Dr. Christoph Chwatal

Zi: 3F.02.04A
E: christoph.chwatal@univie.ac.at

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in the research project “Site Complexes: Models of Responsive Practices for the 21st Century,” funded by the NOMIS Foundation. The project is led by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Egenhofer (University of Vienna), Prof. Dr. Susanne Hauser, and Prof. Dr. Stefan Neuner (both Berlin University of the Arts).

My current research focuses on political theories of organization and alternative organizational forms emerging within contemporary art—referred to as diverse or heterodox economies—extending beyond the neoliberal grasp on both art and “the” economy.

In 2023 and 2024, I served as a Lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where I taught seminars on (media) art history and (co-)supervised M.A. theses in Contemporary Art History. In the summer of 2024, I held a Juliane and Franz Roh Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich.

I received my Ph.D. in a joint doctoral program in Cologne and Amsterdam. The dissertation, titled “Contemporary Art’s Strategic-Organizational Complex,” examines artistic practices from the 1990s onward guided by longer-term, strategic, and organizational approaches. It offers a critique of short-term “project work” and tactical interventionism through the lens of political theories of organization. During my Ph.D., I held several position: as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow at the University of Cologne, an Affiliated Researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, a Doctoral Fellow at the Stiftung Mercator, and a Lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts.

My academic work has been published in journals such as Stedelijk Studies, kritische berichte, and Third Text. As an art critic and member of AICA – Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, I regularly contribute to publications such as springerin and Texte zur Kunst.