Teaching

Teaching Areas

The Professorship for Provenance Studies covers:

• Provenance and Art Market Studies
• Museum and Memory Studies
• Computational Art History and Provenance Research

Pedagogical Approach

• Integration of partner institutions and concrete research projects
• Excursions to exhibitions, archives, museum storage facilities (depots), and restoration workshops
• Exchange with curators, provenance researchers, artists, and art market experts
• Research-based learning with authentic provenance research and curatorial challenges
• Digital pedagogy using data management platforms without requiring prior technical skills

University Courses at Leuphana

"Old Knowledge, New Techniques — Understanding Museum Data"

• Semester: Winter 2021/2022
• Co-instructor: Fabio Mariani
• Program: Media Cultures module, Digital Media Bachelor (Leuphana + Hamburg Media School)
• Content: Combined provenance methodology with structured data publishing. Students developed digital applications for presenting art provenance, including interactive mapping and museum exhibition games.

"Collecting Women"

• Semester: Winter 2021/2022
• Co-instructor: Max Koss
• Content: Women's roles as collectors, market participants, and curators. Commemorated 50th anniversary of Linda Nochlin's essay. Included visit to Toyen retrospective at Hamburger Kunsthalle.

"Tracing Brandhorst: Re-Imagining a Collection"

• Date: July 11–15, 2022
• Instructor: Lynn Rother
• Location: Museum Brandhorst, Munich (on-site intensive)
• Participants: 13 undergraduates
• Content: Students each assigned an artist/artwork from the Brandhorst collection (Warhol to Twombly). Prepared object sheets, delivered oral presentations on collecting and exhibition history.

Seminar on "Degenerate Art" (Entartete Kunst)

• Schedule: Weekly, Mondays 4:15–5:45 PM
• Content: Individual objects and their provenance in American museums, focusing on 20,000+ artworks removed from public museums during the Nazi era.

Foundations of Art History (Collaborative Lecture Series)

• Schedule: Thursdays, April 7 – July 11, 2025, 4:15–5:45 PM
• Co-instructors: Susanne Leeb, Sandra Neugärttner, Vera-Simone Schulz, Beate Söntgen, Jordan Troeller, Ulf Wuggenig, Lynn Rother

Additional Course Themes

• "Stolen from Thieves? German Museums and the Nazi Era"
• "All looted art? Museum property from contexts of injustice"
• Restitution dialectics and museum deaccession practices
• Colonial injustice in data
• Digital versus Humanities

Workshops & Training Programs

Coding Provenance (Annual Series, launched 2025)

• Organizers: Provenance Lab + Getty Provenance Index
• First edition: December 18–21, 2025 at Leuphana
• Format: 4-day program (lectures, hands-on, discussions) + 2 online prep sessions
• Capacity: 16 participants; free, with hotel and travel support
• Target: Provenance researchers, museum professionals, humanities scholars
• Contact: barbara.romero_ferron@leuphana.de

Provenance Research Workshop, Castello di Rivoli (2019)

• Dates: July 15–19 and September 23–27, 2019
• Leader: Lynn Rother
• Venue: Castello di Rivoli Library, Turin
• Participants: Up to 15, MIUR-accredited certification
• Guest experts: Mara Wantuch-Thole, Paul Cossu, Meike Hopp, Marilena Daquino, Ilaria Pavan, Marie Stolberg

LIAS Workshop: Beyond Restitution (2025)

• Date: February 7–8, 2025
• Co-organizers: Fernanda Pitta, Bruno Moreschi, Lynn Rother, and others
• Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese (simultaneous translation)
• Featured speakers: Indigenous researchers and artists from Brazil, Chile, Colombia with European museum experts

Leuphana Opening Week

• 2023: Lynn Rother participated in discussions with Johannes Vogel (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) and Barbara Plankensteiner (Museum am Rothenbaum) in front of ~1,000 first-year students.

Digital/Educational Projects

• whatisapainting.com — Interactive web application exploring museum classification of paintings