Julia Gelshorn

Julia Gelshorn is a full professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, since 2013. She specializes in strategies of appropriation, repetition, and translation in art, with a focus on 21st-century practices and 18th-century French art theory. Her research explores artistic subjectivity, realism, and the intersection of art, politics, and economy.

• Education: Art History, Theater Science, and Italian Literature at the Universities of Cologne and Bern.
• Key Roles: Post-doctoral fellow at the German Center for Art History (2006-2008); visiting professor at HfG Karlsruhe (2008-2010); professor at Universities of Vienna (2010-2011) and Hamburg (2011-2013).

Research Interests center on: (1) artistic appropriation as a critical and affective tool; (2) realisms across historical contexts; (3) artist interviews as legible texts; (4) art’s engagement with political and economic systems; (5) theoretical frameworks for visual culture. Her current Real Abstractions project (2023-2027) rethinks realism through social abstractions like financialization and digital networks.

Scientific Contributions include the Lazarus Prize from the University of Bern’s Faculty of Humanities (2003) for her dissertation on Richter and Polke. Her publications span books like Aneignung und Wiederholung (2012) and edited volumes on artists such as Jean Tinguely (2016), while her recent articles address Martin Kippenberger, Rosemarie Trockel, and Benjamin Buchloh’s historiography.

Notable Projects include the completed SNSF-funded Cinema in Art and Literature (2016) and the ongoing Real Abstractions initiative, which also involves a traveling exhibition and interdisciplinary workshops.