Dr Jutta Vinzent MA, DrPhil, PhD, PGCert

• PhD in History of Art (University of Cambridge, UK)
• Dr Phil in German Literature (University of Cologne, Germany)
• MA in German Literature with History of Art and Philosophy (University of Munich, Germany)
• PG Cert. in Teaching in Higher Education (University of Birmingham)

With over 20 years of teaching experience in art history on all levels and at a number of institutions including the UK, Germany and South Korea my teaching expertise is well-established and recognised at international level. The experience of having taught at a South-Asian university in particular, provided me with a global outlook and understanding of cultural diversity at HE level regarding student learning, assessment strategies and teaching management. This has increasingly become relevant at a time, when the internationality of studentship and staff has become normality, as it provides a grounding for a better understanding and therefore an opportunity to communicate more successfully with those we consider to be different from us. In this way, the topics of my modules, which relate to my research expertise in migration, postcolonial theories and decolonising politics, are not an empty vessel, but inform my practice and vice versa.

Undergraduate level

(modules designed by Vinzent are underlined)

• Year 1: Modernism (2008-2012), contributions on modern and contemporary art to a variety of modules offered by the Department
• Year 2: Exhibitions That Changed Art History (new in 2020-21), Inside the Gallery, Landmarks of Western Visual Cultures, 1930s to the present (2001-2007); Research Techniques; Study Trip to Berlin (2001-2003; and again from 2020-21)
• Final year: Displaced: Art and Migration (since 2019), Postcolonial Readings of Contemporary Art (since 2005)

Postgraduate level

MA programme design

• Jutta Vinzent initiated and designed the MA Art History and Curating programme in 2013 following the design and teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate modules on curating offered since 2001. After her return from a fully funded Research Fellowship at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt (Germany) in 2018, she has taught the modules Placement (2018-) and Curatorial Practices (2018-2019). 

Modules

• Critical Approaches (2001-2011)
• Research Training (2009-2012, 2019-)
• Placement: Art History in the Field (2018-), offering the opportunity to work for 11 weeks in major galleries and museums in the West Midlands (including BMAG, Ikon, RBSA, Eastside Gallery, Wolverhampton, New Art Gallery Walsall, The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry)
• Curating Research (2010-2012) renamed Curatorial Practices (2015-) This module involves the curating of an exhibition. The following were held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (since 2012 in collaboration with other collections, first with the National Portrait Gallery, London and then with the Royal Collections, Windsor):
• 2010, 10 June-1 Aug.  Print Power
  2011, 27 May-29 Aug. Tennis Memorabilia (with loans from a private collection)
  2012, 25 May-27 Aug. Facing the Music. Twentieth-Century Portraits of British Composers
  For further information and annual exhibitions since 2012, see the Barber Institute of Fine Art website.

• The overwhelming positive response to the module ‘Curating Research’ led to the design and introduction of the highly successful and oversubscribed MA programme ‘Art History and Curating’ with its key modules of ‘Curatorial Practices’ and ‘Placement’. Students now also have the opportunity to curate an exhibition at Grand Union, Digbeth or at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.

The overwhelming positive response to the module ‘Curating Research’ led to the design and introduction of the highly successful and oversubscribed MA programme ‘Art History and Curating’ introduced in 2014 with its key modules of ‘Curatorial Practices’ and ‘Placement’. Students now also have the opportunity to curate an exhibition at Grand Union, Digbeth or at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts

In 2015, the Department was renamed to ‘Art History, Curating and Visual Studies’ to take account of curatorial studies that had become a central strand for the entire department.

In 2015/16 (winter semester) Vinzent applied parts of this MA programme to the Master programme Sammlungsbezogene Wissens- und Kulturgeschichte (Knowledge and Cultural History through Collections), University of Erfurt, Germany (see the programme) by initiating, designing and co-conducting a curatorial placement. Students were involved in preparing the exhibition Performing Bodies. Raum und Zeit bei Meister Eckhart und in Videoinstallationen von Taery Kim / Performing Bodies. Space and Time in Meister Eckhart and Video Installationen of Taery Kim, Galerie Waidspeicher (Michaelisstr. 10, 99084 Erfurt, Germany,) 

