Dietmar Rübel: Ossian and the European Dreamtime, or: The Beginning of Modernity as Retromania

The lecture is about the construction of a European art history. The exhibition series ‘Art around 1800’, which was realised at the Hamburger Kunsthalle from 1974 to 1980, serves as a central example. In particular, the opening of this cycle on Ossian, a joint production with the Louvre in Paris, is intended to help understand the transnational fascination with the invented poet as part of a dialectic of the Enlightenment.

Lecture in German

Dietmar Rübel holds the Chair of History and Theory of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich; he was previously Professor of Art History at the HfBK Dresden from 2009 to 2017. He also works as an curator of exhibitions and has been a guest curator at the MAK in Vienna and the Nationalgalerie Berlin, among others. Together with Petra Lange-Berndt, he is currently working on an exhibition on ‘Art around 1800’ at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.