The Art of Collecting Art

Stefanie Gerke is an art historian at Berlin's Humboldt University and one of the three founders of Niche Art & Architecture Tours Berlin. She brings her academic interests in contemporary art and exhibiting practices to bear on the tours to the most interesting art spots in the city. Besides maintaining strong connections to the ever-evolving art scene, she is writing her doctor thesis on post-war architectural ruins in contemporary art.

Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Lüdeking initially studied art education, passed both state examinations and, in 1975, was designated a "Master Student" of Fine Arts. After three years of teaching at a Berlin high school, he became a university lecturer and took up further studies in philosophy, art–history and German literature. In 1985, he earned his PhD in philosophy with a dissertation supervised by Ernst Tugendhat. In 1997, he acquired the so-called "Habilitation" with a venia legendi for art–theory. In the same year he was one of the three founders of the German Society of Aesthetics. After several temporary appointments as a guest–professor and member of research institutes, he became a tenured professor of art history at the Art Academy of Nuremberg, where he also served as its president from 1998 till 2001. In 2002 he spent half a year in Princeton as a Visiting Member at the Institute for Advanced Study. In 2004 he moved to Berlin and since then he has been teaching art history and art theory at the University of the Arts, mainly focusing on art and art theory from around 1900 to the present.