Visit the Waidspeicher Gallery website

The forerunner of the exhibitions mentioned above under ‘Curating Research’ was the annual PG exhibition of the department, each mentored by another member of staff as a voluntary undertaking, though without any programme credits for the students; this, in turn, was initiated by the 2005 show Art and Migration the first exhibition at the department curated by postgraduate and undergraduate students (primarily led by Dr Jennifer Powell, at the time a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Jutta Vinzent). Different from the exhibitions as part of the module, which only have a pamphlet published (2-paged folded A3-size), these exhibitions came with an exhibition catalogue; here is the list of these:

• 2009 - Building the Future. Birmingham’s Architectural Story, 5-18 June 2009 (under the mentorship of David Hemsoll and with loans from the RBSA, Birmingham); David Hemsoll (ed.), Building the Future (with contributions by David Hemsoll, Hazel Weston, Barbara Forgarty, Amy Shulman, Lucy Blackford, Richard Horley, Victoria Jones, Tamsin Foulkes, Elizabeth Moore, Georgina Webb-Dickin and Tess Radcliffe), Birmingham: Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 2009, 30 pp 
• 2008 - Publicity and Perversity. The English Satirical Print, 1750-1950, June 2008 (under the mentorship of Dr Camilla Smith); Camilla Smith (ed.), Publicity and Perversity. The English Satirical Print, 1750-1950 (with contributions by Naomi Blackbourn, John Blythe, Guanyu Li, Samantha McElroy, Elizabeth Moore, Fran Schneider, Katrin Seyler and Danielle Thom), Birmingham: Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 2008, 20 pp
• 2007 - Art and the Periodical. An Exhibition of Modern Magazines, 8-13 June 2007 (under the mentorship of Dr Francesca Berry); Francesca Berry (ed.), Art and the Periodical. An Exhibition of Modern Magazines (with contributions by Nellie Gilson, Antonia Grousdanidou, Natalie Jones, Chad Morris, Emily Porter-Salmon, Katrin Seyler and John Tepe), Birmingham: Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 2007, 47 pp
• 2006 - Travel by the Book, June 2006 (under the mentorship of Dr Richard Clay); Richard Clay (ed.), Travel by the Book (with contributions by Susan Rasmussen, Allan Reynolds, Camilla Smith and Caroline Walker), Birmingham: George Bell Institute, 2006, 88 pp and 15 b.&w. illustrations  
• 2005 - Art and Migration, 11-15 July 2005 (under the mentorship of Dr Jutta Vinzent); Jennifer Powell and Jutta Vinzent, Art and Migration. Art Works by Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain, Birmingham: George-Bell-Institute (Humanitas Subsidia Series, 2), 142 pp with 24 illustrations (second, revised edition published as Visual Journeys: Art in Exile in Britain, Chichester: George Bell Institute, 2008, 143 pp with 24 illustrations

I welcome proposals for MA dissertations, MRes and doctoral theses on modern and contemporary art (preferred areas include any aspect of mobility and migration related to Germany, Britain and their colonies, curating in historical perspective in Germany, Britain or post-1989 Europe, conceptions of space and urbanism in avant-garde art, Holocaust/Jewish art, and networks). My former students have been able to be appointed to positions in galleries (Tate Britain, London and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge) and universities (Jaber University, Kuwait, the University of Leicester,and the University of Cambridge and the University of Birmingham).

Successful completion

PhD

• 2018 Amy Shulman, Picture Post and the photo essay: Émigré photographers and visual narratives 1938-1945 (PhD, Haywood Scholarship 2011-13)
• 2017 Imogen Wiltshire, Therapeutic art concepts and practices in Britain and the United States (1937-1946) (PhD, AHRC-funded)
• 2013 Richenda Roberts, 'Patriotism is not enough': Visual responses to pacifism and feminism in Britain during World War One (AHRC-funded, co-supervision with Dr. Francesca Berry)
• 2012 Moayad Hussein, Western influences on Khalifa Qattan's Circulism (funded by the Cultural Office of the Kuwaiti Embassy, London)
• 2012 Marie Considine, Social history's regional aspects: Bernard Fleetwood-Walker and the RBSA (Royal Birmingham Society of Arts) in the first half of the twentieth century
• 2011 Charlotte Gore, Internationalism, nationalism, regionalism: art colonies in Germany (Worspwede, Neu-Dachau and Eifel Gruppe)
• 2009 Jenny Powell, Anglo-French exchanges in post-war exhibition cultures in London (AHRC-funded)

