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Prof. dr. B. (Bram) Kempers

Sociology of Art
Faculty of Humanities
Photographer: Eduard Lampe

Visiting address
  • Kloveniersburgwal 48
Postal address
  • Postbus 15540
    1001 NA Amsterdam
Contact details
  • Profile

    Work experience since graduating

    1979-1985 Researcher and lecturer in sociology of art at the University of Amsterdam and researcher for the Ministry of |Culture.

    1981-1984 Grant from the Netherlands Organisation for PhD-Research.

    1985-1989 Researcher and lecturer in cultural policy and art at the University of Groningen; 1988 Part time professor Theory and Methods of Sociology of Art at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of the Social Sciences.

    1990 Full professor of Sociology of Art at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of the Humanities.

    1997-2001 Director of the Institute for Arts and Culture.

    2001-2004 Chair of the Institute for Arts and Culture, vice dean of the Faculty of the Humanities.

    2001- Member of the NWO research committee Transformations of Art and Culture

    2000-2008 Director of the research programme Art of the Institute for Culture and History

    2004- Director of the Research Master in the Arts.

    1996-2006 Member of the Science committee Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and editor of the series Visual Culture, 2003-

    2009-2010 Visiting professor I Tatti, Florence (Harvard University);

    2011 Wissenschaftliche Gast Kunsthistorisches Institut Florence-Max-Planck Institut

    2012-2013 Scholar in Residence, NIKI, Florence.

    Watch a Lecture by Bram Kempers Maagdenhuis op Maandag; 5 Maart 2007:

    Work experience since graduating

    1979-1985 Researcher and lecturer in sociology of art at the University of Amsterdam and researcher for the Ministry of |Culture.

    1981-1984 Grant from the Netherlands Organisation for PhD-Research.

    1985-1989 Researcher and lecturer in cultural policy and art at the University of Groningen; 1988 Part time professor Theory and Methods of Sociology of Art at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of the Social Sciences.

    1990 Full professor of Sociology of Art at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of the Humanities.

    1997-2001 Director of the Institute for Arts and Culture.

    2001-2004 Chair of the Institute for Arts and Culture, vice dean of the Faculty of the Humanities.

    2001- Member of the NWO research committee Transformations of Art and Culture

    2000-2008 Director of the research programme Art of the Institute for Culture and History

    2004- Director of the Research Master in the Arts.

    1996-2006 Member of the Science committee Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and editor of the series Visual Culture, 2003-

    2009-2010 Visiting professor I Tatti, Florence (Harvard University);

    2011 Wissenschaftliche Gast Kunsthistorisches Institut Florence-Max-Planck Institut

    2012-2013 Scholar in Residence, NIKI, Florence.

    Watch a Lecture by Bram Kempers Maagdenhuis op Maandag; 5 Maart 2007:

     

     

    Supervisor PhD-dissertations

    Erasmus and art (L. Schlüter), Modern art in Eastern Europe (M. Svacek), Science Museums (E. Besseling), Brokers in the modern art world (T. Gubbels), Collectors of modern art (R. Steenbergen), The Artful Hermitage (A. Witte), Cultural policy in the Netherlands (R. Pots), Raphael’s Poetics (D. Rijser), Poetry and Patronage: Giannantonio Campano (S. de Beer), Text and image in modern art (M. Schavemaker), Michelangelo and the Tomb of Julius II (M. Forcellino), Plaster copies (E. Godin); Cultural heritage at siege (J.Kila); Religion and modern art (A. Alexandrova); Jurriaan Schrofer, designer, artist and entrepreneur (F. Huygen). In 2002 honorary doctorate for E. de Jongh.      

     

    In preparation: E. Elzenga, D. Elshout, Ch. Smidt, A. Heumakers, M. Jonker, Jahoel, H. Bruijns, M. Gnyp, P. Rijkens, D. Beiles.

     

    Grants

    From NWO, Ministery of Culture, Harvard, Kunsthistorisches Institut, and NIKI, see above. Grants from the Dutch Institutes in Florence and Rome, in the period 1980-1988.

     

    Villa I Tatti, Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence: April-June 2010

     

     Replacement subsidies and international fellowships have been awarded by KNAW (team research proposal coordinated by Bram Kempers and Patricia Lulof) at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies entitled: Biographies of Buildings: Virtual Futures for our Cultural Past for the academic year 2014-2015 (6 months).

