Wolfgang Kemp

Wolfgang Kemp (born May 1, 1946 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a German art historian , author and professor of art history .

Live and act

Wolfgang Kemp studied art history, philosophy and German . He was born in 1970 at the University of Tübingen with the work Natura. Iconographic studies on the history and distribution of an allegory received his doctorate and habilitation in 1979 in the subject of art history. Until 1974 he worked as a research assistant at the University of Bonn , until 1983 as a professor at the University of Kassel . From 1983 to 1995 he was a professor at the University of Marburg and from then until his retirement in 2011 he was professor for art history at the University of Hamburg . Since the 1980s he has held several visiting professorships, for example at Harvard University , UCLA , the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and the Getty Research Center in Los Angeles .

As an art historian, Kemp dealt in particular with the beginnings of Christian art and the medieval stained glass windows , with Giotto and Ruskin , but also with an extensive “theory of photography ”. He mainly published on the history and theory of photography as well as on reception aesthetics and narrative research .

Since the 1990s, Kemp has published, in addition to scientific publications, also in the feature sections , such as the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . With ironic reflections on the art world, he devoted himself to his personal experiences in the international art world in essays - including in Merkur - which he also expressed in fictional form in the 2002 prose volume entitled "Confidential Report on the Selling of a Dresser and Other Art Stories" .

In 2018, Wolfgang Kemp was awarded the Culture Prize of the German Society for Photography and the Sigmund Freud Prize for scientific prose .

Publications (selection)

Non-fiction

• The oligarch . To Klampen, Springe 2016, ISBN 978-3-86674-534-6 .
• We all did not know Germany. The Germans' image of Germany during the Weimar Republic. Heidelberg University Publishing, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-946054-07-8 (PDF). (Open Access, doi : 10.17885 / heiup.90.106 )
• Foreign affairs. The adventures of some English people in Germany 1900–1947 . Hanser Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-446-23518-2 . ( Reviews at Perlentaucher )
• Analyze architecture. An introduction in eight chapters . Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-8296-0262-4 . ( Book review at Deutschlandradio Kultur )
• Increased from shape to shape. Hokusais . 100 views of Mount Fuji . Merve Verlag, Berlin 2006 (= International Merve Discourse, No. 291), ISBN 3-88396-225-2 .
• Photo essays. On the history and theory of photography . Erw. Edition, Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-8296-0240-5 . ( Review by Kunstbuchanzeiger )
• Kemp reader. Selected writings by Wolfgang Kemp . Ed .: Kilian Heck , Cornelia Jöchner, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-422-06597-0 .
• Theory of Photography. I-IV, 1839-1995 . Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-8296-0239-1 . (Edited together with: Hubertus von Amelunxen ; review by Perlentaucher )
• Back to the library! In: Wolkenkuckucksheim , 9th year, issue 2, March 2005. Eduard Heinrich Führ, BTU Cottbus , ISSN  1434-0984 . (Contribution to the round table on architectural theory in Berlin on June 10/11, 2004; online )
• The painter's rooms. To the picture narration since Giotto . CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41154-1 .
• Contemporary art and its viewer . Oktagon Verlag, Cologne 1996 (= Jahresring, No. 43), ISBN 3-89611-019-5 .
• Christian art. Their beginnings, their structures . Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-88814-737-9 .
• Sermo corporeus. The story of the medieval stained glass window . Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-88814-239-3 .
• John Ruskin. 1819-1900. Life and work . Hanser Verlag, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-446-13857-9 .

prose

• What a summer. Eight stories for those who are ready to travel and those already on the beach. Wolff Verlag , Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-941461-35-2 .
• Confidential report of dresser sales and other art stories . Hanser, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-446-20232-3 .

literature

• Steffen Bogen , Wolfgang Brassat , David Ganz (Eds.): Pictures - Spaces - Viewer. Festschrift for Wolfgang Kemp on his 60th birthday . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-496-01344-3 .
• Anselm Haverkamp : The scene of the representation is the viewer. Wolfgang Kemp's flirtation with reception aesthetics . In: Texts on Art , Issue No. 58, June 2005, ISSN  0940-9459 , pp. 112–115. ( Online , PDF file)
• “You can almost say: I am the embodiment of a break”. Wolfgang Kemp in conversation with Steffen Siegel . In: Photo History Volume 37 (2017), Issue 145, pp. 6-14. ( Online , PDF file)

Web links

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Kemp in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and reviews of works by Wolfgang Kemp at perlentaucher.de
• Wolfgang Kemp at the University of Hamburg
• Photography by Wolfgang Kemp at FAZ.NET

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article by Wolfgang Kemp in the "Zeit"
2. ↑ Martin Mosebach: In the shadow of the old masters bloom. Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 9, 2002, accessed on August 24, 2010 (review of Kemp's book Confidential Report on the Selling of a Dresser and Other Art Stories ).