Prof. Dr. Horst Bredekamp

Horst Bredekamp is Professor of Art & Visual History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and was Director of the Cluster of Excellence »Image Knowledge Gestaltung« from 2012 to 2018.
In 2000, he founded the project The Technical Image at the Hermann von Helmholtz Center for Cultural Techniques. Bredekamp has been a Permanent Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg 2003 to 2012, from 2008 to 2016 he has directed the DFG (German Research Foundation) Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences Picture Act and Embodiment, which merged into the project Picture Act and Body Knowledge with the foundation of the Cluster of Excellence »Image Knowledge Gestaltung«.
From October 2015 to August 2018 Bredekamp was one of the Founding Directors of the Humboldt Forum.
As Senior Co-Director Bredekamp leads the Cluster »Matters of Activity« together with Peter Fratzl, Claudia Mareis and the Director Wolfgang Schäffner.
Member of the Executive Board
Cluster of Excellence
»Matters of Activity«
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Sophienstr. 22a
10178 Berlin
Bredekamp, H. 2020. Die Fenster der Monade: Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz' Theater der Natur und Kunst (Acta humaniora). 3., korr. Auflage. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110635102
Bredekamp, H. 2019. Galileo’s Thinking Hand. Mannerism, Anti-Mannerism and the Virtue of Drawing in the Foundation of Early Modern Science. Trans. of Galileos denkende Hand. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110539219
Monographs & Books
Bredekamp, H. 2020. Art History and Prehistoric Art: Rethinking their Relationship in the Light of New Observations. Translated by M. Cohen. The Twentieth Horst Gerson Lecture, 4th of October 2019. Groningen: University of Groningen Press.
Bredekamp, H. 2020. Die Fenster der Monade: Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz' Theater der Natur und Kunst (Acta humaniora). 3., korr. Auflage. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110635102
Bredekamp, K. 2020. Leviathan: Body politic as visual strategy in the work of Thomas Hobbes. Trans. Clegg, E. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.
Bredekamp, H. 2019. Aby Warburg, der Indianer: Berliner Erkundungen einer liberalen Ethnologie. Berlin: Wagenbach.
Bredekamp, H. 2019. Darwin's Corals. A New Model of Evolution and the Tradition of Natural History. Trans. of Darwins Korallen. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110680317
Bredekamp, H. 2019. Galileo’s Thinking Hand. Mannerism, Anti-Mannerism and the Virtue of Drawing in the Foundation of Early Modern Science. Trans. of Galileos denkende Hand. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110539219
Bredekamp, H. 2017. Der Behemoth: Metamorphosen des Anti-Leviathan. Carl-Schmitt-Vorlesungen Band 1. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot.
Bredekamp, H. 2017. Image Acts. A Systematic Approach to Visual Agency. Image Word Action, 2, Trans. of Theorie des Bildakts. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110548570
Bredekamp, H. 2007. Galilei der Künstler: Der Mond. Die Sonne. Die Hand. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Edited Volumes & Exhibition Catalogues
Doll, N., Bredekamp, H., Schäffner W. for the Cluster of Excellence » Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory« eds. 2017. +ultra. knowledge & gestaltung. Exh. cat., Martin Gropius Bau Berlin. Trans. of +ultra. gestaltung schafft wissen. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann.
Stuhl, F., Bredekamp, H., Schäffner, W. eds. 2017. +ultra. gestaltung schafft wissen. Dokumentation der Ausstellung und ihrer partizipativen Vermittlungsformate. Münster: Waxmann.
Bredekamp, H., Schäffner W. eds. 2015. Haare hören – Strukturen wissen – Räume agieren. Berichte aus dem Interdisziplinären Labor »Bild Wissen Gestaltung«. Bielefeld: transcript.
Bredekamp, H., Brückle, I, Needham, P. eds. 2014. A Galileo Forgery: Unmasking the New York Sidereus Nuncius. De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1524/9783110354782
Articles in Edited Volumes
Bredekamp, H. 2020. »Appendix: Twilight of the gods for Neoplatonism (1986/1992).« In Iconology, Neoplatonism, and the Arts in the Renaissance, edited by Hub. B., Kodera, S. London: Routledge, 216-229.
Bredekamp, H. 2016. »Galilei’s spiral scribbles, campanella and fludd.« In What Reason Promises, edited by Doniger, W., Galison, P., Neiman, S. Berlin/Munich/Boston: De Gruyter, 100-116. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110455113-015
Bredekamp, H. 2015. »Art History.« In International Encyclopedia of the Social &Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition, edited by Wright, J. Elsevier, 21-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.62101-3
Bredekamp, H. 2014. »The Picture Act: Tradition, Horizon, Philosophy.« In Bildakt at the Warburg Institute, edited by Marienberg, S., Trabant, J. Berlin/Munich/Boston: De Gruyter, 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110364804.3
Bredekamp, H. 2014. »Towards a psychology of the forger.« In A Galileo Forgery: Unmasking the New York Sidereus Nuncius, edited by Bredekamp, H., Brückle, I., Needham, P. De Gruyter, 89-93. https://doi.org/10.1524/9783110354782
Bredekamp, H. 2013. »Franz Kugler and the concept of world art history.« In Cultural Histories of the Material World, edited by Miller, P.N. The University of Michigan Press, 249-262. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84946003526&partnerID=40&md5=b57c27971dac71b3f277295a1d841627
Bredekamp, H. 2010. »Wilhelm Pinders »Ungleichzeitigkeiten des Gleichzeitigen«.« In Rekursionen, edited by von Hilger, P., Ofak, A. Kulturtechnik. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 115-124. https://doi.org/10.30965/9783846746783_007
Bredekamp, H. 2007. »Thomas Hobbes’s Visual Strategies.« In The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan, edited by Springborg, P. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 29-60. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521836670.002
Bredekamp, H., Haffner, D. 2004. »Census, imago, technical image, prometheus: Projects of digital art history.« In Digital Resources from Cultural Institutions for Use in Teaching and Learning, edited by Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz De Gruyter, 37-49. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110936179
Articles
Bredekamp, H., Schäffner, W. 2020. »Material Agencies.« Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 83, (3): 300-309. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/ZKG-2020-3001
Bredekamp, H., Joschke, C. 2018. »De l’histoire sociale à la Bildwissenschaft avec Marx, Benjamin et Warburg.« Perspective, (2): 105-122. https://doi.org/10.4000/PERSPECTIVE.11386
Bredekamp, H. 2018. »Fall into the abyss(Sturz in den Abyssus).« Du: Zeitschrift Der Kultur, 2018-December, (888): 58-72. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85058630528&partnerID=40&md5=b3c1bf41be36e5ceeac1236db62ad8cf
Bredekamp, H. 2017. »Thomas Hobbes’s Visual Strategies.« Translated into Russian by K. Sarycheva. Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 146, (4): 22-36.
