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Das Buch untersucht den bisher nur unzureichend untersuchten Zusammenhang von Kunst und Gewalt. Mit theoretischen, empirischen und methodischen Beiträgen von Gewalt- und Kunstsoziolog:Innen richtet sich das Buch nicht nur an ein soziologisches Fachpublikum, sondern zugleich auch an eine breite sowohl an Kunst als auch Gewalt interessierte Öffentlichkeit.

War and trauma are fundamental human experiences and central to German history, especially in the twentieth century. Since the First World War, which some Germans celebrated as the chance to annihilate the old culture to make space for a new one, German art has been implicated in war. War and trauma cause extreme conditions that can be negative and destructive, including deprivation or dislocation, and emotional and psychological stress. Paradoxically, war and trauma can also lead to positive outcomes, such as deepening interpersonal relationships, intellectual insights, and new, unforeseen opportunities. The central concerns of the volume are the multivalent aspects of art that respond to war. It begins by considering art conceived of and executed in response to the First World War on the centennial anniversary of that event. The volume goes on to examine art in the wake of the Holocaust and artistic responses to more recent conflict, such as the Vietnam War. The essays in this volume explore a variety of media – including paintings by Otto Dix and Gerhard Richter, Holocaust photography by Heimrad Bäcker, and sculpture by Emy Roeder, Gela Forster, and Renée Sintenis – to chart the complex relationship between art and war in both its documentary and analytical functions.

The book addresses the scientific debates on Rembrandt, Metsu, Vermeer, and Hoogstraten that are currently taking place in art history and cultural studies. These focus mainly on the representation of gender difference, the relationship between text and image, and the emotional discourse. They are also an appeal for art history as a form of cultural studies that analyses the semantic potential of art within discursive and social contemporary practices. Dutch painting of the seventeenth century reflects its relationship to visible reality. It deals with ambiguities and contradictions. As an avant-garde artistic media, it also contributes to the emergence of a subjectivity towards the modern “bourgeois”. It discards subject matter from its traditional fixation with iconology and evokes different imaginations and semantizations - aspects that have not been sufficiently taken into account in previous research. The book is to be understood as an appeal for art history as a form of cultural science that analyses the semantic potential of art within discursive and social contemporary practices, and, at the same time, demonstrates its relevance today. Works by Rembrandt, Metsu, Vermeer, Hoogstraten, and others serve as exemplary case studies for addressing current debates in art history and cultural studies, such as representation of gender difference, relationship between text and image, and emotional discourse.

Rebecca Horn ist eine der erfolgreichsten und vielseitigsten deutschen Gegenwartskünstlerinnen, die in den letzten vier Jahrzehnten ein komplexes Œuvre geschaffen hat. Sie ist mit zahlreichen Kunstpreisen ausgezeichnet worden – zuletzt 2010 mit dem sogenannten Nobelpreis der Künste, dem Praemium Imperiale des japanischen Kaiserhauses. Rebecca Horn arbeitet mit einer Vielzahl von Medien: Performance, Zeichnung, Installation, Kinetik, Video, Film, Fotografie und Text. Das vorliegende Buch stellt das Werk in seiner gesamten Breite vor, wobei der Schwer­punkt auf der künstlerischen Auseinan­der­setzung mit politischen, historischen, sozialen und medialen Räumen liegt. Durch ihre Referenzen auf diverse Kunstrichtungen und den – vornehmlich männlich dominierten – Kunstdiskurs positioniert sich Rebecca Horn auf so rebellische wie selbstbewusste Weise im kulturellen Feld.