Zur Person

Eric C. H. de Bruyn writes, teaches, and advises students in modern and contemporary art and media within a Western and non-Western context, with an emphasis on post-45 art, photography, and film in Europe, North and South America. Further areas of focus are:

• The history and theory of the avant-garde
• Art criticism 
• Ecologies of art, media and society
• Critical theory, postcolonial theory
• Theory and history of documentary film and photography
• Film, media and information theory
• Avant-garde, experimental and artist film
• Theory and history of documentary film and photography
• Curatorial studies and film programming

De Bruyn has previously taught at University of Leiden, State University of New York, Indiana University-Purdue University (Indianapolis), New York University, among other places. He has curated film programs at the Whitney Museum (New York), Tate Modern (London), MuMOK (Vienna), Pompidou Museum (Paris), He has also served on several, international award committees (e.g. Andy Warhol Foundation, Terra Foundation) and advisory boards (e.g. Argos (Brussels), Casco (Utrecht), Scalinger Institute (Leiden).

De Bruyn is an editor of the journal Grey Room which publishes essays in the fields of architecture, art, media and politics. He has published in, among other places, Grey Room, Artforum, Texte zur Kunst, as well as in many museum catalogues and scholarly volumes. He has lectured widely in North America and Europe. Most recently, de Bruyn has co-edited Futurity Report (Sternberg Press) with Sven Lütticken."

Full c.v.

Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, Art History Department, 2017- heute

University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands, Assistant Professor, Film and Photographic Studies, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, 2010-2017

University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art and Media (tenured position), Art History Department, 2003-2010

State University of New York, New Paltz, N.Y., Adjunct Professor of Art History, 2003

Parsons School of Design, New York, N.Y., Adjunct Professor of Art History, 2002-2003

Herron School of Art, Indiana University – Purdue University,  Indianapolis, IN., Visiting Professor of Contemporary Art, 2001-2002

Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig, Germany, Visiting Professor of Art History and Media Studies, 2000-2001

State University of New York, Purchase, N.Y., Visiting Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, 1999-2000

School of Visual Arts, New York, N.Y., Adjunct Lecturer of Art History and Cinematography, 1998-1999

New York University, New York City, N.Y., Adjunct Lecturer of Art History, Appraisal Studies in Fine Arts, 1997-2000

Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., Adjunct Lecturer, Center for Curatorial Studies, Fall 1997

New York University, New York, N.Y., Adjunct Lecturer of Art History, Degree Programs in the Liberal Arts, 1992-1993

Dowling College, Oakdale, N.Y., Adjunct Lecturer of Art History, 1992

Lehre

Lehrveranstaltungen im WiSe 2024/25

• Post-45 Art and Theory
• History of Photography
• Readings in Contemporary Art and Theory
• Art and Environment
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im SoSe 2024

• Surrealism: Aesthetics, Politics, Colonialism
• Modern Art and Anthropology
• Contemporary Art in Berlin
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im WiSe 2023/24 (Forschungssemester)

Lehrveranstaltungen im SoSe 2023

• Post-45 Art and Theory
• Autonomy and Art: A Reading Seminary
• The Documentary Turn in the Visual Arts
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im WiSe 2022/23

• Modern Art and Theory
• Intervention, Participation, Assembly
• Contemporary Art in Berlin
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im SoSe 2022

• Documenta (Blockseminar Berlin + Kassel)
• Radical Pedagogy: Educational Theory and Practice in Modern and Contemporary Art (together with Eva Ehninger)
• Post-Socialist Art (1960 - Present)
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im WiSe 2021/22

• Histories of Video Art
• Postcolonial and Transcultural Art and Theorie
• Contemporary Art and Media
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im SoSe 2021

• Modern Art and Theory
• Modes of Abstraction
• Brazil-Europe: Crosscurrents in Modern and Contemporary Art 
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im WiSe 2020/2021