     

     

    Key Publications

    `Jacopo Stefaneschi: Patron and Liturgist. A New Hypothesis Regarding the Date, Iconography, Authorship and Function of his Altarpiece for Old Saint Peter’s ’, in Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, 47 1987, 83-113.

    `Gesetz und Kunst. Ambrogio Lorenzettis Fresken im Palazzo Pubblico in Siena’, inH. Belting and D. Blume eds., Malerei und Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit, Munich 1989, 71-85

    `Icons, Altarpieces and Civic Ritual in Siena Cathedral, 1100-1530’, in B.A. Hanawalt and K.L. Reyerson eds., City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, Medieval Studies at Minnesota, vol. 6, Minneapolis and London 1994, 89-136

    `Diverging Perspectives – New Saint Peter’s: Artistic Ambitions, Liturgical Requirements, Financial Limitations and Historical Considerations’, in Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 1996, 213-251

    `Words, Images and All the Pope’s Men. Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura and the Synthesis of Divine Wisdom’, in I. Hampsher-Monk, K. Tilmans and F. van Vree eds., History of Concepts. Comparative Perspectives, Amsterdam 1998, 131-165

    `Julius inter laudem et vituperationem. Ein Papst unter gegensätzlichen Gesichtspunkten betrachtet’, in Hochrenaissance im Vatikan 1503-1534. Kunst und Kultur der Päpste I, Bonn 1998, 15-29

    `Capella Iulia and Capella Sixtina. Two Tombs, One Patron and Two Churches’, in F. Benzi ed., Sisto IV. Le arti a Roma nel primo Rinascimento, Rome 2000, 33-59

    `”Sans fiction ne dissimulacion”. The Crowns and Crusaders in the Stanza dell’Incendio’, in G. Tewes and M.Rohlmann, Der Medici-Papst Leo X. und Frankreich, Tübingen 2002, 373-426

    `Ritual and its Images. Paris de Grassis, Raphael and the “signatures” in the Vatican Stanze’, in T. Weddigen, S. de Blaauw and B. Kempers eds., Functions and Decorations. Art and Ritual at the Vatican Palace in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Rome and Turnhout 2003, 71-93

    `Die Erfindung eines Monuments. Michelangelo und die Metamorphosen des Juliusgrabmals’, in H. Bredekamp and V. Reinhardt eds., Totenkult und Wille zur Macht. Die unruhigen Ruhestätten der Päpste in St. Peter, Darmstadt 2004, 41-59

    `The Pope’s Two Bodies. Julius II, Raphael and Saint Luke’s Virgin of Santa Maria del Popolo’ in E. Thuno and G. Wolf eds., The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Munich 2004, 189-213

    ‘Metamorfosen van Rome. Uitstraling, praktijk en illusie van pauselijk mecenaat (1420-1590)’ in De Paus en de Wereld. Geschiedenis van een instituut, F.W. Lantink, J. Koch (eds), Amsterdam 2012, 191-209.

    ‘Centralized Churches and the Concept of the figura composta: Ideal and Practice from Brunelleschi to Borromini’, in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, edited by Machtelt Israëls and Louis A. Waldman, Florence, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2013, vol. I, 339-347, 843-846.

    ‘Epilogue: A hybrid history: the antique basilica with a modern dome’, in R. McKitterick, J. Osborne, C. M. Richardson and J. Story, eds. Old Saint Peter's, Rome, British School at Rome Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 396-403.

     

     

    Supervisor PhD-dissertations

    Erasmus and art (L. Schlüter), Modern art in Eastern Europe (M. Svacek), Science Museums (E. Besseling), Brokers in the modern art world (T. Gubbels), Collectors of modern art (R. Steenbergen), The Artful Hermitage (A. Witte), Cultural policy in the Netherlands (R. Pots), Raphael’s Poetics (D. Rijser), Poetry and Patronage: Giannantonio Campano (S. de Beer), Text and image in modern art (M. Schavemaker), Michelangelo and the Tomb of Julius II (M. Forcellino), Plaster copies (E. Godin); Cultural heritage at siege (J.Kila); Religion and modern art (A. Alexandrova); Jurriaan Schrofer, designer, artist and entrepreneur (F. Huygen). In 2002 honorary doctorate for E. de Jongh.      

