Main Focus
- Visual Culture and Religion
- Intersections of Art and Gender, esp. Early Modern Period
- Study of Gesture
- Warburgian Thought
- Political Iconography
Research Project
An der Brust des Herrn. Maternal Gestures and the Christian God in 16th- and 17th-Century Art
Publications (Selection)
- (together with Stephanie Rosenthal), "Garten der irdischen Freuden", MuseumsJournal, 3 (2019), S. 80–81.
- (Assistant ed. to Stephanie Rosenthal), Garten der irdischen Freuden: Garden of Earthly Delights (Exhib. Cat. Berlin 2019), Milan 2019.
Curriculum Vitae
Torben studied History of Art and Theatre Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (B.A.) and the University of Oxford (MSt). During his undergraduate studies, he also read Musicology and was a visiting student at St Catherine‘s College, Oxford, where he was taught in History of Art, Classical and Byzantine Archaeology.
He completed his master’s degree with a thesis on depictions of Christ from post-Tridentine Italy and Spain, which was supervised by Prof. Geraldine Johnson.
Throughout his studies, he received multiple scholarships from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
As of 2021, Torben is a doctoral student at the University of Bern. His project examines depictions of the Trinitarian Persons in the visual culture of Reformation-Era Catholicism whose gestural repertoires evoke maternal imagery. His research is supervised by Prof. Dr. Urte Krass. Prior to Torben’s term as Scherbarth Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, this project was granted an Exposé-scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
In addition to his interest in the Early Modern period, Torben engages with contemporary culture and curatorial practices. He held a curatorial fellowship at the Gropius Bau, Berlin; internships at Hayward Gallery, London and Galerie Klüser, Munich; a Student Traineeship at the Munich Re Art Collection; and was involved in opera and theatre productions at Staatstheater Nürnberg and Residenztheater, Munich.
He completed his master’s degree with a thesis on depictions of Christ from post-Tridentine Italy and Spain, which was supervised by Prof. Geraldine Johnson.
Throughout his studies, he received multiple scholarships from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
As of 2021, Torben is a doctoral student at the University of Bern. His project examines depictions of the Trinitarian Persons in the visual culture of Reformation-Era Catholicism whose gestural repertoires evoke maternal imagery. His research is supervised by Prof. Dr. Urte Krass. Prior to Torben’s term as Scherbarth Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, this project was granted an Exposé-scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
In addition to his interest in the Early Modern period, Torben engages with contemporary culture and curatorial practices. He held a curatorial fellowship at the Gropius Bau, Berlin; internships at Hayward Gallery, London and Galerie Klüser, Munich; a Student Traineeship at the Munich Re Art Collection; and was involved in opera and theatre productions at Staatstheater Nürnberg and Residenztheater, Munich.