The research focus examines the contemporary history of art and the art business in its democratic-historical, socio-historical and socio-political contexts. The research program analyzes artists, the art trade and art recipients as social and economic actors in the field of tension between aesthetics, market events and public attempts at regulation. It also focuses on the social structure and interest politics of art associations and agents of public and private art promotion. What was the political significance of art, its ownership and understanding, in the accumulation of cultural capital, the marking of social distinction and the persistence or reshaping of social milieus? What role did art play as a location factor from a national and international perspective? The focus of the research is on the visual arts and the art business in the Federal Republic in their German-German and international interrelationships. The research area aims to profile art and its social "range of services" as a dynamic factor of social history in a divided and united Germany.

Head: Dr. Jutta Braun