Artistic Topographies and the Dynamics of Place in Augsburg, c. 1500
My focus while at the HAB is on the artistic landscape and cross-pollination among workshops in the city of Augsburg in the early sixteenth century. As a city with extensive trade networks across Europe and globally, what is the importance of the sense of place and locality generated by Augsburg’s citizens and artists, and what might we learn by drilling down to the street-level of activity and interaction taking place there? I plan to map out the living-working shared spaces of some of Augsburg’s key artist workshops to consider how the proximity of craftsmen working with different materials—wood, stone, gold, iron, paper, acid—brought about collaborations and creative synergy across media, as well as technical innovations, especially in the sphere of printmaking. By illuminating a localized topographic view of artistic sites, neighborhoods, and networks—personal and professional —I hope to offer an expansive idea of what the technical, manual, and cognitive processes were for the artists who flourished there.
