A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
A photo of SAIC faculty member Mechtild Widrich

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Mechtild Widrich

Professor

Contact

Bio

Department Chair, Art History, Theory, and Criticism

Educated at the Art History Institute at University of Vienna (Mag.Phil.), and the Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD in History, Theory, and Criticism), I held positions at the University of Basel, the ETH Zurich and at the Universities of Vienna and Zurich, before joining SAIC in 2015.

Concurrent Positions:
I am an Affiliate Scholar at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame for 2023-25; I taught as Guest Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago (fall 2023) and at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna (spring 2022).

Personal Statement

I work on the intersection of contemporary art and architecture: I research and teach on art in public space and the question of the public sphere (in particular contemporary monuments), on performance art and its mediation, and on aesthetic theory. I am interested in the power and means of representation, in the broader institutional and political context of artistic production, in spatial dynamics and site-specificity, and in issues of "authentic" and "bodily" experience under mediated conditions. Another interest is theory, in particular beauty and ugliness. I currently work on several projects, the most recent one on the late 19th century discourse around ethnicity and difference in vernacular architecture.

Awards

2022-23 University of Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study; 2018 University of Chicago Hong Kong Center; 2018 SAIC Literary Lions Award for Art Historical Research; 2016 NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. I am also the recipient of fellowships from the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation, the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Fulbright Foundation, and several fellowships from MIT.

Publications

Most publications can be downloaded from my academia.edu page, and here is only a selection.
 

Books

  • Monumental Cares. Sites of History and Contemporary Art. Manchester University Press, series: "Rethinking Art's Histories," winter 2023
  • Performative Monuments: The Rematerialisation of Public Art. Manchester University Press, series: "Rethinking Art's Histories," 2014
  • Presence (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016, editor, with Philip Ursprung and Jürg Berthold, and contributor)
  • Participation in Art and Architecture: Spaces of Interaction and Occupation (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), editor, with Martino Stierli, and contributor
  • Ugliness: The Non-Beautiful in Art and Theory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013, editor, with Andrei Pop)
  • Krzysztof Wodiczko, A 9/11 Memorial (London: Black Dog, 2009, editor, with Mark Jarzombek)
  • Wien II. Leopoldstadt. Die andere Heimatkunde (Vienna: Brandstätter, 1999, editor, with Werner Hanak)

Translations

Translation of Karl Rosenkranz, Ästhetik des Hässlichen [1853; Aesthetics of Ugliness] (under contract with Bloomsbury, London, 2015, paperback 2017, with Andrei Pop).

Texts in Scholarly Periodicals (selection)

  • From Rags to Monuments: Ana Lupaş’s Humid Installation, Art Margins Online (January 2022)
  • “Monumentos, Experienca y Memoria,” Arcadia (September 2020)
  • Future Anterior, Ex Situ. On Moving Monuments (vol. 15, no.2), co-editor and author “Moving Monuments in the Age of Social Media”
  • "The Naked Museum: Art, Urbanism, and Global Positioning in Singapore" (Art Journal, vol. 75, no. 2, summer 2016), 47–65
  • "The Willed and the Unwilled Monument. Judenplatz Vienna and Riegl's Denkmalpflege," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH), Vol. 72, No. 3 (Sept. 2013), 382–98
  • "The Informative Public of Performance: A Study of Viennese Actionism, 1965–1970," TDR. The Drama Review, No. 217 (February 2013), 137–51
  • "Process and Authority: Marina Abramovi?'s Freeing the Horizon and Documentarity," Grey Room, No. 47 (May 2012), 80–97

Editorial and Board Positions

I am active on several committees: in Chicago on the Grant Park Advisory Council on Art, Monuments, Markers; in Austria I am part of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Vienna Museums, and I serve on the Academic Advisory Board of the Jewish Museum Vienna. I am on the editorial boards of the following academic journals: Future Anterior (US), Cadernos de Arte Pública (Portugal), Vesper. Journal for Architecture, Arts and Theory (Italy), and Život umjetnosti (Croatia). From 2019 to 2022, I served as board member and reviews editor for Art Journal (US).

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This study trip will take us to Vienna (Austria), Brno (Czech Republic with a day trip to visit Mies van der Rohe¿s Villa Tugendhat, 1929), and Ljubljana (Slovenia), with a focus on transcultural territories from the 19th century to today. The goal of this study trip is to gain an understanding of the cultural production of an area that has been shaped by migration and shifting borders for centuries, from the Reformation to the Cold War and today¿s new nationalist and ecological challenges. How is cultural space negotiated and how does art intervene into the world?

Since the end of Communism in 1989, the region that used to be on the cusp of both Western and Eastern Europe has undergone enormous shifts, particularly in the art world. Vienna, Brno, and Ljubljana, bound closely under the Austrian Empire for centuries, then disconnected for half a century by the Iron Curtain, share complex historical interactions even as they have internationalized their art scenes through the opening of new museums, artist residencies, and the emergence of avant-garde scenes. Starting with world-famous cultural exchange around 1900 (such as Ljubljana¿s city plan by Plecnik, Vienna¿s Secession, Brno¿s Villa Tugendhat), after World War II these countries developed independent practices in performance, film, installations, and video, with Yugoslavia acting as a major player in the development of computer art, Czechoslovakia at the forefront of performance, and Austria pioneering body art, Actionism, expanded media, and social practices.