MPhil/MRes

• 2013 Imogen Wiltshire, Arthur Segal's Painting School for Professionals and Non-Professionals from 1937 to 1944 (AHRC-funded)
• 2012 Julia Abraham, The BLK Art Group and black art in Britain in the 1980s (Raymond Priestley Scholarship)
• 2011 Antonia Grousdanidou, The production of space and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham: From art object to art institution, 1963-1978
• 2011 Amy Shulman, Photography, memory and identity: The émigré photographer Lisel Haas (1898-1989)
• 2010 Georgina Webb Dickin, The performative role of the Berlin wall and the reception of postmodernism beyond it
• 2009 Richenda Roberts, Pacifism and gender: censorship and the anti-war art of Evelyn De Morgan (AHRC-funded, co-supervision with Dr. Francesca Berry)
• 2009 Chad Morris, The Superman. Idea and representation of the superman in comic books of the 1930s and 1940s
• 2004 Jenny Powell, Germaine Richier and Existentialism (AHRB-funded)

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Find out more - our PhD History of Art  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

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Find out more - our PhD History of Art  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

II am currently working on two projects:

• Networks of modern art in twentieth-century Britain: A project which investigates modern art through a study of its display in and circulation through commercial art galleries in London, which were responsible for the introduction of modern art to a British public. It will not only help understand galleries and modern art in Britain better, a topic only covered until the beginning of the twentieth century so far, but also clarify the relevance of continental émigrés, who seemingly were heavily involved in this process.
• “Degenerate” German Artists in the British Colonies: Planned as a monograph, it will take the approach of Entangled History, which focuses on the interconnectivity and multi-directionality of history. It will argue that entanglement seems to be an approach which is particularly suited to study those who migrated from Nazi Germany into the colonies and protectorates of the British Empire due to the politico-social complexity with which the refugees were faced. This monograph also aims to contribute to the decolonising of the field of Exile Studies by considering not only the global routes of the émigrés, but also the art practices and exhibition histories in light of colonisation.

External Research Grants and Awards Received

 

Resonante Weltbeziehungen in sozio-religösen Praktiken in Antike und Gegenwart - 08/2017—07/2027

Funding body: German Research Foundation (DFG)
My role: Faculty Member
Visit the website for description project description

Was ist westlich am Westen? - 02/2018—01/2021

Funding body: Freistaat Thüringen
Funding amount: € 440,000
My role: Co-Investigator
Visit the website for description project description

Overcoming Dictatorships -11/2006—05/2009

 

Funding body: European Union (scheme ‘Culture 2000’)
Funding amount: € 520,000
My role: Co-Investigator
Project description: The project explored ways in which artists and writers dealt with the political changes in Europe, in particular the opening of socialist countries since the end of the 1980s. A number of symposia held in the seven participating European countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Germany and Britain) explored forms of remembrance of authoritarian systems (Socialism, Fascism, National Socialism) and anxiety of new ones (consumerism, globalization, mass media). Critical attention was also drawn to the EU’s unifying character in the light of cultural diversity.

Outputs: Two publications (Jutta Vinzent, Overcoming Dictatorships, Leipzig 2008; Present Tensions, ed. Kristina Kaiserová and Gert Röhrborn, Budapest and N. Y. 2009 and an international exhibition touring through Europe in 2008/9 (University of Birmingham, The National Museum of Contemporary Art at the Ion Creanga National Theatre, Bucharest and Town Hall City, Dresden), curated by Jutta Vinzent

Development of Technology-Enhanced Learning in the Department of History of Art- 09/2005 - 08/2007
Funding body: University of Birmingham 
Funding amount: £41,000
My role: Principal Investigator
Project description: Based on work carried out as part of my publication on web-based research and teaching material in the History of Art in CHart (Computers and the History of Art), I successfully bid for an innovative project involving the transformation of the large slide library of the Department of History of Art into a digitised source supporting teaching and research, a cutting-edge strategic undertaking at the time. The project has been successfully managed and carried out, and has significantly contributed to cultural changes in approaching the discipline at the University of Birmingham.