Bredekamp, H., Blower, J., Wild, J. 2014. »Autonomy and Asceticism.« Art in Translation, 6, (2): 205-214. https://doi.org/10.2752/175613114X13998876655211
Bredekamp, H., Wild, J., Whyte, I. B. 2014. »False Ski-Turns: Edgar Wind’s Critique of Heidegger and Sartre.« Art in Translation, 6, (2): 215-236. https://doi.org/10.2752/175613114X13998876655257
Bredekamp, H. 2013. »Les sorties de la caverne: Nouvelles découvertes et résultats de la paléontologie.« Cahiers du Musee National d'Art Moderne, (126): 14-23.
Krämer, S., Bredekamp, H. 2013. »Culture, Technology, Cultural Techniques – Moving Beyond Text1.« Theory, Culture & Society, 30, (6): 20-29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413496287
Bredekamp, H. 2012. »Fertile moment .« Konteksty, 66, (3-4): 264-271. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84873370902&partnerID=40&md5=e8ddb33571628ea8c939ec609f0a36db
Bredekamp, H. 2012. »Foot, fortune, ball: The platonic principles of the handicap. The globe and deficits of completeness .« Konteksty, 66, (3-4): 19-23.
Bredekamp, H. 2008. »The image of the Bulgarian state body as agency of violence .« Kritische Berichte, 2008, (2): 31-35.
Bredekamp, H. 2007. »Bildprobleme.« Informatik-Spektrum, 31, (1): 9-11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00287-007-0209-x
Bredekamp, H. 2003. »A Neglected Tradition? Art History as Bildwissenschaft.« Critical Inquiry, 29, (3): 418-428. https://doi.org/10.1086/376303
Bredekamp, H. 2003. »Der utopische bilderadas des Buchmenschen Leibniz.« Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 13, (3): 539-550.
Bredekamp, H. 2000. »Gazing Hands and Blind Spots: Galileo as Draftsman.« Science in Context, 13, (3-4): 423-462. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269889700003860
Bredekamp, H., Hause, M. T., Bond, J. 1999. »From Walter Benjamin to Carl Schmitt, via Thomas Hobbes.« Critical Inquiry, 25, (2): 247-266. https://doi.org/10.1086/448919
Exhibitions
Doll, N. (Curator), Bredekamp, H. (Director), Schäffner, W. (Director) +ultra. knowledge & gestaltung. Exhibition. Berlin: Martin-Gropius-Bau. Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung, Berlin, 30 November 2016 - 8 January 2017.
Talks & Presentations
Bredekamp, H. Die materielle Metaphysik des Filzes / The Material Metaphysics of Felt. Talk at Annual Conference of the Cluster »Matters of Activity« 2020, 11 November 2020. https://www.virtualspace.matters-of-activity.de/annualconference/?id=9
Bredekamp, H. Die rückstürzende Metaphysik der Bildwissenschaft. Talk at Lecture Series »Art and Visual Theory« of the Department of Art and Visual History, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin. 22 January 2020.
Bredekamp, H. radioeins- und Freitag-Salon mit Jakob Augstein. Talk at Grünen Salon der Volksbühne, Berlin. 27 January 2020. https://www.radioeins.de/programm/sendungen/sendungen/353/2001/200127_20_00_radioeins_und_freitag_salon_8062.html
Bredekamp, H. Art history and prehistoric art: Rethinking their relationship in the light of recent observations in anthropology and philosophy of embodiment. The Twentieth Horst Gerson Lecture, University of Groningen. 27 October 2019. https://www.rug.nl/research/icog/research/research-centres/artsinsociety/news-and-events-ais/2019-10-04-horst-gerson-lecture?lang=en
Contributions in TV & Radio
Bredekamp, H. Kunsthistoriker: Bilder wie aus dem Irakkrieg. Gespräch mit Jörg Biesler. Radio contribution, Deutschlandfunk. 8 January 2021. https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/sturm-auf-us-kapitol-kunsthistoriker-bilder-wie-aus-dem.691.de.html?dram:article_id=490478
Podcasts & Videos
Bredekamp, H. Bildzensur in der Digitalmoderne. Gespräch mit Katja Müller-Helle: De Gruyter Conversations. Video. 17 December 2020. https://blog.degruyter.com/bildzensur-in-der-digitalmoderne-horst-bredekamp-im-gesprach/