Course 9 – Summer School on Campus
Dr Anne Grasselli
Monday 22- Friday 26 June 2026
£695
Course Description
After World War II, German artists were confronted with the immense task of reckoning with the atrocities committed under the Third Reich. A fractured national identity which was burdened by collective guilt and historical trauma emerged as a central concern for many artists working in the late twentieth century.
This course examines the responses of key postwar German artists, including Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, and others. Through diverse strategies—ranging from mythological allegory to critical re-engagement with Romanticism, German Expressionism, and anthroposophy—these artists grappled with the legacy of fascism, often interrogating the cultural and political symbols inherited from the Nazi era. While some works directly challenge fascist aesthetics and ideology, others engage in gestures of healing or reimagining national identity.
The course also emphasises the importance of collective and collaborative artistic efforts, particularly through landmark exhibitions such as documenta and Strategy: Get Arts, which featured artists including Isa Genzken, Sigmar Polke, Rebecca Horn, and Hilla Becher. These experimental platforms provided space to confront questions of identity, memory, guilt, and reconciliation in the postwar period. The fall of the Berlin Wall further opened possibilities for artistic exchange and collaboration across former East and West Germany, exemplified in the work of Katharina Fritsch, Jörg Immendorff, and Neo Rauch, and the emergence of the New Leipzig School.
Finally, we will consider how this post-war artistic production was received both within Germany and internationally, and how it continues to influence conversations around cultural heritage. Students will be invited to critically assess whether post-1945 German art reclaims a sense of ‘Germanness’ in a sympathetic, ambivalent, or critical light, and what is at stake in doing so.
Lecturer Biography
Dr Anne Regina Grasselli is co-editor for the Peter Lang German Visual Culture book series and is a specialist in twentieth-century German art. Her research focuses on intersections between abstraction, German modernism, and the psychology of visual perception, which has been supported by Leverhulme Trust and DAAD fellowships. Her work has been featured in The Burlington Magazine and The Modernist Review, as well as in the Tate Modern exhibition catalogue for Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider (2024). She has taught a wide range of courses for the University of Edinburgh and the Courtauld, and she has contributed to curatorial projects for institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Morgan Library & Museum; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.