     

    In preparation: E. Elzenga, D. Elshout, Ch. Smidt, A. Heumakers, M. Jonker, Jahoel, H. Bruijns, M. Gnyp, P. Rijkens, D. Beiles.

     

    Grants

    From NWO, Ministery of Culture, Harvard, Kunsthistorisches Institut, and NIKI, see above. Grants from the Dutch Institutes in Florence and Rome, in the period 1980-1988.

     

    Villa I Tatti, Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence: April-June 2010

     

     Replacement subsidies and international fellowships have been awarded by KNAW (team research proposal coordinated by Bram Kempers and Patricia Lulof) at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies entitled: Biographies of Buildings: Virtual Futures for our Cultural Past for the academic year 2014-2015 (6 months).

    Dissertation (1987) translated in German (1989), English (1994) and French (1997)

     

     

    Key Publications

    `Jacopo Stefaneschi: Patron and Liturgist. A New Hypothesis Regarding the Date, Iconography, Authorship and Function of his Altarpiece for Old Saint Peter’s ’, in Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, 47 1987, 83-113.

    `Gesetz und Kunst. Ambrogio Lorenzettis Fresken im Palazzo Pubblico in Siena’, inH. Belting and D. Blume eds., Malerei und Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit, Munich 1989, 71-85

    `Icons, Altarpieces and Civic Ritual in Siena Cathedral, 1100-1530’, in B.A. Hanawalt and K.L. Reyerson eds., City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, Medieval Studies at Minnesota, vol. 6, Minneapolis and London 1994, 89-136

    `Diverging Perspectives – New Saint Peter’s: Artistic Ambitions, Liturgical Requirements, Financial Limitations and Historical Considerations’, in Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 1996, 213-251

    `Words, Images and All the Pope’s Men. Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura and the Synthesis of Divine Wisdom’, in I. Hampsher-Monk, K. Tilmans and F. van Vree eds., History of Concepts. Comparative Perspectives, Amsterdam 1998, 131-165

    `Julius inter laudem et vituperationem. Ein Papst unter gegensätzlichen Gesichtspunkten betrachtet’, in Hochrenaissance im Vatikan 1503-1534. Kunst und Kultur der Päpste I, Bonn 1998, 15-29

    `Capella Iulia and Capella Sixtina. Two Tombs, One Patron and Two Churches’, in F. Benzi ed., Sisto IV. Le arti a Roma nel primo Rinascimento, Rome 2000, 33-59

    `”Sans fiction ne dissimulacion”. The Crowns and Crusaders in the Stanza dell’Incendio’, in G. Tewes and M.Rohlmann, Der Medici-Papst Leo X. und Frankreich, Tübingen 2002, 373-426

    `Ritual and its Images. Paris de Grassis, Raphael and the “signatures” in the Vatican Stanze’, in T. Weddigen, S. de Blaauw and B. Kempers eds., Functions and Decorations. Art and Ritual at the Vatican Palace in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Rome and Turnhout 2003, 71-93

    `Die Erfindung eines Monuments. Michelangelo und die Metamorphosen des Juliusgrabmals’, in H. Bredekamp and V. Reinhardt eds., Totenkult und Wille zur Macht. Die unruhigen Ruhestätten der Päpste in St. Peter, Darmstadt 2004, 41-59

    `The Pope’s Two Bodies. Julius II, Raphael and Saint Luke’s Virgin of Santa Maria del Popolo’ in E. Thuno and G. Wolf eds., The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Munich 2004, 189-213

    ‘Metamorfosen van Rome. Uitstraling, praktijk en illusie van pauselijk mecenaat (1420-1590)’ in De Paus en de Wereld. Geschiedenis van een instituut, F.W. Lantink, J. Koch (eds), Amsterdam 2012, 191-209.

    ‘Centralized Churches and the Concept of the figura composta: Ideal and Practice from Brunelleschi to Borromini’, in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, edited by Machtelt Israëls and Louis A. Waldman, Florence, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2013, vol. I, 339-347, 843-846.

