Ulrike Müller assistant professor - senior researcher

Research Ulrike Müller

Research team

Expertise

Ulrike Müller specializes in the history and theory of collections and museums. She holds a joint PhD in art and cultural history and has done extensive research on Belgian private art and antique collections during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, their accessibility, function and display, and on private collectors’ interaction with public cultural life in the past and present. Her current research focuses on the historical origins, contemporary challenges and future potential of small-scale heritage sites, including historic house museums. In her work, she applies an integrated and interdisciplinary perspective, combining art and cultural history, contemporary museum practice, conservation-restoration science, museology, critical heritage studies, cultural policy and cultural management.

Cherchez la femme: Women and the Boom of Antiques in Belgium (c. 1880 – c. 1940). 01/10/2024 - 30/09/2028

Abstract

Cherchez la femme studies the boom in the sale and consumption of antique objects in Belgium between c.1880-c.1940. The growing craze for antiques around the turn of the century saw the involvement of both men and women active in the antique sector, either as buyers, sellers and/or as expert advisors. Curiously enough, until now scholars have paid scant attention to women's important role in the expanding antiques trade. Previous explanations addressed the boom in the antique market in only the most schematic and biased terms, failing to address why antiques would become so characteristic to bourgeois homes at the end of the nineteenth century, and what role women played in this evolution, both relating to demand, supply, and the marketing and dissemination of antiques in Belgian society at the turn of the century. This project hypothesises that women have played a crucial, yet underestimated role in the perceived changes in the antique market. In a society structured around dominant patriarchal notions of 'separate spheres' and women's 'different role' in society, it can be expected that they not only began to actively assume their supposedly 'traditional' role as homemakers, but that they also became increasingly involved in businesses geared at interior decoration and the applied arts. Within the context of a complex set of societal shifts around 1900, Cherchez la femme questions an evolution where antiques became gradually revalued and re-conceptualised, from exclusive 'male-gendered' curiosities to essential 'female-gendered' interior props of the late nineteenth-century home. As such, this project proposes an integrated exploration of women's active engagement and strategies in the antiques sector where their diverse roles as advisor, taste maker, seller, marketer, evaluator, manager, educator, and consumer came together. It does so by mobilising the exceptionally well-preserved business archives of the Antwerp based Eugène Van Herck & Fils – one of the most important antique trading businesses in Belgium during the belle époque and interbellum period. The current project strengthens existing research collaborations between history and heritage studies at the UAntwerpen, by way of focusing on important changes in the material culture and consumption in Belgium at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century.

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  • Research Project

Activating the fonds d'atelier. History, materiality and significance of nineteenth-century plaster models in Belgian collections. 01/09/2023 - 31/08/2027

Abstract

Artists' studio estates are a particular kind of cultural heritage. Also known as fonds d'ateliers, such collections designate objects and items related to an artist's creative practice and forming the content of the studio that have been left at the artist's death. In addition to unfinished and/or unsold works, fonds d'ateliers may contain sketches and other preparatory works in different media, such as plaster models in the sculptor's studio. As testimonies of artists' processes, such collections can thus provide important information for the understanding and interpretation of their work as a whole. Historical sculptors' estates are often poorly preserved and lack any vision regarding their management. There is little knowledge available in Belgium and internationally that can help collection institutions to appropriately understand the specific history, materiality and museological potential of such studio collections, and to develop informed management strategies concerning the conservation and valorisation of this heritage. The most pressing research questions that arise are the following: 1. How and why were historical fonds d'ateliers of sculptors preserved and musealised? 2. What precise traces do such collections bear of an artist's creative process, and which role can 3D imaging play in revealing these? 3. What is the heritage significance of these collections, and how can they be valorised? In order to answer these questions, this research project focuses on the studio collections of nineteenth-century sculptors in Belgium, and more specifically on their most fragile assets, namely their plaster models. The research aims to reconstruct the unique history of sculptors' fonds d'ateliers in Belgian collections, map their material condition and the creative properties via 3D imaging techniques and (digitally enhanced) visual analysis, and identify their significance in order to formulate concrete suggestions for their future valorisation. Providing a test case for new digital methods to analyse sculpture, the research will, on the one hand, contribute to the broader revaluation of works in plaster, a movement which has so far mainly focused on reproductive casts after the antique, while generally neglecting the specific context, status and challenges of sculptors' models. On the other hand, the project will contribute to the development of novel valorisation strategies tailored to the specific needs and potential of the fonds d'ateliers that particularly revalue their position in artistic practice. Placing special emphasis on the processual and creative character of this heritage, the research ties in with broader debates on dynamic heritage and activating museum practice.

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  • Research Project

Abbey Rd. Revisited. A critical study and remedy for the Meunier Museum as a satellite of the RMFAB (Abbey Rd). 01/01/2022 - 31/12/2031

Abstract

Small museum entities that are part of a larger museum group are often not a priority as far as strategic management is concerned. The geographical distance to the mother museum creates a mental gap that helps to understand why in general these 'satellite museums' lack resources, are short in personnel, have problems with their buildings, and even have difficulties to offer the adequate material conditions for the preservation of artworks. Although suited for experiencing heritage, the small scale causes gigantic challenges, but also new experiences and alternative tourism potential. Precisely these problems and issues will be addressed and tackled in this project on the Meunier Museum. It will mobilize an important series of scholarly resources and will generate new experiences and insights that are relevant and innovating in museology and heritage sciences and practices. The current project is (on) the front zone and the intersection of several scholarly disciplines: art history, history, conservation-restoration science (of both immovable and movable heritage), museology, critical heritage studies, policy studies, tourism studies and cultural management sciences.

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  • Research Project

Collection Campus Mutsaard. A participatory value-based heritage assessment of 360 years Royal Academy of Antwerp. 01/07/2022 - 31/10/2024

Abstract

Almost 360 years of academic heritage at Campus Mutsaard reflects the history of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and of the young Faculty of Design Sciences of the University of Antwerp. A participatory value-based heritage assessment will be carried out, involving a wide range of stakeholders and heritage communities. The development of this participatory process will not only contribute to the design of a methodology that includes multiple perspectives in the assessment of heritage value, but will hopefully also result in a meaningful integration of the academic heritage in the future educational and infrastructural plans.

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  • Research Project

Between personal pleasure and public relevance. Private collectors in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent and the emergence of a national artistic canon 1830-1914. 01/10/2014 - 28/04/2020

Abstract

Throughout the long nineteenth century Belgium was home to a remarkably large number of private art collections. Many of those were visited by an interested local and international public and were popular topics in the contemporary press. Especially after the creation of the Belgian nation state in 1830, private collectors increasingly directed their interest to art works and artefacts of national historical value. However, no scientific attention has so far been paid to the question how these collectors and their collections influenced – and were influenced by – the formation and consolidation of a national taste and artistic canon. This project therefore has a double aim: firstly, it will identify and inventory the major private collectors active in the Belgian artistic centers Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent between 1830 and 1914, determine their social and political profile and trace the motivations of their collecting activity. Secondly, it will analyze their relationships with artists, art dealers, critics and historians as well as discussions of their collections published in periodicals and catalogues in order to gain insights into the collectors' involvement with and impact on the creation, mediation and reception of a national taste and canon. By this means, this project aspires to shed new light on the features and mechanisms of the urban art circles in nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury Belgium, and on the particular role private collectors played therein.

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  • Research Project