Jakob Schillinger is an art historian and theorist, specializing in modern and contemporary art. His research focuses on the media-technological and social conditions of art and visual culture and on their connection to gender. 
 

Jakob Schillinger has been teaching at Princeton University, Freie Universität Berlin, and die Angewandte in Vienna, and was Dean of the School for Worldly Companions at documenta 13. He was a post-doc at Princeton and has held curatorial positions including curator of the Goethe-Institut New York’s exhibition space Ludlow 38 (2013), co-curator of based in Berlin (Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlinische Galerie, n.b.k., 2011), and Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2009). 

His work has been published in the MIT Press journal October, Texte zur Kunst, and Artforum as well as in numerous exhibition catalogues. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled Painting Machines which takes a media- and systems-theoretical perspective on post-conceptual painting in 1980s and early 1990s Cologne, inquiring how artistic processes affected and connected the artists’ bodies that functioned as their media, and how these processes constructed social milieus. 

Jakob Schillinger holds a Ph.D. in art history and in interdisciplinary humanities from Princeton University and previously studied visual communication as well as fine art at the Berlin University of the Arts. 
 

Monograph
 

• Painting Machines: Martin Kippenberger, Michael Krebber, Oswald Wiener and the Cybernetics of Living Media (Dissertation), Princeton University, 2021.

Edited Volumes (Selection)

• The Case for Reduction, co-ed. with Christoph F. E. Holzhey, (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press 2022)
• Thematic cluster on Oswald Wiener, October 170 (fall 2019)
• Peter Wächtler, Jolly Rogers, co-ed. with Daniel Baumann, John Kelsey, Steinar Sekkingstad, and Axel Wieder, (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019)
• The Sixth Year, Written by Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Directed by Rick Alverson, Dustin Guy Defa, Loretta Fahrenholz, Nick Mauss, and Ken Okiishi, Alex Ross Perry. DVD incl. 24-page Booklet, (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014)
• Peter Wächtler, Come on, co-ed. with John Kelsey, (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014)
• Based in Berlin (exhibition catalogue), co-ed. with Angelique Campens, Fredi Fischli, Magdalena Magiera, and Scott Weaver, (Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2011)
• Time Out of Joint. Recall and Evocation in Recent Art, co-ed. with Luigi Fassi and Lucy Gallun, (New Haven: Yale UP, 2010)

Journal Articles 

• Oswald Wiener on Dandyism, in: October 170 (Herbst 2019), S. 31-50 (peer-reviewed)
• Interiority Complex: The Art of Peter Wächtler, in: Artforum International 53/3 (November 2014), S. 256-261, 300
• User Friendly. Jakob Schillinger on digital labor, in: Artforum International 51/3 (November 2012), S. 127-128
• The Prosumer Version: Art From the Masses, in: Flash Art International 128 (Oktober 2011), S. 86-89
• Recessional Aesthetics: An Exchange, in: October 135 (Winter 2011), S. 104-110
• Ghost Train of Marx: Chto Delat? And the Theme Park of Communism, in: Mousse Contemporary Art Magazine 26 (November 2010), S. 76-82 (italienische Übersetzung: 83-85)

Contributions to Edited Volumes and Exhibition Catalogues

• Introduction (mit Christoph F. E. Holzhey), in: The Case for Reduction, Berlin: ICI Berlin Press 2022 (hg. mit Christoph F. E. Holzhey, i. E.) 
• Dienstleistungsgesellschaft, in: Susanne Kleine (ed.) Martin Kippenberger: Bitteschön Dankeschön (exhibition catalogue), Cologne: Snoek/Bundeskunsthalle Bonn 2019, p. 26-79 (english translation: Service Economy, p. 26-79)
• Vorsprung durch Reinkarnation, in: Martin Kippenberger: Hand Painted Pictures (exhibition catalogue), New York: Skarstedt 2017, p. 8-27
• Distanziert Teilnehmende Beobachtung: Loretta Fahrenholz’ Stilistische Freizügigkeit, in: Eva Fischer-Hausdorf und Julia Bunnemann (eds.), Kunstpreis der Böttcherstraße, Bremen: Kunsthalle Bremen 2014, p. 60-64 (english translation: p. 64-66)
• Recessional Aesthetics. Artistic Practice and the Chrono-logic of Capitalism, in: Luigi Fassi, Lucy Gallun, Jakob Schillinger (eds.), Time Out of Joint. Recall and Evocation in Recent Art, New Haven: Yale University Press 2010, p. 85-106
• „Junge Kulturproduktion“ – Selbstverwirklichung und Arbeit in Berlin Mitte, in: Studienpreis (ed.), Mittelpunkt Mensch, Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft 2008, p. 61-91
   

Reviews, Roundtables, and Other Publications (Selection)

• „I can say no to the context“ A Roundtable-Discussion with Jutta Koether, Julie Mehretu and Avery Singer, moderated by Jakob Schillinger, in: Texte zur Kunst 33/127 (September 2023)
• Roundtable Discussion with Anke Dyes, Tobias Kaspar, Valerie Knoll, Hannes Loichinger, in: Valerie Knoll, Hannes Loichinger (eds.) Tobias Kaspar: Independence (exhibition catalogue), Kunsthalle Bern, 2020
• Misuse of Military Equipment. New Order: Art and Technology in the Twenty-first Century at MoMA, in: Texte zur Kunst, online (August 2019)
• Meshes of the Platform Age. Loretta Fahrenholz at mumok, in: Texte zur Kunst 28/112 (December 2018), p. 196-200
• Post-Humannerism, in: May Revue 15 (June 2016), p. 130-137 (French translation: p. 137-143)
• MUD Club: Sam Pulitzer at Artists Space, New York, in: Texte zur Kunst 24/95 (September 2014), p. 227-231
• The New Public, From a New Public Dimension to New Users, in: Artforum International 51/2 (October 2012), p. 119
• Between Art and Public, A Roundtable-Discussion with Natasa Ilic, Maria Lind, Nicolaus Schafhausen and Jakob Schillinger, in: Texte zur Kunst 22/86 (Summer 2012), p. 62-86 (German translation: Zwischen Kunst und Öffentlichkeit, p. 63-87)
• Focus Review: The 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, in: Artforum International 50/10 (Summer 2012), p. 306-307