Dr. Virginia Marano

Virginia Marano (she/her) holds a PhD in art history from the University of Zurich. To conduct her doctoral research, she was awarded an ESKAS doctoral scholarship (2018–2021) and a FAN Grant (2021). In 2022, she was a SNSF Doc.Mobility fellow in the Art History Department at Hunter College/CUNY. Her thesis examined the diasporic dimension in the works of Jewish women sculptors in Post-war New York, previously assimilated to feminism but not yet connected to the question of exile. She is also the coordinator and co-founder of the research project "Rethinking Art History through Disability" at the University of Zurich, which aims to rethink the intersections of disability theory and art history through the lens of the non-normative body. She has previously worked at Mumok Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (2017, Vienna), Artipelag (2018, Stockholm) and Last Tango (2020–2021, Zurich). Currently, she is fellow researcher at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice and works as curatorial assistant at MASI Lugano (Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana).

Teaching

• BA and MA Übung, "Being (not) at Home in the World - Exiled Women Artists and Beyond" (English), University of Zurich, Spring 2023
• Lecture Series “Care, Disability and Art” (English), organized with Charlotte Matter, Laura Valterio, Marie-France Rafael und Judith Welter, University of Zurich & Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, spring 2023
• Field trip to London “Bodies of Difference: Disability, Art History, and the Museum” (English), with Charlotte Matter, Laura Valterio, and Jess Bailey, University of Zurich, fall 2022

Publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals

• Virginia Marano, Charlotte Matter, Laura Valterio (forthcoming), “Bodily Matter and Complex Embodiment in the Art of Donald Rodney,” RACAR: Journal of Universities Art Association of Canada.
• Julie Ren, Charlotte Matter, Rosa Sancarlo & Virginia Marano (2024), "Crisis and Collectives Shaping Art Events", Third Text. Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture. DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2023.2297626 
• Virginia Marano (2023), "Being (not) at Home in the World: Exiled Women Artists and Beyond." Image & Text, University of Pretoria n. 37, 1-25, ISSN 2617-3255.
• Virginia Marano (2020),Gertrud Goldschmidt and Ruth Vollmer: Women in Design between Material and Mathematical Experimentations”, PAD Journal Managing Editor, n. 18, 173-195, ISSN: 1972-7887.

Contributions to books

• Virginia Marano (2023). Walking together in the woods. In the exhibition catalogue “Rui Chafes and Alberto Giacometti,” 118-124. Musée de la Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon). ISBN: 9788418934797.
• Virginia Marano (2020). “Traces of Life in Stones: A Dialogue between Ulrika Sparre and Alberto Giacometti” in Ear to the Ground, edited by Ulrika Sparre with texts of Virginia MacKenny, Johan Redin, Jacquelyn Davis, Sue Spaid and Marti Manen. Stockholm: Art and Theory Publishing, 39-41, ISBN: 9789151943824. 

Non-peer-reviewed articles

• Virginia Marano (2022) “Ruth Vollmer’s Transformational Artistic Vision and Practice," METROMOD blog, Research Project Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile. 

• Virginia Marano (2021). Die Gesichter von Soshana und Alberto Giacometti. Exhibition Catalogue, Fondazione Centro Giacometti, Stampa, Switzerland.

• Virginia Marano (2021). Living Forms: Paule Vezelay’s encounter with Alberto Giacometti’s surrealist objects, Art UK.

• Virginia Marano (2018). The souls’ roots” of Klara Kristalova and the “Absolute” of Alberto Giacometti. 

• Virginia Marano (2018). The Cube and the Open. A dialogue between Per Kirkeby and Alberto Giacometti. 

• Virginia Marano (2018). A reflection on the Ulrika Sparre’s stones through the Alberto Giacometti’s eyes. 
• Virginia Marano (2018). Miasta Giacomettiego, «Kwartalnik Artystyczny», rok XXVI, dic. 2018, n. 100, ISSN: 1232-2105.
• Virginia Marano (2015). Democrazia e libertà in Giacometti, «GeaArt», anno IV, nov-dic 2015, n.12, ISSN: 2420-7934. 

