Paul Mellenthin has been an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art History at the University of Tübingen since July 2023. His teaching and research focus on modern and contemporary art, the theory and history of photography, and the history of art history. In his current second book project, he inquires into artistic practices that critically engage with forms of pastness.
He studied art history in Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, Rome, and Basel. His dissertation, entitled Fotografie, Macht, Geschichte. Bilder vom Deutsch-Französischen Krieg und der Pariser Kommune (“Photography, Power, History: Images of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune”), received the Research Award of the Society for Interdisciplinary Image Studies (GiB). During his doctoral studies, he was a fellow at eikones – Center for the Theory and History of the Image in Basel, was awarded a grant from the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft Basel, and was awarded a research fellowship by the German Center for Art History in Paris. His research stays took him, among other places, to the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, and the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome.
In addition to his university work, he has many years of experience in museums and collections. From 2015 to 2017, he was guest curator of the photography collection at the Münchner Stadtmuseum. He subsequently worked as a curator at the Kunstmuseum Basel and as head of collection at the Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel. Most recently, he was responsible for the exhibition París: Bajo una pequeña nube (2025) at the Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravo in Oaxaca. This close connection between academic research, curatorial practice, and institutional work also shapes his teaching. His seminars and excursions combine theoretical reflection with work on original objects, archives, and exhibitions.
He is the editor of several edited volumes and academic journals. His essays appear in international edited volumes, exhibition catalogues, and scholarly journals in art history and the history of photography. He is also active as a critic and reviewer, writing regularly on current exhibitions, books, and debates in image and photography theory. He regularly gives lectures at international conferences and is involved in academic networks and committees, including as spokesperson of the Postdoc Forum for French Studies and as an editor of ArtHist.net. As an organizer of workshops and lecture series, he promotes interdisciplinary exchange with literary studies, media studies, and history.
In his teaching, he covers a broad spectrum—from introductions and methods of art history to advanced seminars on photography theory and contemporary art, as well as research-oriented teaching formats focusing on individual artists. He supervises bachelor’s and master’s theses on topics in art history from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, as well as on questions of art theory and image theory. Students are encouraged to develop their own research questions at an early stage and to pursue them in close dialogue.
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