Representations of the unclothed body have long been a focal point of aesthetic, cultural, and political debate. From the scandal surrounding Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) and Olympia (1865) to recent controversies over museum displays, public monuments, and contemporary performance art, nudity continues to expose shifting boundaries between art, morality, identity, and power. At the same time, feminist, queer, postcolonial, and disability studies have fundamentally reshaped the ways in which bodies are understood, represented, and interpreted, challenging long-established assumptions about gender, sexuality, race, and the gaze.
This conference investigates how art, art history, and related disciplines have negotiated the unclothed body from the late nineteenth century to the present. It asks how changing social, political, and cultural contexts have influenced artistic practices as well as their interpretation, and how the histories of the nude have themselves been constructed, contested, and revised. Particular attention will be paid to the role of exhibitions, museums, and curatorial practices in shaping public understandings of the nude, as well as to the impact of mass media and visual technologies on the circulation and reception of unclothed bodies.
The conference further examines the canonisations and exclusions that continue to shape the discipline of art history. How have Western artistic traditions informed dominant narratives of the nude? Which bodies and perspectives have been marginalised or omitted? How are questions of desire, embodiment, and affect embedded in scholarly writing? And how have contemporary artistic practices reclaimed or challenged the genre in response to ongoing debates about representation and agency?
Bringing together perspectives from art history, visual culture studies, museum studies, and aesthetic theory, the conference invites contributions that critically reassess the histories of the nude while moving beyond established Western narratives. It seeks to foster dialogue on the changing meanings of unclothed bodies in art from the 1860s to the present and highlights global, comparative, and de-centred perspectives on the subject.
Organisation: Dominik Brabant, ZI Munich / Susanne Huber, Universität Bremen / Henry Kaap, LMU Munich
With the generous support of: Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, University of Bremen.
PARTICIPATION:
The event takes place in a hybrid format. You can either attend in-person or via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/5cV7Sz_KQJqFqfBUSMV1tg. Recording the event or parts of the event, as well as taking screenshots, is not permitted. By participating, you accept these terms of use.
PROGRAMME
Conference at Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Katharina-von-Bora-Str. 10, 80333 Munich
Day 1, September 15, 2026
13:00 Guided tour through the exhibition “unbekleidet | ausgezogen: Der Akt in der kunsthistorischen Forschung“ (optional)
14:00 Welcome and introduction by the organisers
14:30 Session 1: Tracing Affective Relations
Joseph Imorde
Art Lovers / Art Historians Look at (Naked) Women
Elena Zanichelli
Driven Upwards: Nudity, Obscenity, and Other Obsessions in Anita Steckel's Gendering of Architecture
Moderation: Dominik Brabant
16:00 Coffee break
16:30 Session 2: In/Decency in Media Cultures
Mirja Beck
Confiscated 'Beauty'? The Case of the Hanfstaengl Catalogue 'Female Beauty' (Frauenschönheit, c. 1920)
Athina Markopoulou
The Nation Undressed. Images of the Female Body and the Fantasies of Modernity in the Greek Press (1896–1939)
Moderation: Henry Kaap
18:00 Break
18:30 Counter|Canon? Roundtable with impulses by:
Charlotte Matter
Friederike Nastold
Gianmarco Russo
Moderation: Susanne Huber
Conference dinner (participants only)
Day 2, September 16, 2026
9:00 Session 3: Channeling Resistance in the Flesh
Milena Chilińska
The Queer Potential of National Martyrology: The Male Body in the Work of Wlastimil Hofman
Indrek Grigor
The Queue: Negotiating the Nude in 1980s Soviet Estonia
Moderation: Franziska Kunze
10:30 Coffee break
11:00 Session 4: Nudity, Nation, and Trauma
Laura Moure Cecchini
Unmutilated Victory: The Return of the Female Nude in 1920s Italian Painting
Daniel Berndt
"The Country Has Changed So I Decided to Burn All the Nude Shots” – On Akram Zaatari’s Her & Him VAN LEO (2001)
Moderation: Franziska Lampe
12:30 Lunch break and coffee
14:00 Session 5: Bare Bodies and Cultural Layers
Nina Breuer
Respectfully Traversing Space: Black Female Nudity in Heitor dos Prazeres’ Paintings
Meng Yi
Negotiating the Female Nude: Visibility, Ideology, and Modernity in Contemporary Chinese Art
Moderation: Mascha Salgado de Matos & Sabine Weingartner
15:30 Final discussion
16:00 Official end of the event