Organization of conferences, workshops and symposia

• Organisation of the symposium “Creative Access and Digital Innovation,” Fondazione Giorgio Cini, ARCHiVe Online Academy 2023-2024, Venice. With Kamran Behrouz (Visual artist), Amanda Cachia (University of Houston), Georgina Kleege (University of California, Berkeley) and Nina Mühlemann (Artist, Bern Academy of the Arts)
• Organisation of the symposium “The Politics of (Self-)Care – A Symposium on Disability Justice and Collective Action as Self-Care,” at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. With Michael Birchall and Claudia Heim (Migros Museum), Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio (University of Zurich).
• Organization of the workshop “Unlearn the Body: New Approaches on Disability and Art History,” University of Zurich. With Amanda Cachia (University of California, San Diego), Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio (University of Zurich).
• Organization of the symposium “In Light of Crisis. The Fraught Significations of Contemporary Biennials,” University of Zurich. With Julie Ren, Charlotte Matter, Ifigenia Dimitrakou, and Rosa Sancarlo (University of Zurich).
• Organization of the artist talk with Emanuel Almborg, Research Project "Rethinking Art History through Disability," Institute of Art History at the University of Zürich in collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Rome, Italy).
• Organisation of the artist talk with Jesse Darling, Research Project “Rethinking Art History through Disability”, Institute of Art History at the University of Zürich in collaboration with the Master Fine Arts ZHdK.
• Organisation of the artist talk with Robert Andy Coombs, Research Project “Rethinking Art History through Disability”, University of Zürich (Switzerland).
• Organisation of the symposium SHINE. A conversation with Jeff Koons about art, philosophy and spirituality at the Cinema Odeon in Florence on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition Jeff Koons. Shine at Palazzo Strozzi.
• Research Seminar Co-organizer, “Disability, Art, Agency: Participation and the Revision of the Senses” with Amanda Cachia (California State University San Marcos), University of Zürich (Switzerland) in collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Rome, Italy).

Contributions to conferences (oral presentation or poster)

