Matthias Bruhn

Matthias Bruhn (* 1966 in Neumünster ) is a German art historian and professor for art history and media theory at the State University of Design .

education

After studying art history, philosophy and modern German literature at the University of Hamburg , Bruhn received his doctorate with a thesis on the letters of the French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665).

research

In 1997, Bruhn succeeded Michael Diers as head of the “Political Iconography” research department at the Warburg House at the University of Hamburg, which was founded by Martin Warnke . Investigations into pictorial reproduction media and the connection between images and arguments brought him to the department The Technical Image of the Humboldt University founded by Horst Bredekamp .

Working in a photo agency also prompted Bruhn to examine the production and distribution mechanisms of the younger picture press and their average aesthetics (Bruhn 2003 et al.). In the course of the discussions about the iconic turn formulated by Gottfried Boehm , the focus was on the process of filtering out and mutual reinforcement of image motifs, which emerged in the production and consumption chain of reportage, agency / archive, editorial team and target medium. In this process, not only the sorting problems and demand structures of the mass media become apparent , but also the more general rules of communication about image content, forced under time and cost pressure.

In contrast to other approaches of the so-called image science , Bruhn takes the position that the image discussion , which has been intensified for several years, is also correlated with an increased interest in exploiting the diffuse commodity "image". The renouncement of the differentiation between media, places and systems of visual communication can play a part in this interest, which is why the historical image should work towards the temporal and spatial differentiation of terms, media and formal traditions.

Others

Bruhn is co-founder of the international art history specialist information service arthist.net in the H-Net .

Book publications

• Image economy. VDG, Weimar 2003. ISBN 978-3-89739-169-7
• Visibility of the story. Contributions to a historiography of images (series Historisches Forum, ed. With Karsten Borgmann). Berlin: e-doc 2005. ISSN  1612-5940
• The picture. History, theory, practice. Academy, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-05-004367-8
• Modernization of seeing: ways of seeing between the arts and media (ed. With Kai Uwe Hemken). Bielefeld, transcript 2008. ISBN 978-3-89942-912-1

literature

• Iconclash. Collective Images and Democratic Governance in Europe. Final report to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture, ed. from the project group AG Iconclash. Vienna 2006

Web links

• Web presence on the website of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
• Website of the Cluster of Excellence “Image Knowledge Design. An interdisciplinary laboratory ”.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of June 29, 2001.
2. ↑ M. Bruhn in an interview with Focus Online .
3. ↑ Die Zeit, No. 13, 2001