Dr. Charlotte Matter

Charlotte Matter is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Art History and the scientific coordinator of the specialized Master’s program Art History in a Global Context. Her doctoral thesis, titled The Politics of Plastics: Feminist Approaches to New Materials in Art, 1960s and 1970s, explored how women artists and critics challenged sexist discourses in art and claimed plastics as feminist substances. Examining the works of Lea Lublin and Carla Accardi in particular, as well as Nicola L, Margarita Paksa, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Alina Szapocznikow, the study reflected on gender and materiality in relation to notions of labor, social reproduction, sexuality, and sickness. The dissertation also considered the global boom of exhibitions on plastics and the discourse on these new industrial materials in art, juxtaposing the perspectives of critics such as Lucy R. Lippard and Pierre Restany.

In 2019/2020, Charlotte Matter was a research fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History within the Rome Contemporary initiative and a resident at the  Istituto Svizzero di Roma. In early 2018, she conducted archival research in Buenos Aires. From 2016 to 2017, she was assistant at the Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Art History. Previously, she coordinated the research project New Art Histories: Connecting Ideas, Objects and Institutions in Latin America. She completed her studies in art history and film studies at the University of Zurich in 2015 with a Master’s thesis on the work Tropicália by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, examining the shift in meaning between the two exhibition contexts in Rio de Janeiro (Museu de Arte Moderna, 1967) and London (Whitechapel Gallery, 1969).

Charlotte Matter is co-initiator of the research project Rethinking Art History through Disability and a founding member of CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History. Since summer 2023, she is co-editor of the Sculpture Journal at Liverpool University Press.

• Feminist art and theory
• Intersectional and decolonial perspectives
• Collectivity in art
• Materiality, gender and the body
• Labor and non-productivity
• Disability theory
• Art and architecture in Latin America

• MA Seminar “Love, Pain, Anger, Joy: Intersectional Perspectives on Emotions in Art and Theory” (English), University of Zurich, spring 2023
• Lecture “Complicity: An Art History of Collective Practices” (German and French), University of Fribourg, spring 2023
• Lecture Series “Care, Disability and Art” (English), organized with Virginia Marano, Laura Valterio, Marie-France Rafael und Judith Welter, University of Zurich & Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, spring 2023
• Seminar “Collectivity as a Decolonial Option in Art and Theory” (German), Lectureship in Gender/Queer/Decolonial Studies, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, fall 2022
• Field trip to London “Bodies of Difference: Disability, Art History, and the Museum” (English), with Virginia Marano and Laura Valterio, University of Zurich, fall 2022
• Exercise and field trip to Venice “The Fraught Significations of Contemporary Biennials” (English), with Julie Ren and Rosa Sancarlo, University of Zurich, spring/fall 2022
• MA Seminar “Collectivity and Decolonial Resistance: Groups and Movements, 20th Century to Today” (English), University of Zurich, spring 2022
• MA Seminar “Gender, Art and Global Issues” (English), University of Zurich, spring 2021
• Workshop “Material and Gender: Feminist Explorations of Plastics in Art” (German), Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, spring 2021
• MA Seminar “Ca. 1968: Radical Experiments Around the Globe” (German), University of Zurich, fall 2018
• BA Seminar “Poetics and Politics of the Everyday” (German and French), University of Fribourg, fall 2018
• BA Seminar “Spain, Portugal and the ‘New World’ 1500–1800” (German), University of Zurich, spring 2018
• MA Seminar “‘Global Tools’: Methods and Concepts of an Art History in a Global Context” (German), University of Zurich, fall 2017
• Field trip to Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (German), with Seraina Renz, spring 2017
• Propaedeutic Lecture Course: Introduction to Art History (German), University of Zurich, fall 2016
• Field trip to Brazil “Latin American Modernities: Models of Collecting and Exhibiting Art” (English), with Julia Gelshorn and Tristan Weddigen, fall 2016
• Exercise Course “Manifesta” (German), University of Zurich, spring 2016
• Field trip to Argentina and Bolivia “Baroque and Neo-Baroque as ‘Contact Zones’” (English), with Tristan Weddigen, spring 2016
• Workshop “Politics of Display: Histories of / through Exhibitions” (English), with Tristan Weddigen, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, spring 2015
• Exercise Course “Biennials and Other Large-Scale Exhibitions in a Global Context” (German), with Tirdad Zolghadr, University of Zurich, spring 2015

Monograph

• Feminist Substances: Plastics in Art of the 1960s and 1970s, book manuscript from PhD thesis (in preparation).

Edited Volume

• Bassing-Kontopidis, Antonie, Laura Hindelang, Charlotte Matter, and Filine Wagner, eds. Into the Wild: Kunst und Architektur im globalen Kontext / Art and Architecture in a Global Context. Munich: Edition Metzel, 2018.