• Artist Talk with Varsha Nair “Anthills and Archives: Womanifesto roots down,” organised by the Master of Arts in Fine Arts, HSLU Lucerne, 30.11.2023.
• Lecture “Misfitting: Functional Diversity in Art History,” with Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio, within the lecture series Critical Disability Studies organized by the University of Bern, 29.11.2023.
• “Rethinking Art Brut” - Discussion with Dr. Monika Jagfeld, Director of Open Art Museum, St. Gallen. Venue: Museum Ballpark, Luzern, Switzerland, 04.11.2023.
• Paper presentation “Exile and Kinship: The Making of Diasporic Lines in the works of Eva Hesse and Gego,” at the conference “Understanding Displacement in Visual Art and Cultural History: 1945 to Now,” organised by the University of Manchester and Manchester Art Gallery, UK, 24-25 October 2023
• Paper Presentation “Transforming the Medical through Art: Artistic Interventions on Normative Notions of Body and Health,” with Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio at the workshop “Biomedical Visions: Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Medical Practice,” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, 28-29 September 2023
• “Learning from Disability in Art History,” with Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio, Viertes Netzwerktreffen - Netzwerk Disability Studies UZH [online], 18.01.2023.
• “Learning from Disability in Art History,” with Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio, Lecture Kunstgeschichte/n verlernen, umlernen, neulernen, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar [online], 8. Dezember 2022.
• Paper presentation at the conference “Hitting Home: Representations of the Domestic Milieu in Feminist Art”, 14-17 November 2022, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, University of Johannesburg.
• Science Slam presentation at the Fifth Swiss Congress for Art History, Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
• Poster presentation, “Home and Belonging. Exiled Women Artists and Beyond“, Fifth Swiss Congress for Art History, Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
• “L’estetica dell’esilio. L’arte delle donne del postminimalismo,” Ciclo di incontri di storia dell’arte contemporanea Prof.ssa Sibilla Panerai, Università degli Studi Gabriele d’Annunzio Chieti-Pescara.
• “Diasporic Home and Exiled Bodies: Spaces of Memory in the Work of Jewish Women Sculptors in Post-War New York,” Oberseminar, Doktorandenkolloquium WiSe 2021/2022, Prof. Dr. Burcu Dogramaci.
• Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Exilforschung 2021. Doktorand:innen-Workshop am  2. September 2021. Leitung: Prof. Bettina Bannasch, Prof. Burcu Dogramaci, Prof.  Kristina Schulz. Virginia Marano: “Diasporic Home and Exiled Bodies. Spaces of Memory in the Work of Jewish Women Sculptors in Post-War New York”.
• “The Eccentric Repetition: Eva Hesse's Spheres and Ruth Vollmer's Circles“, Forschungskolloquium Frühjahrssemester 2021, Aktuelle Forschung zur Kunst der Neuzeit, Dozent: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen, University of Zurich. 19 June 2021
• “Exploring Jewish Space_The Ritual and Dream Houses“, Forschungskolloquium Herbstsemester 2021, Aktuelle Forschung zur Kunst der Neuzeit, Dozent: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen, University of Zurich. 24-25 October 2020
• “Gertrud Goldschmidt and Ruth Vollmer: Mathematical Experimentations and the Legacy of Bauhaus-trained Women“, Forschungskolloquium Frühjahrssemester 2020, Aktuelle Forschung zur Kunst der Neuzeit, Dozent: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen, University of Zurich. 24 April 2020
• “The Experience of Dislocation: Migration, Diaspora, Exile”, Open Lecture FS 2020, Master Seminar: Transcultural Methods and Postcolonial Theories, University of Zurich. 31 April 2020
• “Ruth Vollmer: A Jewish Woman exiled in Post-war New York”, organised by Andrew James Hopkins and Cristiana Pasqualetti at the Winter School Transcoding the City: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Department of Human Sciences - Department of Excellence 2018-2022 University of L’Aquila, Italy. 14 December 2019
• “Ruth Vollmer’s “Palace”: The Trauma of Exile in the work of Women Sculptors in Post-War New York“, Forschungskolloquium Herbstsemester 2019, Aktuelle Forschung zur Kunst der Neuzeit, Dozent: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen, University of Zürich. 13 July 2019
• “Alberto Giacometti and the Women of the Post-minimalism”, at Fondazione Centro Giacometti, Stampa, Switzerland. 6-8 June 2019 
• Poster presentation, Alberto Giacometti and Eva Hesse: A Processual Relation“, Fourth Swiss congress for art history, Accademia di Architettura, Università della Svizzera Italiana. 17-19 May 2019
• “Alberto Giacometti and Eva Hesse: A Processual Relation“, Aktuelle Forschung zur Kunst der Neuzeit, Venice, Universities of Zurich and Fribourg, Dozenten: Prof. Dr Julia Gelshorn, Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen, Venice, Istituto Svizzero. February 2019
• “Alberto Giacometti’s Post-Minimalist Legacy: Phenomenology and Processual art“, Forschungskolloquium Herbstsemester 2018, Aktuelle Forschung zur Kunst der Neuzeit, Dozent: Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen, Universität Zürich. June 2017
• The eye of Alberto Giacometti. From the dialogue between Beckett and Giacometti to the Phenomelogy of Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, Mumok, Vienna, Austria. July 2016

• Alberto Giacometti and Samuel Beckett. A dialogue at a distance, at the Fondazione Centro Giacometti, Stampa, Switzerland. 

Exhibitions

• “Bordless Encounter: Soshana trifft auf Giacometti und Yanaihara,“ JAM, Joint Art Management, Luzern, 27.10-26.11.2022.

• “Chryssa: Eccentric Abstraction,” Blue Velvet Projects, Zürich, 10.06-03.09.2022.

• “Io e il colore. Augusto Giacometti e Katarina Lichtner,” Fondazione Centro Giacometti, Stampa, Switzerland, 12.06-28.08.2022.

• Matthias Oppermann exhibition, “Wie es mich sehen liess,” Fondazione Centro Giacometti, Stampa, Switzerland, 04.09-17.10.2021.

• “I volti di Soshana e Alberto Giacometti,” Fondazione Centro Giacometti, Stampa, Switzerland, 03.07.29.09.2021.