Biography

Peter Chametzky is Professor of Art History and has been on the SVAD faculty since 2012. His research focuses on 20th and 21st century German art and culture. From 1998 to 2012 he taught at Southern Illinois University, first as Associate Professor and then as Professor, and served as Director of the School of Art and Design on the Carbondale campus from 2008-12. He served as Director of the USC SVAD from January 2013 to January 2018. From 2022 to 2024 he served as Interim Director of USC’s School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment. Previously, he taught at Adelphi University (1990-98), the School of Visual Arts, New York (1984-88), and in the School of Continuing Education at New York University (1986-88). He earned his Ph.D. in Art History from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 1991. His B.A., also in Art History, is from Cornell University. He has also studied in Freiburg iBr, and Stuttgart, Germany.

Courses

Peter teaches courses in 20^th and 21^st Century art, theory, and culture, as well the art history survey, ARTH 105 and ARTH 106. 

Awards and Honors

• 2024 Russell Research Award in Humanities and Social Sciences, University of South Carolina. “The Russell Research Awards are the most prestigious annual prizes for research and scholarship given at Carolina.”
• Honorable Mention, Art History (sole recipient), Hans and Lea Grundig Prize, Art History, 2021, for Turks, Jews, and Other Germans in Contemporary Art.
• Certificate of Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina, 2014.
• Dean's Appreciation Award, College of Liberal Arts, SIUC, December 2000.
• SIUC University Student Government Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Service and Dedication to the Undergraduate Student Body at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, May 1999 (one of two faculty recipients), 1999

Publications, Since 2019

Book

• Turks, Jews, and Other Germans in Contemporary Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021). Published with the support of a Millard Meiss Publication Fund grant from the College Art Association.

 

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters

• “On the Question: Who is German,” Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation, ed. Lynette Roth, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums, 2024), 64-69.
• “Altars to Ambition: The Triptych Revival in Late Weimar and National Socialist Germany,”Modernist Aesthetics in Transition: Visual Culture in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, ed. Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Donna West Brett (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, December 2024), 174-196.
• “To the Population in Space and Place: ‘Where am I? As if in a dream…Did we arrive?’,” in Space + Place in Modern and Contemporary German Art, Christina Crawford and Lisa Lee (Leiden: Brill Press, forthcoming).
• “Paul Westheim and Mexico: The Art Critic as Cosmopolitan” (revised version of 2001 Oxford Art Journal article) and “Anna Seghers and Mexico,”, From Posada to Isotype, from Kollwitz to Catlett: Exchanges of Print Culture. Germany – Mexico, 1900-1968. Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Michelle N. Harewood, eds. (Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2022), 24-31, 204-207 (also published in Spanish edition).
• Willi Baumeister,” in Kunst für Keinen/Art for No One, 1933-1945, ed, Ilka Voermann, exh. cat. Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt aM (Munch: Hirmer Verlag, 2022), 60-65 (English and German).
• “Die Montage leben und sterben und ihr widerstehen,” Montage oder Fake News. Von Heartfield bis Twitter, ed. Angela Lammert (Berlin: Akademie der Künste & Steidl Verlag, 2021), 68-74
• “’Turks, Jews, and Other Germans in Contemporary Art’: An Introduction,” The Massachusetts Review (60^th Anniversary Issue), vol. 60/4 (Winter 2019): 655-681.
• “From Anti-Nazi Postcards to Anti-Trump Social Media: Laughter as Resistance, Opposition, or Cold Comfort?” Art and Resistance in Germany, ed. Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Elizabeth Otto (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 193 – 216.