Lecture by Prof. Dr. Jérémie Koering: "The Other Side of Art History"

Thursday, November 6 2025, 6-8 p.m.
Kunstmuseum Basel | Hauptbau, Vortragssaal
Entrance via Porte Picasso
Participation free of charge, ticket required via ticket link

As part of the exhibition Verso, Prof. Dr. Jérémie Koering will speak about The Other Side of Art History: When displayed in a museum, a painting usually offers only its front side for contemplation. And for good reason: painting is traditionally associated with the conquest of color on a flat surface intended to be hung on or placed against a wall. This view of easel painting has become ingrained in our minds, but it actually conceals a more complex reality. While a painting generally has a main side, it also has a reverse side. And, as the exhibition Verso: Tales from the Other Side shows, this other side can reveal remarkable information: painted scenes, preparatory drawings, inscriptions, signs of devotion, inventory numbers, transport labels etc..

By studying these traces and the way they are generally treated by specialists—whether iconologists, image anthropologists, collection and exhibition historians, or provenance researchers— this lecture will be an opportunity to reflect on what our knowledge of the reverse side teaches us about the painting as a whole, but also about the different ways of doing art history.

The public award ceremony for the 2025 Hanna Levy-Deinhard Prize will take place before the lecture. The lecture will be held in English in cooperation with the Department of Art History, University of Basel.

Following the lecture, there will be an aperitif in the Art History seminar room.

Participants: Prof. Dr. Aaron Hyman (Early modern period, moderation lecture), Prof. Dr. Jérémie Koering (speaker), Daniel Kurjaković (Curator Programs, Welcome and Introduction), Prof. Dr. Ralph Ubl (Professor of Modern Art History, moderator of the award ceremony)