Sandra Neugärtner is an art historian whose research focuses on marginalized narratives, institutional critique, and the political contexts of modern and contemporary art. She investigates the intricate relationship between art and society through the lens of material culture, object biographies, and network analysis.
Her first monograph, Statt Farbe: Licht. Das Fotogramm bei Moholy-Nagy als pädagogisches Medium (Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2021), examines the formation of artistic knowledge through technical media, analyzing László Moholy-Nagy’s photogram pedagogy as a prime example of indexical photography that challenges photography’s conventional role.
She is currently preparing her second monograph, The Artist as Organizer: Léna Meyer-Bergner and the Restructuring of Art and Labor in Modernism, which is forthcoming from De Gruyter. The book is the culmination of her major research project on socially transformative modernism, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of her habilitation. Through a focus on exile and transcultural transfer, the project investigates the organization of art production itself, tracing the structural shifts between the fine and applied arts in response to the rise of the culture industry. Her edited volume, Toward a New Aesthetics: Institutional Criticism in Art Education from 1900 to Today (Brill, forthcoming 2025), further develops her work on critical institutional and canon studies, offering the first comprehensive examination of institutional critique within art schools.
Sandra Neugärtner held postdoctoral research positions at Leuphana University Lüneburg (2022–2025) and the University of Erfurt. Her work has been supported by international fellowships, including at Harvard University’s Department of History of Art and Architecture (2017–18) and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut (2024–25). Her interdisciplinary background combines studies in design, economics, cultural studies, and art history.
Dr. Sandra Neugärtner 