Franziska Solte
Dr. Franziska Solte
Scientific Coordinator to the Director
on leave until March 2028
Since February 2025, Franziska Solte has been Scientific Coordinator to the Director at the DFK Paris. From September 2026 to March 2028, she is serving as interim professor of Art and New Media, replacing Charlotte Klonk at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research interests focus on artistic and theoretical phenomena that run counter to grand narratives, whether in the history of performance art since the 1970s, the interior design of the modern period, or in eighteenth-century French art.
Research Interests
- (In)Visibilities of the Traite atlantique in French Art between the Code Noir (1685) and the Second French Abolition Decree (1848)
- Theory and History of Performance Art
- Interior Design in the Context of (Technological) Modernity
About
CV
- Interim Professor, replacing Charlotte Klonk at the department of Art and Image History, Humboldt University of Berlin (September 2026 – March 2028)
- Scientific Coordinator to the Director at the German Centre for Art History, Paris (since February 2025)
- Research Associate at the Professorship in Art and New Media, Institute of Art and Visual History, Humboldt University of Berlin (2018–2024 Pre-Doctoral Researcher; 2024–2025 Post-Doctoral Researcher)
- PhD thesis: Code, Language, Play. The Performance of Rule-based Orders in US-American Art of the 1970s and Early 1980s, with a focus on works by Ericka Beckman, Guy de Cointet, Mike Kelley and Stuart Sherman. Supervisors: Prof. Dr Charlotte Klonk and Prof. Dr Juliane Rebentisch (summa cum laude, 2024; awarded the Rudolf Arnheim Prize by the Institute of Art and Visual History at Humboldt University of Berlin)
- Fellow of the Elsa Neumann Foundation of the State of Berlin (2016–2018) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (2016–2017)
- Visiting Scholar, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, Brown University, Providence (2016–2017)
- Research Associate in the research project Mobile Spaces, Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung, Humboldt University of Berlin (2013–2016)
- Artistic Director, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg (with Isabelle Busch, 2011–2014)
- Curatorial Assistant, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2009–2010)
- Studied Art History, Cultural Studies and Business Administration at Humboldt University of Berlin, completing an MA thesis on the interior design of aircraft in relation to risk and trust (2009)
Grants, Travels, Fellowships
- Research Scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a one-year research stay in the United States (2016–2017)
- Doctoral Scholarship from the Elsa Neumann Foundation of the State of Berlin (2016–2018)
Publications
Monographs
- Code, Sprache, Spiel. Die Performance regelbasierter Ordnungen in der US-amerikanischen Kunst der 1970er und 1980er Jahre. Munich: Edition Metzel, 2027. Forthcoming.
Editorship
- Museumslücken. Edited with Julia Voss. Berlin: Schlaufen Verlag, 2025.
- Is This Where It Ends? Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof 2011–2014. Edited with Isabelle Busch. Hamburg: textem Verlag, 2015.
- Kerstin Cmelka. Edited with Isabelle Busch and Sandro Droschl. Nuremberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2013.
- Haroon Mirza ---{}{}{}. Edited with Heike Catherina Mertens. Berlin: Argobooks, 2012.
- Metropolitan Views. Kunstszenen in Berlin und London. Edited with Conny Becker, Charlotte Klonk, and Friederike Schäfer. Munich/Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2008.
Articles
- “L’art et les (post-)esclavages.” Critique d’art, no. 64 (2025): 48–62.
- “Guy de Cointet: The Theatricality of the Code.” Signata, no. 11 (2020), special issue Le sens de la performance: à partir des arts vivants. Peer-reviewed.
Chapters in Collective Books and Catalogues
- “Still Zombie? Post-Slavery Conditions and Contemporary Art across the French Caribbean, Amazonia, and the Hexagon.” With Claire Tancons. In Forced Labor in the History of Art, edited by Eva Ehninger and Ittai Weinryb. Berlin: Kettler, 2027. Forthcoming.
- “Das Kunstwerk ist abwesend. Guillon Lethière im Louvre.” In Museumslücken, edited with Julia Voss, 70–73. Berlin: Schlaufen Verlag, 2025.
- “The Missing Object and the Object Fantasy. Thoughts on the Super-8 Trilogy (1978–1981) by Ericka Beckman.” In Object Fantasies: Forms & Fictions, edited by Philippe Cordez and Julia Saviello et al., 175–190. Munich: De Gruyter, 2018.
- “Standard.” In Robert Eberhard: Standard. Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2016. Artist’s book, unpaginated.
- “Grenzenlos banal? Das Raumdesign der Junkers-Flugzeuge zwischen 1919 und 1937.” In Junkers Dessau. Fotografie und Werbegrafik, edited by Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen, 121–130. Göttingen: Steidl Verlag, 2010.
Entries in Encyclopædia
- “Sylvia Palacios Whitman.” In Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon – Internationale Künstlerdatenbank, edited by Andreas Beyer, Bénédicte Savoy, and Wolf Tegethoff. Berlin/New York, 2022.
Exhibitions
- Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg (2011–2014): Selected exhibitions with, among others, Leonor Antunes, Sunah Choi, Kerstin Cmelka, Yael Davids, Adrian Lohmüller, Babette Mangolte, Haroon Mirza, Melvin Moti, Shahryar Nashat, and Stuart Sherman
- Humboldt University of Berlin (2014): Expanding the Grid, with Sunah Choi, Dóra Maurer, Laura McLardy, Bernd Trasberger, Tilman Wendland, and a documentation of Dance (Lucinda Childs, Philip Glass, and Sol LeWitt)
- Schering Stiftung, Berlin (2012): Haroon Mirza: --{}{}{} {}--{}{}{}{}--{}
Teaching activities
Regular teaching at the Institute of Art and Visual History, Humboldt University of Berlin (2018–2025), with a focus on:
- Art and exhibition practices since the 1960s
- Theory and history of performance art
- Material semantics
2014: Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching for the seminar Material. Einführung in die Kunst- und Bildgeschichte (“Material. An Introduction to Art and Visual History”), taught as part of the module Methoden, Medien, Material, Muster, together with Prof. Dr Charlotte Klonk, Dr Matthias Bruhn, and Stefanie Gerke, MA.
2024: Nominated for the Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching for the seminar “My working will be the work”: Arbeitökonomien in der Performancekunst seit den 1970er Jahren (“‘My working will be the work’: Labour Economies in Performance Art since the 1970s”).