Today, these cities are vibrant, international, and idiosyncratic: the 1980s and `90s saw a crossover between music and art, while questions of the history of multi-culturalism shape a political intersectional art practice. The Austrian Empire consisted of many languages, religions, and ethnicities, while today¿s region again shows a vibrant Jewish community, and a new generation of residents from Turkey, Serbia, Syria, Afghanistan, but also Asia and Africa. The city of Vienna is at the forefront of tackling issues of climate change, with architectural and ecological projects at the intersection of community engagement and infrastructural reform. This, of course, is not without tensions and challenges, in particular the question of which (shared) histories remain to be told. Comparable topics such as immigration, resettlement, architectural expansions, the legacy of the Cold War, and new urban master plans, will be the perfect lens to understand the relevance of contemporary art in opening up the discourse, pushing back against racism and marginalization of immigrant groups, and discussing projects that deal with belonging and the future of an ecological being-in-the-world.

Class Number

1333

Credits

0

Description

This study trip will take us to Vienna (Austria), Brno (Czech Republic with a day trip to visit Mies van der Rohe¿s Villa Tugendhat, 1929), and Ljubljana (Slovenia), with a focus on transcultural territories from the 19th century to today. The goal of this study trip is to gain an understanding of the cultural production of an area that has been shaped by migration and shifting borders for centuries, from the Reformation to the Cold War and today¿s new nationalist and ecological challenges. How is cultural space negotiated and how does art intervene into the world?

Since the end of Communism in 1989, the region that used to be on the cusp of both Western and Eastern Europe has undergone enormous shifts, particularly in the art world. Vienna, Brno, and Ljubljana, bound closely under the Austrian Empire for centuries, then disconnected for half a century by the Iron Curtain, share complex historical interactions even as they have internationalized their art scenes through the opening of new museums, artist residencies, and the emergence of avant-garde scenes. Starting with world-famous cultural exchange around 1900 (such as Ljubljana¿s city plan by Plecnik, Vienna¿s Secession, Brno¿s Villa Tugendhat), after World War II these countries developed independent practices in performance, film, installations, and video, with Yugoslavia acting as a major player in the development of computer art, Czechoslovakia at the forefront of performance, and Austria pioneering body art, Actionism, expanded media, and social practices.

Today, these cities are vibrant, international, and idiosyncratic: the 1980s and `90s saw a crossover between music and art, while questions of the history of multi-culturalism shape a political intersectional art practice. The Austrian Empire consisted of many languages, religions, and ethnicities, while today¿s region again shows a vibrant Jewish community, and a new generation of residents from Turkey, Serbia, Syria, Afghanistan, but also Asia and Africa. The city of Vienna is at the forefront of tackling issues of climate change, with architectural and ecological projects at the intersection of community engagement and infrastructural reform. This, of course, is not without tensions and challenges, in particular the question of which (shared) histories remain to be told. Comparable topics such as immigration, resettlement, architectural expansions, the legacy of the Cold War, and new urban master plans, will be the perfect lens to understand the relevance of contemporary art in opening up the discourse, pushing back against racism and marginalization of immigrant groups, and discussing projects that deal with belonging and the future of an ecological being-in-the-world.

Class Number

1336

Credits

3

Description

This 3-credit graduate seminar provides a framework for developing an exhibition at the Czok Foundation in Venice, Italy, by inviting graduate students from studio arts, design practices, art history, curatorial practices, arts administration, and other programs to work collaboratively and intensely. The artwork, curatorial approach, exhibition design, and accompanying texts and online materials will all be created during the seminar. Enrolled students are encouraged to commit to both the 15-week fall 2025 seminar and a 3-week study trip in Venice in winter interim 2025-26 to install and present the exhibition on site.
We will read and discuss texts on the history and theory of curating; the history of Venice, in particular its relation to art making and exhibiting (Biennale) and an expanded critical exploration of its ¿international¿ status vis-a-vis globalization, commerce, and colonialism; strategies for communal production; and the relationship between institutional settings and artistic practice. Depending on the interests of the students, we will add more reading material whenever useful. Preliminary reading list of texts on Venice: Cristina Baldacci, et.al (eds.), Venice and the Anthropocene: An Ecocritical Guide (Max Planck Institute, Berlin, 2023). Caroline Jones, ¿Biennial Culture¿, in The Biennial, ed. Elena Filipovic, Marieke van Hal, Solveig Øvstebo (Ostfildern: Hatje/Cantz, 2010), 66-87. Paul Kaplan and Shaul Bassi, eds, African Venice: A Guide to Art, Culture, and People (Wetlands, Venice, 2024). Giulia Foscari, Elements of Venice (Lars Müller Editions, 2014).
The participating students will create all of the content and the curatorial approach from their own practices. This may be a combination of individual, small group, or complete class contributions. If participating in the Venice study trip, they will work collaboratively on all aspects of the exhibition, its programming, its interface with the public, and its assessment.

Class Number

2276

Credits

3

Description

The thesis, as the final requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism, demonstrates the student's ability to present a lucid, sustained work of scholarly research and critical thinking on a specific topic in the field of 19th, 20th and 21st-century art. The thesis indicates the student's thorough command of the available documentation and scholarly research on the subject and suggests clearly-defined objectives and a methodologically-sound approach to a fresh assessment of the topic. This seminar assists the student in selecting, researching, analyzing, designing, organizing, and writing the Art History thesis. Students learn how to select and narrow their topic by organizing materials; preparing an outline, abstract, and bibliography; and defending their proposal before a faculty panel. During this semester, they select their thesis committee and complete most of the research. This seminar is required for the Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism and is taken in the second or third semester of course work.

Class Number

1220

Credits

3

Description

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

Class Number

2433

Credits

3