Mira Anelli Naß: New Institutional Critique. How (not) to deal with Nazi legacy in art institutions.
Talks on Curatorial Practice
27 MARCH 2026 / 17:00
ZK/U BerlinSiemensstr. 27, 10551, Berlin, Germany
The confrontation of German art institutions with their Nazi legacy is far from complete. The manifold entanglements of the German-speaking art world with National Socialist discourses and cultural policy, with art looting, forced labor, and the Shoah, remain insufficiently addressed.
The year 1945, often described as a decisive rupture, was anything but a clear break. On the contrary, discourses, networks, structures, and ideologies persisted in modified forms—frequently carried forward by the very same actors. Prominent protagonists of the Nazi art system and former Nazi officials were rehabilitated and went on to shape the cultural and artistic landscape of both the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), while Jewish artists continued to face exclusion. Art often functioned as a refuge of idealized normality. To this day, the notion of an allegedly unburdened culture is at times mobilized to obscure Nazi history or to stage narratives of cultural purification. Many institutions still resist confronting their own pasts, acknowledging responsibility, or pursuing the restitution of looted art.
Ongoing academic research and journalistic investigations continue to bring new findings to light, demanding reassessment and revision. Yet, calls are increasingly heard within the art and cultural sector to finally draw a line under the engagement with National Socialism. Against this backdrop, the lecture turns to examples from the contemporary art world in order to explore the question of how (not) to deal with the Nazi legacy in art institutions.
Mira Anneli Naß is an art historian, photography theorist and art critic. She received her doctorate with a dissertation on operative images in the field of art as a critique of surveillance after 9/11 at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Since 2026 she has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut für Grundlagen moderner Architektur und Entwerfen (IGmA; Institute for Principles of Modern Architecture and Design) at the University of Stuttgart. Previously, she was a research associate in the Department of Art Studies and Aesthetic Theory at the University of Bremen and in the project Antisemitism at documenta fifteen and in the Art World within the research area Societal Legacy of National Socialism at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. In 2025 she was a Minerva Visiting Fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the aesthetics, history, and theory of operative imagery, political iconography, debates on memory culture and antisemitism in art and art history.
Mira Anneli Naß is a founding member of the AG Kunst und Antisemitismus (working group on Art and Antisemitism) within the Ulmer Verein. She also works as an art critic (Camera Austria, taz, a.o.) and was awarded the C/O Berlin Talent Award Theory in 2019.
Free admission.
All talks in English.
All times CET/CEST.
On-site participation without registration. Application for online participation: curating.org