Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte.
  • 1999-2006: Kunsthistorische Arbeitshefte.
  • Kunst ohne Geschichte? Ansichten zu Kunst und Kunstgeschichte heute, ed. together with G. Kopp-Schmidt, Munich 1995.