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DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies Imaginaria of Force

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Prof. Dr. Ann-Sophie Lehmann

Curriculum

Ann-Sophie Lehmann is Professor of Art History and Material Culture at the University of Groningen (NL) where her research and teaching develop materials- and practice-based approaches. Lehmann studied art history, history, and philosophy in Vienna and received her Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht. She has published widely on the theory and history of artistic materials and practices, material literacy, and object-based teaching and learning. Lehmann serves on the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte and the advisory board of Art History and held fellowships at a.o. the Getty Research Center (Los Angeles), and the Max-Planck Institute for History of Science (Berlin). Between 2020-2026, Lehmann led the research group Curious Hands. Moving Making to the Core of Education (www.curioushands.nl). Since 2026 she leads the national research project Just Art. Creating Common Ground for Climate Justice Through Artistic Research (www.JustArt.info). Together with Imke Volkers, she curated two exhibitions at the Museum der Dinge, Berlin.

Publications (selection)

  • Ann-Sophie Lehmann, What Are Objects?, New York, Bard Graduate Center/Chicago UP 2026 (forthcoming).
  • Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Imke Volkers, “Object Lessons und Objektbiographie. Zwei Konzept-Ausstellungen im Museum der Dinge”, in: Werkbund Archiv – Museum der Dinge. Objekte Ausstellungen Räume – eine Museumsgeschichte, Leipzig: Spectorbooks 2026, pp. 75–99.
  • Vanessa Bakhuizen-van ’t Hoogt, Imka Buurke, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Catelijne van Middelkoop, “Everyone Can Make. Creative Democracy and the Ideals and Realities of Making Education”, in: J. Kolsteeg et al. eds., Cultural Democracy. Rethinking Cultural Practice, Policy and Education, Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan 2025, pp. 103–134.
  • Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Keizer, Stephanie Porras eds., Wet Land. Shaping Environments in Netherlandish Art & Architecture, 1400 to 2000 (Netherlands Yearbook for the History of Art 73), Leiden: Brill 2023.
  • Ann-Sophie Lehmann, “Gedankendinge. Sema Bekirovic, Hannah Arendt und das nachhaltige Kunstwerk”, Roger Fayet, Regula Krähenbühl eds., Kunst und Material. Konzepte, Prozesse, Arbeitsteilungen, Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2022, pp. 97–117.

Research project: Materiality Undone. Histories of a Weak Concept

The concept of ‘Materiality’ has been used in the object-based humanities and social sciences for some decades and the discipline of art history regularly employs it to draw attention to the meaning that lies in specific materials or processes of art making. Materiality suggests that all material properties can ontologically be encompassed by a single umbrella term. But scholars have also contested and rejected the term for its tendency to produce the opposite of what it promises: instead of actual material engagement with things in the world, ‘materiality’ creates a distance between objects and those who study them, thus enhancing rather than reducing the dichotomic mechanisms that traditionally underlie the theoretical analysis of art and material culture.

My research project has two goals: firstly, to produce a brief, socio-material history of the concept (Barad) in order to understand and contextualise its ambivalence, which will be defined as a theoretical weakness (Saint-Amour), related to the concept’s origins in religious, legal and financial discourses and the principles of belief, negotiation and interpretation informing such discourses. Secondly, I wish to discuss whether an acknowledgement of this conceptual weakness can change the concept, or whether it should be replaced with more nuanced and robust terms that are better equipped to capture the material conditions of art.