Articles and Book Chapters

• “Sappho’s Violets: Sarah Bernhardt at the Petit Palais.” Texte zur Kunst, no. 131 (September 2023): 176–181.
• “Sculptural Heads and Feminist Minds.” In Wanda Czełkowska: An Absolute Artist, edited by Matylda Taszycka, exhibition catalog Muzeum Susch, 169–175. Milan: Skira, 2023.
• “Withdrawing (and Returning): Refusal in Art Around 1968.” In NO Rhetoric(s): Versions and Subversions of Resistance in Contemporary Global Art, edited by Sara Alonso Gómez, Isabel Piniella Grillet, Nadia Radwan, and Elena Rosauro, 67–91. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2023. Open Access
• “Plastic Erotics: The Sexual Lives of Inside Outside’s Curtains.” In Inside Outside: Petra Blaisse, edited by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen. London: Mack Books (forthcoming).
• “Aufstand der liegenden Körper.” Texte zur Kunst, no. 128 (December 2022): 205–209. Online
• “Where Do You Stand with Your Art, Colleague?” Translated by Gerrit Jackson. Texte zur Kunst, no. 125 (March 2022): 30–49. Online
• “Laziness in Lotus Land: Hélio Oiticica and the Notion of Crelazer.” In Orto, edited by Istituto Svizzero di Roma, 40–53. Rome: Nero, 2020.
• “Papierarbeiten.” Translated by Tim Beeby and Sabine Bürger. In Peter Fischli: Kunsthaus Bregenz, edited by Thomas D. Trummer, exhibition catalog Kunsthaus Bregenz, 368–374. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2020.
• “Lazy Eyes: Robert Smithson and Cyprien Gaillard in Mexico.” In Into the Wild: Art and Architecture in a Global Context, edited by Antonie Bassing-Kontopidis, Laura Hindelang, Charlotte Matter, and Filine Wagner, 89–98. Munich: Edition Metzel, 2018.
• “Furniture and Masks: Mimesis in the Work of Bruno Gironcoli.” Translated by Jennifer Taylor. In Bruno Gironcoli: Shy at Work; Works on Paper, edited by Manuela Ammer, exhibition catalog mumok Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, 270–280. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2018.

Other Publications

• Antirassismus in der Kunstgeschichte: Ein (unfertiger) Leitfaden, 2022, co-written as member of CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History. PDF Download (PDF, 1 MB)

Panels and Symposia

• Session “The Last Plastics Show,” co-chair with Teresa Kittler, CIHA Congress Matter / Materiality, Lyon, June 2024
• Workshop Unlearn the Body: New Approaches on Disability and Art History, co-organized with Amanda Cachia, Virginia Marano, and Laura Valterio, University of Zurich, June 3–4, 2022
• Symposium In Light of Crisis: The Fraught Significations of Contemporary Biennials, co-organized with Ifigeneia Dimitrakou, Virginia Marano, Julie Ren, and Rosa Sancarlo, University of Zurich, May 19–20, 2022
• Workshop Plastic Boom / Plastic Doom, co-organized with Teresa Kittler, Istituto Svizzero di Roma [online], July 2, 2020
• Colloquium Into the Wild: Art and Architecture in a Global Context, 17th Colloquium for Young Researchers of Art History in Switzerland, co-organized with Antonie Bassing-Kontopidis, Laura Hindelang, and Filine Wagner, University of Zurich, November 6–7, 2015

