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Mechtild Widrich

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Mechtild Widrich
Born
Salzburg, Austria
NationalityAustrian, American
Alma materUniversity of Vienna, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Known forArt and Architectural History and Art Theory
AwardsFulbright Fellowship, Max Planck Society, Berlin, Institute for Advanced Study University of Notre Dame, Swiss National Science Foundation, Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship


Mechtild Widrich is an Austrian art historian, curator, and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Educated at University of Vienna (M.Phil Art History) and the MIT School of Architecture (PhD History, Theory, and Criticism) Widrich taught art and architectural history at the University of Vienna, the ETH Zürich, the University of Zürich and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. [1] Since 2014 she has been full-time faculty in the Art History, Theory, and Criticism department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[2] Widrich is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Jewish Museum Vienna, board member of the American Friends of the Vienna Museums and member of the Grant Park Advisory Council on Art, Monuments, Markers, Chicago. Widrich is member of the scientific committee of Cadernos de Arte Pública, Vesper. Journal for Architecture, Arts and Theory, and Život umjetnosti and served as reviews editor and board member of Art Journal from 2019 to 2022. Widrich is a 2022-23 faculty fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study [3]

Research

Widrich works on monuments, architecture, and performance in public space.[4] In her book Performative Monuments,[5] Widrich coins the title phrase, 'performative monument', to explain why live body art influenced interactive memorials since the 1980s, building on the definition of anti-authoritarian countermonuments proposed by German artist Jochen Gerz, and the speech-act theory of British philosopher J. L. Austin.[6] The concept has been taken up in recent literature on commemoration and public art,[7][8] and by artists, notably Doris Salcedo.[9][10] In the field of performance studies, Widrich is known for her Work on Viennese Actionism, VALIE EXPORT and Marina Abramovic, with particular focus on the documentation and mediation of events, repetition, and the layering of diverse audiences over time. Widrich also works on aesthetic theory, in particular ugliness. She is the co-editor and co-translator of the first book-length philosophical treatment of the topic, Karl Rosenkranz's 1853 Aesthetics of Ugliness.[11][12]

Books

  • Monumental Cares. Sites of History and Contemporary Art. Manchester University Press 2023.
  • Participation in Art and Architecture. London: Tauris, 2016 / Bloomsbury, 2022.
  • Presence: A Conversation at Cabaret Voltaire. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016.
  • Translation and ed. of Karl Rosenkranz, Aesthetics of Ugliness (1853), London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
  • Performative Monuments: The Rematerialisation of Public Art. Manchester University Press 2014.
  • Ugliness: The Non-Beautiful in Art and Theory. London: Tauris, 2013 / Bloomsbury, 2016.
  • Krzysztof Wodiczko, City of Refuge: A 9-11 Memorial. London: Black Dog, 2009.[13]
  • Leopoldstadt: die Andere Heimatkunde. Vienna: Brandstätter, 1999.

Curating

There is Nothing to See Here, 2010, Modern Lab, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.[14]

Sounding the Subject, 2007, List Visual Arts Center, MIT, co-curated with Daniel Birnbaum.[15]

Remembrance/Renewal ("Installation der Erinnerung"), 1995, permanent installation by Nancy Spero at the Jewish Museum Vienna.[16]

References

  1. ^ "Guest professor in the Department of Site-Specific Art". www.dieangewandte.at. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  2. ^ "People in the News". 17 June 2014.
  3. ^ "The Notre Dame Institute For Advanced Study Announces 2022-2023 Class Of Faculty Fellows". Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  4. ^ "Tracing transformations in the city".
  5. ^ Widrich, Mechtild (2014). Performative monuments : the rematerialisation of public art. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-9591-7. OCLC 870199284.
  6. ^ Tumbas, Jasmina (2016-01-28). "Performative Monuments". caa.reviews. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  7. ^ Dell'Aria, Annie (2017-10-18). "Public Feeling: Rethinking Memorials and Monuments". Mediapolis. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  8. ^ Bertens, Laura (2020). "'Doing' memory: performativity and cultural memory in Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's Alter Bahnhof Video Walk". Holocaust Studies. 26 (2): 181–197. doi:10.1080/17504902.2019.1578454. S2CID 192553734. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  9. ^ Long, Gideon (2019-10-31). "Winner of the inaugural Nomura Art Award, sculptor Doris Salcedo: 'I am absolutely a political artist'". Financial Times. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  10. ^ Dávila Reyes, Beatriz (2020-09-10). "Mechtild Widrich: "Los monumentos democráticos permiten una interacción"". El Espectador. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  11. ^ Rosenkranz, Karl (2015). Aesthetics of ugliness : a critical edition. Andrei Pop, Mechtild Widrich. London, UK. ISBN 978-1-350-02292-8. OCLC 910969637.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. ^ Ground, Ian (July 1, 2016). "Ugliness, in the cry of the beholder". TLS. Retrieved 2022-01-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ MacQueen, Kathleen (2010-08-12). "City of Refuge, a 9/11 Memorial by Krzysztof Wodiczko". The Art Book. 17 (3): 50–52. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8357.2010.01115_13.x. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  14. ^ "Modern Lab: There is nothing to see here". www.nga.gov. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  15. ^ "Sounding the Subject". List Visual Arts Center. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  16. ^ Hanak-Lettner, Werner (2010-10-08). "Die Regisseurin im Raum". Der Standard. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
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