    ‘Epilogue: A hybrid history: the antique basilica with a modern dome’, in R. McKitterick, J. Osborne, C. M. Richardson and J. Story, eds. Old Saint Peter's, Rome, British School at Rome Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 396-403.

  • Publications

    2016

    • Kempers, B. (2016). Clergy and Laity Viewing Both Sides of Painted Altarpieces in Rome, Siena, San Sepolcro and Perugia. In M. Verhoeven, L. Bosman, & H. van Asperen (Eds.), Monuments & Memory: Christian Cult Buildings and Constructions of the Past: Essays in honour of Sible de Blaauw (pp. 269-278). (Architectural crossroads : studies in the history of architecture; Vol. 3). Turnhout: Brepols. [details]

    2014

    • Kempers, B. (2014). Sociology and the Proliferation of Knowledge: La Condition Humaine. In R. Bod, J. Maat, & T. Weststeijn (Eds.), The making of the humanities. - Vol. III: The modern humanities (pp. 609-625). Amsterdam University Press. http://www.oapen.org/record/500288 [details]

    2013

    • Kempers, B. (2013). Centralized churches and the concept of the figura composta: ideal and practice from Brunelleschi to Borromini. In M. Israëls, & L. A. Waldman (Eds.), Renaissance studies in honor of Joseph Connors. - Volume 1: Art history (pp. 353-362, 873-876). (Villa I Tatti; No. 29). The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. [details]
    • Kempers, B. (2013). Epilogue: A hybrid history: the antique basilica with a modern dome. In R. McKitterick, J. Osborne, C. M. Richardson, & J. Story (Eds.), Old Saint Peter's, Rome (pp. 386-403). (British School at Rome studies). Cambridge University Press. [details]

    2015

    • Kempers, B. (2015). Het Amsterdam van Bram Kempers: nostalgie en modernisme in Slotervaart. Amstelodamum, 102(4), 137-138. [details]

    2012

    • Kempers, B. (2012). Metamorfosen van Rome: uitstraling, praktijk en illusie van pauselijk mecenaat (1420-1590). In F. W. Lantink, & J. Koch (Eds.), De paus en de wereld: geschiedenis van een instituut (pp. 191-208, 419-420). Boom. [details]

    2011

    • Kempers, B. (2011). Op zoek naar theorie: civilisatie, communicatie, cultuur en media. In C. Brinkgreve, M. van den Haak, B. van Heerikhuizen, J. Heilbron, & G. Kuipers (Eds.), Cultuur en ongelijkheid (pp. 198-211). AMB. [details]

    2010

    2007

    • Kempers, B. (2007). 'Secretaris van Stendhal. Kunst, geschiedenis en sociale wetenschap'. In A. Mooij, D. Bos, & S. van 't Hof (Eds.), Grenzeloos nieuwsgierig. Opstellen voor en over Abram de Swaan (pp. 121-132). Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. [details]
    • Kempers, B. (2007). 'Tot de verbeelding sprekende beelden: de permanente renaissance van het theater van de oudheid'. In Beeld voor Beeld. Klassieke Sculptuur in Prent (Catalogus Allard Piersonmuseum) (pp. 61-70). Amsterdam: Allard Piersonmuseum. [details]

    2014

    • Kempers, B. (2014). Epilogue. In C. Paparella, & H. Vinken (Eds.), Pierre Vinken: Icons and Enigmas: Investigations in Art (pp. 508-511). Amsterdam: Prometheus. [details]

    2011

    • Kempers, B. (2011). Voorwoord. In W. Bakker (Ed.), Droom van helderheid: huisstijlen, ontwerpbureaus en modernisme in Nederland, 1960-1975 (pp. 6-11). (Beeldcultuur in Nederland; No. 3). Uitgeverij 010. [details]

    2009

    • Kempers, B. (2009). Zorg en kunst: het aanzien van ziekenhuizen = Care and art: the appearance of hospitals. In L. Melis, & T. van Gestel (Eds.), De Collectie: 25 jaar kunstprojecten in zorginstellingen 1985-2009 = The Collection: 25 years of art projects in care institutions 1985-2009 (pp. 17-38). SKOR. [details]

    2008

    • Kempers, B. (2008). De schepping van Melle: visionair realist in de wereld van moderne kunst. Bussum: Thoth. [details]
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    No ancillary activities