• Contemporary Art
• Art of the 1990s 
• Theorie und Kritik 
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im SoSe 2020

• Global Conceptualism
• Contemporary Art in Berlin
• Colloquium

Lehrveranstaltungen im WiSe 2019/2020 (Forschungssemester)

• Kunst und Umwelt: Räume, Orte, Systeme (Ringvorlesung "Offener Hörsaal")
• Art and Ecology: Spaces, Sites, Systems 

Forschungsschwerpunkte

Eric de Bruyn has written extensively on the history and theory of contemporary art, with a strong emphasis on the history and theory of conceptual art and institutional critique.

He has published several monographic essays on, among others, Allan Sekula, Marcel Broodthaers, Dan Graham and David Lamelas, Lawrence Weiner as well as more contemporary artists, such as the Otolith Group, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Florian Pumhösl, and the V-Girls. In particular, de Bruyn has lectured and published widely on the interrelation of the visual arts and media (film, video, film) since 1945 (cf.The Filmic Anomaly, Ph.D. thesis) and organized several film programs in Europe and in the USA on this topic.

His work since the 1990s has been instrumental in establishing a dialogue between art history and the fields of media studies, film studies, and science studies, including the emergent discourses of information and behavioral studies during the Cold War period and in a global context.

He is currently at work on two book projects: Beyond Measure: Topologies of Post-War Art and Media, which develops a prehistory of the dominant network discourse of the 1990s, and a volume of collected essays on (artist) film and their sites of projection.

Forschungsprojekte (Drittmittel)

Geteilte Protokolle: Versammlung in der zeitgenössischen Kunst 
Teilprojekt A02 des Sonderforschungsbereichs 1512 "Intervenierende Künste", gefördert von der DFG, seit 2022
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter*innen: 

• João Gabriel Rizek 
• Luise Marie Willer

Studentische Hilfskraft: N.N.

Publikationen

• Monographien
• Herausgeberschaften
• Beiträge in Fachzeitschriften
• Konferenzbeiträge, Aufsätze in Sammelbänden und Ausstellungskatalogen
• Buchrezensionen
• Ausstellungsrezensionen
• Interviews

Tagungen

Semiperipherality. International Symposium (Freie Universität Berlin / Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut), online (Berlin), March 3 - 4, 2022. Organized by Prof. Dr. Sérgio B. Martins and Prof. Dr. Eric C. H. de Bruyn. 

Transkulturelle Perspektiven in der Kunst(geschichte). Drittes Berliner Graduierten-Symposium für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunstgeschichte. (Freie Universität Berlin / Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), online (Berlin), 12. – 13. November 2021. Konzeption und Organisation: Prof. Dr. Eric C. H. de Bruyn, Prof. Dr. Eva Ehninger, Dr. des. Johanna Függer-Vagts und Dr. André Rottmann mit Hanna Steinert, Johanna Engemann und Frederik Luszeit.

Ästhetik der Sichtbarkeit. Zweites Berliner Graduierten-Symposium für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunstgeschichte. (Freie Universität Berlin / Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), online (Berlin), 20. – 21. November 2020. Konzeption und Organisation: Prof. Dr. Eric C. H. de Bruyn, Prof. Dr. Eva Ehninger, Dr. des. Johanna Függer-Vagts und Dr. André Rottmann mit Louisa Denker, Johanna Engemann, Frederik Luszeit, Henriette Marsden und Hanna Steinert.

Medium Matters: Transformationen des Kunstwerks in Moderne und Gegenwart. Erstes Berliner Graduierten-Symposium für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunstgeschichte. (Freie Universität Berlin / Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Berlin, 15. – 16. November 2019. Konzeption und Organisation: Prof. Dr. Eric C. H. de Bruyn, Prof. Dr. Eva Ehninger, Johanna Függer-Vagts und Dr. André Rottmann mit Louisa Denker, Johanna Engemann und Lara Pfister.