Selected Presentations

• “The Personal is Political: Toxic Materials in Art,” Conference Synthetic Histories: Plastics, Climate and Colonialism, organized by the Paul Mellon Centre at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Dundee, January 27, 2023
• “Learning from Disability in Art History,” with Virginia Marano and Laura Valterio, Lecture Kunstgeschichte/n verlernen, umlernen, neulernen, Bauhaus University Weimar [online], December 8, 2022
• “Viscous, Erogenous, Awkward: Materiality and the Body in the Work of Alina Szapocznikow and Louise Bourgeois,” Colloquium In-Between: Alina Szapocznikow and Louise Bourgeois, Institut national d’histoire de l’art INHA, Paris, October 8, 2022
• “Home as a ‘Site of Resistance’ in Exhibition Spaces,” CIHA World Congress Motion: Migrations, São Paulo [online], January 20, 2022
• “Feministische Perspektiven auf Kunststoffe in der Kunst,” Guest lecture at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden [online], December 6, 2021
• “The Anagram as Method: Lea Lublin’s Fluvio Subtunal (1969),” Lecture Series Cultura visual y cultura material: Aproximaciones multidisciplinarias al espacio urbano, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, Mexico City [online], March 18, 2021 watch online
• “A Material of One’s Own: Carla Accardi and Sicofoil,” Study Day Carla Accardi: Contesti, organized by Maria Grazia Messina and Giorgia Gastaldon, Museo del Novecento di Milano [online], March 11, 2021
• “Matière à controverse: Le plastique dans l’art vers 1968,” Lecture Series Actualité de la recherche, University of Geneva, October 7, 2020
• “‘What’s To Be Done About Art?’ Strategies of Refusal around 1968,” Workshop NO Rhetoric(s): Versions and Subversions of Resistance in Contemporary Global Art, University of Bern and University of Zurich, September 14, 2019
• “Unbehagliche Materialien: Kunststoffe und die Kontroverse um die Ausstellung Materiales, nuevas técnicas, nuevas expresiones (Buenos Aires, 1968),” Symposium Kunst und Material: Repräsentation, Stofflichkeit, Prozesse, Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft SIK-ISEA, November 2, 2018
• “Synthetische Realismen: Kunststoff und Wirklichkeit bei Lea Lublin,” Annual Conference of the Association of Art Historians in Switzerland VKKS, Performing Reality, Kunstmuseum Bern, August 31, 2018
• “Plastics in Argentina: Local Manifestations of a Global Material,” Colloquium Worlding Art History: Negotiating the Global and the Local, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, March 17, 2018
• “Symptom as Method: Defective Visions of Mexico,” Conference América Latina: contaminación / contagio / síntoma, Latin America Center, Zurich, November 25, 2017
• “Nature After Nature: Tetsumi Kudo’s ‘New Ecology,’” Swiss Doctoral Summer School for Art History, Mendrisio, June 17, 2017
• “Inflatable Art and Alternative Futures in the Space Age,” Doctoral Seminar Cold Atlantic: Cultural War, Dissident Artistic Practices, Networks and Contact Zones at the Time of the Iron Curtain, University of Barcelona, September 8–9, 2016
• “Plastic Utopias: Models and Experiments in Argentinian Artistic Practices, 1966–1973,” Conference Contact Zones, Centro de Investigación en Arte, Materia y Cultura, Buenos Aires, April 22, 2016
• “How to Look at It: Harun Farockis Das Silber und das Kreuz (2010),” Lecture Kunst und Architektur der frühen Neuzeit und Moderne in Lateinamerika, University of Zurich, September 22, 2015
• “Why Look at Animals? A Cross-Reading of Hélio Oiticica and Marcel Broodthaers,” Conference Theoretical Challenges: A Revision of the Historiography of Colonial Art in the Iberian World, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, June 3–5, 2015
• “On Repeat: Parrot Problems», Conference Possibilities of Exchange: Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art / University of Edinburgh, May 13–14, 2015

Public Outreach

• Roundtable discussion “Art History Update” with Kate Brehme and Eric Otieno Sumba, moderated by Christian Liclair, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, December 1, 2022 watch online
• Screening “An Experience Like That,” with works by Howardena Pindell, Black Audio Film Collective, Aykan Safoğlu and Ivy Monteiro, co-organized as part of CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, June 23, 2022
• Artist talk with Panteha Abareshi, Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez, Kunsthaus Zurich, June 2, 2022 watch online (from 47:35 on)
• Workshop “Anti-Racism in Art History? A Conversation with CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History,” Institute Colloquium Kunstgeschichte und Dekolonisierung, University of Zurich, April 6, 2022
• Curators talk with After Party Collective (Vidisha-Fadescha and Shaunak Mahbubani), co-moderated with Simon Würsten Marin [online], March 22, 2022
• Artist talk with Jesse Darling, co-moderated with Virginia Marano and Laura Valterio, Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK [online], November 15, 2021
• Artist talk with Robert Andy Coombs, co-moderated with Virginia Marano and Laura Valterio [online], October 11, 2021
• Screening “Radical Futurisms,” with works by Black Quantum Futurism, Thirza Jean Cuthand and the Otolith Group, co-organized with Katharina Bedenbender, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome [online], January 11, 2021
• Curators talk “When the Sick Rule the World,” with Fanny Hauser and Viktor Neumann, co-moderated with Virginia Marano and Laura Valterio [online], November 16, 2020

Current Projects

• Co-principal investigator of the research group Rethinking Art History through Disability, with Virginia Marano and Laura Valterio (since 2020)

Completed Projects

• Latin American Modernities: Models of Collecting and Exhibiting Art, joint research initiative with the University of Fribourg, directed by Julia Gelshorn and Tristan Weddigen (2016–2017)
• Constructed Identities and Entangled Histories: Architectural Case Studies in the Philippines, joint research initiative with the Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines UPD, directed by Patrick Flores and Tristan Weddigen (2016–2017)
• Substances of Modernity: Materials in Modern Mexican Architecture, joint research initiative with the Instituto de Investigaciones Estética, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM, directed by Peter Krieger and Tristan Weddigen (2015–2016)

• Founding member of  CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History
• Latin America Center Zurich
• Association of Art Historians in Switzerland VKKS
• Network Disability Studies Switzerland

• Co-founder and organizer of the annual exhibition Plattform from 2007 to 2016, member of the advisory board since 2017
• Co-curator of Kill All Monsters, with Séverine Fromaigeat and Reto Thüring, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel, May 25–June 29, 2014
• Co-curator of Regionale 11, with Martina Venanzoni, Plug.in Basel, November 27, 2010–January 2, 2011