Grapheme - New Books in Conversation An Evening with the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies
Authors and editors associated with the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna cordially invite you for informal individual conversations about their newly published books at the Open Days 2026 in 5-minute slots.
We look forward to welcoming your thoughts, responses, questions on the publications of this year’s participants (list below), or taking the opportunity to schedule further meetings!
Jens Kastner
Jens Kastner is a sociologist and art historian. He teaches at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and is the coordinating editor of Bildpunkt. Zeitschrift der IG Bildende Kunst.
Jens Kastner, Internationalismus. Kleine Geschichte einer großen Idee. Münster: Unrast Verlag, 2025.
Jens Kastner, Klassifikation und Kampf. Zur Aktualität der Kultursoziologie Pierre Bourdieus. Vienna/Berlin: Verlag Turia + Kant, 2024.
Jens Kastner, Balzac-Lektüren. Studien zur Kultursoziologie. Vienna/Berlin: Verlag Turia + Kant, 2024.
www.jenspetzkastner.de
Lisa Moravec
Lisa Moravec is an art historian and performance scholar. As a senior postdoctoral researcher, she heads the Austrian Science Fund project/habilitation thesis The Performance of Critique: AI, Bodily Intelligence, and Posthumanist Aesthetics at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Based on her research topics, she also works as a critic and curator. She currently teaches at the University of Technology in Vienna.
Lisa Moravec, Dressaged Animality: Human and Animal Actors in Contemporary Performance. [Monograph, revised dissertation]. London: Routledge, 2024.
Lisa Moravec, “Staging Ideas: Rose English's Performance Poetics,” in Harald Krejci, Lisa Moravec, and Marijana Schneider (eds.): Begin Suddenly in Splendour. Rose English: Performance, Presence, Spectacle. [Exhibition catalogue]. Salzburg/Berlin: Museum der Moderne Salzburg/Distanz Verlag, 2024: 51-62. German and English.
Lisa Moravec, “The Art of Performing: Looking Back at Vienna Actionism from the Perspective of the 2000s,” in Eva Badura-Triska, Julia Moebus-Puck, and Lisa Moravec: What is Vienna Actionism?, trans. Lisa Moravec. Wiener Aktionismus Museum/Berlin: DCV Verlag, 2025: 262-271.
Open access Dressaged Animality: Human and Animal Actors in Contemporary Performance: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003439639/dressaged-animality-lisa-moravec
Ana de Almeida and Mariel Rodríguez
Ana de Almeida is an artist and author and is pursuing her doctorate at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She lives and works between Vienna and Lisbon.
Mariel Rodríguez is an artist and scholar of cultural studies. She is pursuing her doctorate at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Ana de Almeida and Mariel Rodríguez (eds.), Standpoint Autotheory: Writing Embodied Experiences and Relational Artistic Practices. Vienna/London: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Sternberg Press, 2025.
https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/standpoint-autotheory/
Noit Banai
Noit Banai is an art historian, critic, and Professor of Diaspora Aesthetics at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Noit Banai, “Introduction” and “The Dialogical Imperative in the Digital Age: From Trans-National Specularity to Post-National Imaginary in Israel/Palestine,” in: Noit Banai und Marina Gržinić (eds.) Conflicts: Aesthetics and Politics. [Special issue of journal Filozofski vestnik, Aca philosphiva]. 45 (February 2025): 79-103.
Noit Banai, “Comedian and Performativity,” in Bariş Acar (ed.): Sometimes a Banana is Just a Banana. Izmir: Livera Press, 2025: 11-20.
Noit Banai, “The Faciality Machine: Wilhelm Sasnal’s Micropolitics of Portraiture,” in: Adam Szymczyk (ed.): Wilhelm Sasnal: Painting as Prop. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum and Roma Publications, 2024.
Noit Banai, “Abstract Composition, No. 185: Royal Sovereignty,” in Magdalena Ziólkowska and Wojciech Grzybala (eds.), Andrzej Wróblewski, Exhibiting. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2024.
Ruth Sonderegger
Ruth Sonderegger is a philosopher and teaches philosophy and aesthetic theory at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Franziska Dübgen, Marina Martinez Mateo and Ruth Sonderegger (eds.), Philosophie und Rassismus: Debatten und Kontroversen. Weilerswist: Velbrück Verlag, 2025.
Eduard Freudmann, Jakob Krameritsch, Michael Lunardi, and Ruth Sonderegger (eds.), Ergänzungen und Eingriffe. Zur Geschichte der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien 1930-1960. Vienna: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2025.
Jakob Krameritsch
Jakob Krameritsch is a historian and teaches at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Eduard Freudmann, Jakob Krameritsch, Michael Lunardi, and Ruth Sonderegger (eds.), Ergänzungen und Eingriffe. Zur Geschichte der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien 1930-1960. Vienna: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2025.
Iris Julian
Iris Julian is a scholar of cultural studies focusing on dance and performance art. She completed her doctorate in the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2022. Julian develops methodologies informed by art history, visual culture studies, theatre studies, and the sociology of culture.
Iris Julian, The Inherent Potential in Art Performance: To Critically Challenge Art Traditions in Scenes of Love and Sexual Desire. London/New York: Routledge, 2025.
Nina Prader a.k.a. Lady Liberty Press
Nina Prader a.k.a. Lady Liberty Press is an artist, writer, mentor, independent publisher—in short, an artist-librarian between Vienna, Berlin, and the world.
Nina Prader, Lady Liberty Library Reader. Vienna: Schlebrügge, 2025.
https://schlebruegge.com/de/content/lady-liberty-library-reader
Magdalena Kreinecker and Simon Nagy
Magdalena Kreinecker lives and works as a visual artist in Vienna. Since 2022, she has been teaching various printmaking techniques and developing projects in the field of artistic publication at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Simon Nagy works in the context of various collectives in the fields of art, text, and critical knowledge production in Vienna. He is a member of the mediation collective trafo.K, part of the artist group Schandwache, and, together with Rosa Andraschek, realizes artistic memorial projects in rural areas.
Magdalena Kreinecker and Simon Nagy: Smoke, Birds, Pun, Crisis. A Dialogic Glossary. Hamburg: Textem Verlag, 2025. German and English.
andrea ancira
andrea ancira is an editor, curator, co-founder, and director of tumbalacasa ediciones. Her research is situated at the intersection of archival practice, publishing, and translation as devices for examining memory, identity, and the power structures that underpin historical narratives.
andrea ancira, Nina Hoechtl, und Ana Victoria Jiménez, Work-planner / Cuaderno de Tareas. Series: Fine Companions, No. 3. Vienna: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Mark Pezinger Books, and Tumbalacasa Ediciones, 2026. Spanish and English.