Editorial board

• Editorial board member of SpatioTemporality
• Review Member of Birmingham Journal For Europe

Research fellowships and invited professorship

• 2019, 1 Feb. (– ongoing) Guest at the research centre Einstein Center, Berlin (see https://www.ec-chronoi.de/Fellows) (with a project on concepts of present time and Performance Art)
• 03/2019-03/2020: Research Fellow 
  Place: Max Weber Center for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany
  Funding body: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany)  Project: Dynamik ritueller Praktiken im Judentum (https://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/forschungsgruppen-und-stellen/djr/)
• 09/2015-08/2018: Research Fellow 
  Place: Freie Universität (Berlin)
  Funding body: German Research Foundation (DFG)
  Project: Topoi (https://www.topoi.org/area/b/)
• 01/2013-08/2018: Research Fellow 
  Place: Max Weber Center for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany
  Funding body: German Research Foundation (DFG)
  Project: Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective
• 01/2012-03/2012: Research Fellow 
  Place: Max Weber Center for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany
  Funding body: German Research Foundation (DFG)
  Project: Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective
•  2010-15: Adjunct Professor
  Place: Korea University, Seoul, South Korea (part of Universitas 21, the leading global network of research universities)
  Funding body: Korea University
  

Reviewing research applications and publications

• Reviewer for Third Text
• 2010-14 Academic member of the AHRC's Peer Review College
• 2011 Reviewer of ARTMargins: Central and East European Visual Culture for the MIT Press
• 2010 and 2012 External project reviewer for the DAAD
• 2009 Reviewer for WWTF (Vienna Science and Technology Fund)
• 2003 Book reviewer for Manchester University Press

Membership of Professional Bodies

• The International Art Market Studies Association (TIAMSA)
• Meister-Eckhart-Gesellschaft
• AAH (Association of Art Historians in Britain) - Since 2019 member of the association’s HE Committee and since 2020 member of the association’s Conference Committee 
• Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, University of London
• Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex
• Gesellschaft für Exilforschung e.V. (German Society for Exile Studies)
• St. John’s College, Cambridge

External examination

(PhD examinations as External Examiner are highlighted)

• 2019 Katya Micallef, Understanding Contemporary Visual Art in Malta from 1989 to 2018: A Curator’s Perspective (PhD, Kingston University, London)
• 2012-2016 External examiner for the BA History of Art programmes at the University College London
• 2015 Joanna Cheetham, Hans Feibusch between Germany and Britain. Networks, Cultural Transfer and Exchange (PhD, Courtauld Institute of Art, London)
• 2011 Meghan Gilbride, Memory Migrations (PhD upgrading, University College London)
• 2011 Johannes Mengel, Constructions of Identity in Post-WWII. German Photography: Michael Schmidt and Thomas Demand (MPhil) [Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge]
• 2011 Daniel Cyrus Jonas Zamani, Surrealism and Myth - the Melusine (MPhil, University of Cambridge)
• 2010 Adriana Kiss-Davies, The Exile Experience. Hungarian and Czech Cold War Refugee Artists in Britain (PhD, Aberystwyth University)
• 2009 Verity Mackenzie, Hannah Höch and the Fetish (PhD registration, University of Cambridge)
• 2008 Verity Mackenzie, Some Species of Whore. The Mannequin as Surrealist Object par excellence (MPhil, University of Cambridge)
• 2007 Nausikaä El-Mecky, Barlach, Breker, 1937 (MPhil, University of Cambridge)
• also since 2009 Examiner for the PG Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education, University of Birmingham

Administration at the University of Birmingham

School level

• Panel Member of the School Promotion Panel for Senior Lecturer (2018-)
• Member of the Advisory group for the School Workload Allocation Model (2010-11)
• School Leaning Resources Representative (2008-10)

Departmental level

• Director of PGT Studies including PGT Admissions (2018-); PG Officer (Autumn term 2007/8)
• Officer for Employability, Internships and Placements (2018-);  Director for Placements and Internships (2011-13)
• REF Reading Group (2019-)
• Learning Resources Representative (2001-13; 2019-20)
• UG and PG Examinations Officer (2004-11)
• Director of Education (2004-11)
• Web Design Co-Ordinator (2001-8)
• Welfare Officer and SSCC Lead (2001-4)
• Acting Head of Department (Autumn term 2006-7)

Administration at the University of Erfurt, Germany

Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies

• Gleichgestelltenbeauftragte (Officer for Equal Oopportunities) (2015-18)
• Appointment committees for Professorships, Fellows, Post-doc positions and PhD studentships (2015-18)