Cultural transfer in post-1945 German art

The ARTIST ROOMS collection has outstanding strengths in German art from the 1960s, offering scope for research into the reception of German art in the UK and how this was shaped by, or reflected in, ARTIST ROOMS.

Lead: Dr Christian Weikop, School of History of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

This research project falls into two parts exploring both the 'Aesthetics of the organic in Germany', and 'Cultural transfer in post-1945 German art'.

The first takes as its initial context the influence that ideas related to the organic and ecological have had on German culture and society.

Through the examination of works of both German and non-German artists within the ARTIST ROOMS collection to whom the themes of organic, and attendant themes of the arboreal, geological, ethnographical and biopolitical are highly pertinent, research will locate these artists endeavours within a much wider cultural and historical context.

Alongside academic outcomes, the research will be made available to the public through a proposed exhibition of the relevant works and accompanying symposium and gallery talks.

The second strand of this research project will explore processes of ‘transatlantic cultural transfer’ with respect to and beyond German art in the ARTIST ROOMS collection. The project proposes a reassessment of the contentiously labelled/phenomenon Neo-Expressionism, viewed within the context of the exchange of influences and ideas between artists working on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1930s.