Informed by the material turn which has brought the artwork back to its material ontology, the workshop proposes to extend this approach toward a reflection on poiesis – that is, artistic making as a living process through which the work of art comes into being, without neglecting the semantic potential that is intrinsically linked to this process of becoming. Far from being a mere condition, matter imposes technical constraints just as much as it sets the very terms of its hermeneutics. The artwork emerges from a symbiotic dialectic situated at the heart of a triadic relation in which material, artist, and beholder mutually shape one another. The aim, therefore, is to rethink the fundamental duality between matter/form and content, not as a binary opposition between one and the other, but as a productive “both at once.” Rather than prolonging the logic of the material turn or reverting to classical iconology, the ambition is to bring these two approaches into fruitful dialogue and to explore the agency of matter through a lens that is at once poetic and conceptual, aesthetic and meaningful.

A cooperation between:
Département d’Histoire de l’Art et d’Archéologie (Université de Fribourg) &
Department Kunstwissenschaften (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Organizers : Dominic-Alain Boariu, Yannis Hadjinicolaou and Jérémie Koering

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PROGRAM

TUESDAY, June 2, 2026
Morning session

9:00 – 9:15
Welcome speech

9:15 – 12:00
Critical reading (poietic theory and materiality)

Afternoon session

14:00 – 14:25
Monika Wagner (Universität Hamburg)
In-formed materials and photographic desinformation

14:25 – 14:40
Discussion

14:40 – 15:05
Guillaume Cassegrain (Université Grenoble Alpes)
Crumpled/ Material

15:05 – 15:20
Discussion

15:20 – 15:45
Yannis Hadjinicolaou (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Universität Bonn)
Bloody Mary

15:45 – 16:00
Discussion

16:00 – 16:15
Joint discussion

16:15 – 16:30
Coffee break

16:30 – 16:55
Markus Rath (Universität Trier)
Stucco in Fontainebleau

16:55 – 17:10
Discussion

17:10 – 17:35
Andreas Beyer (Universität Basel)
Porphyry and the dream of empire

17:35 – 17:50
Discussion

17:50 – 18:05
Joint discussion

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2026
Morning session

09:00 – 09:25
Joris van Gastel (Universität Leipzig)
Coral Meanderings: Towards a Colonial Ecology of Matter

09:25 – 09:40
Discussion

09:40 – 10:05
Horst Bredekamp (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Towards the Gestaltphilosophy of lower organisms. From fungi to bacteria

10:05 – 10:20
Discussion

10:20 – 10:35
Joint discussion

10:35 – 10:50
Coffee break

10:50 – 11:15
Dominic-Alain Boariu (Université de Fribourg)
Painting’s First Meal: Remarks on Georg Flegel

11:15 – 11:30
Discussion

11:30 – 11:55
Hanneke Grootenboer (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
The Artwork as Thought-Thing