Noemi Scherrer studied German Philology (BA), Modern German Literature (MA) and Art History (MA) at the University of Basel. 2014-2018 student research assistant at the Department of Art History (Chair of Modern Art History, Prof. Dr. Ralph Ubl). 2018-2019 research assistant at the Aargauer Kunsthaus and the Kunstmuseum Basel. Since 2019 member of the eikones Graduate School and recipient of a Doc.CH grant.

Abstraction, Autonomy, Politics. Sophie Taeuber-Arp's Work in the 1930s and 1940s

The PhD thesis is dedicated to the largely abstract visual work of Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) in the 1930s and early 1940s. The fundamental concern is to re-read the history of abstraction considering this work.

The research project faces the task of positioning Taeuber-Arp's late work in the comparatively little researched international context of abstraction of the 1930s and 1940s. The aim is thereby to show that abstraction in these decades is to be understood as a period of reflection that is both conflicted and artistically productive: the relationship between abstraction and politics, artistic autonomy and the general notion of the internal relation between social and aesthetic progress were put to the test. Furthermore, the art-historical interpretation of Taeuber-Arp's late work will be combined with the latest conservational findings on her artistic practices in order to understand the significance of craftsmanship in the more general context of aesthetic, social, and political conceptions of artistic production.