Thesis: Painting’s Agency: Heresies‘ Feminist Politics and Women’s Material Activism
Supervisor: Professor Jo Applin   Advisor: Dr Lucy Bradnock
Funded by CHASE/AHRC
My dissertation investigates intersections of feminism and painting in the United States between 1970 and the early 1990s. Starting with Heresies—a publishing collective active in New York City from 1976 to 1993—my research follows the central debates and theories that marked different phases of the women’s liberation movement and demonstrates how these reflected in women’s painting practices of the time. I focus on six artists from the collective’s inner circle: Emma Amos, Ida Applebroog, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Kozloff, Joan Snyder and May Stevens. Each chapter brings two of them into dialogue, highlighting shared activist concerns over stylistic proximities. This approach is grounded in feminist artists charging different aspects of painting, such as materials, forms or figures, with activist symbolism. My research understands and treats paintings therefore as political artifacts which unlike other contemporaneous documents contain and transmit a high degree of emotional affect, encapsulating artists’ subjective viewpoints as well as a broader collective agenda.
Research Areas and Interests
Postwar & Postmodern Art, Feminist Art, Painting Theory, Collectivity, American Art
Minimal Art, Land Art, East-West Artistic Dialogue in the Cold War Era
Curating
2018–2024: Assistant Curator for Postwar Art, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Mary Miss, Knots, 1969, Acquisition & Publication (2023); MIX & MATCH. New Ways to See the Permanent Collection (2022-2025); Astrid Klein. That Perfect Love Drives Out Fear (2020); A Brief Collection Display of John Baldessari (2020);
Georg Baselitz. The Donation (2019), I transmit. 100 Years of Joseph Beuys (2021); Ambient for a Silent Forest – Kalas Liebfried in Dialogue with Joseph Beuys (2019)
Other Freelance Curating
2022: Shapes of Shelter, co-curated with Lisa Stoiber group show and publication at PLATFORM, Munich,
funded by the City Council of Munich and the Baumgart-Foundation, Vienna (2022)
2018: unfollow me, curator of group show at Nir Altman, Munich
Fellowship / Grants
2023-2026: AHRC CHASE Doctoral Studentship
funded by The Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England
2025: Getty Library Research Grant
4-week summer research grant funded by The Getty Library
2022-2024: Traveling Research Fellowship: Linking Art Worlds
organised by Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa (GWZO) e.V., financed by the TERRA Foundation for American Art and The Getty Institute
2022: Exhibition Grant for the Group Exhibition Shapes of Shelter
PLATFORM Munich, Oct-Nov 2022, issued by the City Council of Munich
2020: Curatorial Fellow, UNIDEE Embedded Arts in a Post-pandemic Future
Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, Italy
2011-15: Under- and Postgraduate Studies fully funded by The German Academic Scholarship Foundation
2013: Max-Weber-Scholarship for the Semester Course Art & Business
Sotheby’s Institute, London
Published Writing
‘Semantic Drifts: A Feminist Publishing Collaboration between Heresies and idiomA,’ in Cultural History of the Avantgarde in Central and Eastern Europe (working title) edited by Marianna Placáková, Beata Hock and Vesna Vuković. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2026 (forthcoming).
‘Encountering the Pandemic: Can Relational Art Reconstitute a Sense of Connectivity in the Age of Social Distancing?,’ in: Everything is live now, edited by Birte Kleine-Benne, Cultural Policy Lab, Munich, 2021.
‘Etel Adnan,’ in Königsklasse. Contemporary Art at Herrenchiemsee Palace, edited by Corinna Thierolf for the Bavarian State Painting Collections, 76. Munich: Hirer Verlag, 2019.
10 artist biographies published in Postwar, edited by Okwui Enwezor, Katy Siegel, Ulrich Wilmes, Munich: Haus der Kunst, 2016.
Education
M.A. (with Distinction) in Arts Administration & Cultural Policy, Goldsmiths University of London, 2014-2015
Dissertation: Between Mediation and Experience Design. Do Current Trends in Curatorial Practice Meet Audience Expectations?
B.A. in International Business & Cultural Studies, University of Passau, 2011-2014
Thesis: Identity Constructs and Challenges in Contemporary American Art, Matthew Barney, Kara Walker and Nikki S. Lee
Conference Presentations
2026: Association for Art History Annual Conference, Cambridge University
Paper: ‘Heresies’ Politics of Visuality and Feminist Painting’
Panel: Feminism, Art and Politics, Critical Engagements with Heresies (1977-1992)
2025: College Art Association 113th Annual Conference
Paper: ‘Big Pages from the Heresies Collective — Transferring Feminist Journalism to an Exhibition Space’
Panel: Activating Community through Collaboration, funded by The Women’s Caucus for Art