Avinoam Shalem - Böcker

This issue examines the legacy of Nazi-looted art in light of the 2012 discovery of the famous Hildebrand Gurlitt collection of stolen artwork in Germany. When the German government declassified the case almost two years later, the resulting scandal raised fundamental questions about the role of art dealers in the Third Reich, the mechanics of the Nazi black market for artwork, the shortcomings of postwar denazification, the failure of courts and governments to adjudicate stolen artwork claims, and the unwillingness of museums to determine the provenance of thousands of looted pieces of art. The contributors to this issue explore the continuities of art dealerships and auction houses from the Nazi period to the Federal Republic and take stock of the present political and cultural debate over the handling of this artwork.Special topic contributors. Konstantin Akinsha, Meike Hoffmann, Andreas Huyssen, Lawrence M. Kaye, Olaf Peters, Jonathan Petropoulos, Anson Rabinbach, Avinoam Shalem, Julia Voss, Amy Walsh

Stirring paintings, colourful picture collages made from countless scraps of paper, moving photo collages – the art of Tammam Azzam (*1980 in Damascus) is multi-faceted, political and topical. The publication provides a comprehensive overview of the oeuvre of the Syrian artist and describes his career over the past 20 years.Twenty years of the life and work of Tammam Azzam – from Syria and Damascus via Dubai to Delmenhorst and Berlin, where the artist has lived and worked since 2018. The volume Bilder ohne Namen / Untitled Pictures traces Tammam Azzam’s life and his art, from the early reduced paintings via the digital photomontages and the large-format pictorial collages to his latest acrylic pictures. Azzam’s iconic pictorial inventions engrave themselves into our memory.

Setting a group of medieval carved ivory horns in the specific artistic and historical context in which they were manufactured, used and re-used, this book presents a mine of information for the study of medieval history. The first chapters explore such technical aspects as the cutting and carving of oliphants, and also the broader issues of the morphology of ivory and its availability in the Mediterranean basin in the Middle Ages. On the basis of specific carving methods and varying vocabulary of motifs, the oliphants are organized into groups and their probable sites of production are suggested.The core of this volume, however, is the attempt to place them in their specific historical context. The purpose of their mass-production, namely their patronage and original function, is explored, but also their reception and new functions in the church treasuries of Latin Europe is broadly discussed.