Marko Stamenkovic

Position:

Lecturer in Art History
College:

College of Liberal Arts
Office:

GEH B217
您的邮箱:

smarko@kean.edu

Educational Background

PhD in Philosophy, University of Gent, Belgium [2014]

Thesis: ‘Suicide Cultures. Theories and Practices of Radical Withdrawal’

M.A. in Cultural Policy and Cultural Management – UNESCO Chair, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia [2005]

Thesis: 'The Status of Curatorial Practices in Post-Socialist Conditions’

B.A. in Art History, University of Belgrade, Serbia [2003]

Thesis: 'The Concept of the Gaze and Image Analysis'

Biography

Marko Stamenkovic (*1977, Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia) is a Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the College of Liberal Arts, Wenzhou-Kean University in China. He is an Art Historian specializing in cross-cultural visual phenomena, with a profound interest in the decolonial politics of race, ethnicity, and sexuality. From 2018 to 2022, he collaborated with the ZETA Center for Contemporary Art in Tirana, Albania, working as a curator, instructor, and editor. Concurrently, he worked on research-based exhibition projects across the Balkan Peninsula. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Gent, Belgium, where he delved into ambiguous bio-ethical and political questions surrounding sacrifice, self-sacrifice in protest, and suicide. This investigation aimed to unravel the intricate relationship between human mortality, the politico-economic powers operating on the darker side of democracy, and the role of images and media in shaping these dynamics from the latter half of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first century in Europe and beyond. His international guest-lectures and curatorial projects include universities and cultural venues across Europe, the Middle East/West Asia, Africa, and the Americas. With a primary focus on the intersection of visual thinking with social theories, political philosophies, and cultural practices of marginalized and oppressed communities, Stamenkovic is passionate about unraveling how visual data, both within and outside art history, contribute to the production of various forms of knowledge across time, space, and scientific disciplines, while challenging established interpretative criteria, methodologies, and perspectives.

Research interests

In general, my research interests lie in modern and contemporary art history from a global perspective. Specifically, I am interested in exploring how visual data, both within and outside of art history, contribute to the production of various forms of knowledge. This includes investigating how visual representations intersect with the histories of ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities (which are often systematically excluded from public view) and how images can serve as ethical tools so to illuminate and make accessible intricate social and emotional structures and human values, such as empathy and guilt. My most recent research activity was part of the Berlin State Museums’ International Scholarship Program held in Summer 2022. I worked on a project “Graphic Evidence: Examining poster design as a form of ethical concern in the context of sexual violence”, where I paid a particular attention to the recently digitalized collection of advertising art from German colonial era at the Art Library of the Berlin State Museums, while examining a single poster (Togo Kaffeetabletten, from 1914), made by a graphic and fashion designer Ernst Deutsch-Dryden.