Christian Liclair, Senior Scientist

Sen.Sc. Dr.phil. Christian Liclair
christian.liclair@uni-ak.ac.at
+43-(0)1-711 33-6504

Christian Liclair is an art historian and art critic. Focusing on artistic engagements with sexuality as well as desire and their relationship to queer-feminist theories, he is interested in both the political promises and the contradictions of sexual emancipation. His work also examines the relationship between aesthetic experience and bodily pleasure, asking how arousal, excess, and ambivalence tease the boundaries of what is considered aesthetically valuable and politically effective.

He received his doctorate from Freie Universität Berlin, where he worked until 2021 as a research associate on the project “Aesthetics of Desire: Counter-Hegemonic Visualizations of Bodies, Sexuality, and Gender,” following a Visiting Fellowship at Harvard University. His monograph Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s was published by Routledge in 2022. From 2022 to 2024, he was editor-in-chief of TEXTE ZUR KUNST, where he conceived thematic issues including “Trans Perspectives” (with Luce deLire) and “LUST.”

From the fall of 2027, he will submit to questions of deferred gratification and the sustained intensity of sensuous experience in art as the principal investigator of the FWF-funded research project Edging Aesthetics: Pleasure, Sensuality & Limits of Excess at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Selected Publications

Monograph

  • Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s. New York: Routledge, 2022.

Co-edited Volumes

  • ambivalent work*s: queer perspectives and art history, co-edited with Daniel Berndt and Susanne Huber. Zurich/Berlin: Diaphanes, 2024.

Articles, Book Chapters, and Catalogue Essays

  • “Temporal Drift: PaJaMa, Beach Time, and Queer Chronologies,” in Queer Avant-Garde, edited by Änne Söll, Hongwei Bao, and Susanne Huber. De Gruyter, forthcoming.
  • “Lesbian World Making and the Politics of Pleasure,” in Routledge Companion to Queer Art, edited by Jonathan David Katz and Carolyn Trench. Routledge, forthcoming.
  • “An Ordinary Love: Arabesk, Affect, and the Textures of Longing,” on Gülsün Karamustafa, in Collection Notes, Austrian Ludwig Foundation, online. Read the essay.
  • “Cruising with Richard Prince. Mythical Masculinities in Focus,” in Richard Prince, edited by Walter Moser. Exhibition catalogue, Albertina, Vienna. Munich: Hirmer, 2026.
  • “I Crave Submerge, Not Release. Exzess, Intensität und Auflösung des Selbst bei Michelle Handelman,” in Kunstforum International, vol. 303, 2025.
  • “Feministische Lust: Pornografie, Penetration und das Problem Sex bei Betty Tompkins,” in Magazin für Kunst und Wissenschaft, no. 5: Kunst und Pornografie, 2024.
  • “Kein Entkommen: Orgasmus und Ideologie,” in the catalogue of the mentoring programme, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2024.
  • “Selfish in Bed,” in Digital Diaries. Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf, 2024.
  • “Ein Akt der Umorientierung mit Joan Semmel,” in Texte zur Kunst, no. 132, 2023, pp. 85–106.

Art Criticism

  • “Getting in Touch with the Middle Ages. On ‘Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages’ at The Met Cloisters, New York,” in Texte zur Kunst, no. 142, June 2026.
  • “Queer, queerer, am queersten? Über ‚Queere Moderne‘ im K20, Düsseldorf,” with Sophie Goltz, in Texte zur Kunst, no. 141, 2026.
  • “Sprachgefühle. Über Gregg Bordowitz im Bonner Kunstverein,” with Sabeth Buchmann, in Texte zur Kunst, no. 138, 2025.
  • “Under Review,” roundtable with Claire Bishop, Jarrett Earnest, Eva Hayward, and Eric Otieno Sumba, in Texte zur Kunst, no. 131, 2023, pp. 31–70.
  • “Becoming an Object Among Objects: Jimmy DeSana’s Submission of the Self,” in Texte zur Kunst, no. 130, 2023, pp. 122–129.
  • “Martin Wong: Dream Fungus: Early Works 1967–1978,” in The Brooklyn Rail, June 2022.
  • “Richard Hawkins: The Forrest Bess Variations,” in The Brooklyn Rail, April 2022.
  • “Troy Montes Michie: Dishwater Holds No Images,” in The Brooklyn Rail, March 2022.
  • “The Concrete Intensities of Sound,” on Susanne Sachsse with Xiu Xiu at Participant Inc, New York, in Texte zur Kunst, online, 26 November 2021.
  • “Aktivierendes Unvermögen,” on “Radikale Passivität: Politiken des Fleisches” at nGbK, Berlin, in Texte zur Kunst, online, 20 November 2020.

Lectures, Conversations, and Events

2026

  • Leopard Dreams, conversation with Gülsün Karamustafa, PART International Art Residency and Austrian Ludwig Foundation, Vienna, 22 June.
  • Stereotypes, Masculinity, and Feminism, panel discussion with Susanne Huber, Nicole Scheyerer, and Sydney Stutterheim on the occasion of the exhibition Richard Prince, Albertina, Vienna, 19 June.
  • Cruising, Pleasure, and the Architectures of Sex: Richard Hawkins’s Filmic Work, film screening and lecture, Kunsthalle Wien / Hard On, Vienna, 28 March.
  • Sticking to the Occult, opening invocation for a performance by Mary Maggic, PART International Art Residency, Vienna, 30 January.
  • Aesthetics of Resistance – Aesthetics of Submission: Bondage, Machinic Desire, and Gender, joint lecture event with Luce deLire, Department of Art Theory, University of Applied Arts Vienna, January.

2025

  • Artist talk with Richard Hawkins, University of Applied Arts Vienna and Kunsthalle Wien, 18 November.

2024

  • Lust, symposium conceived with Kathrin Busch and Susanne Huber, n.b.k. and TEXTE ZUR KUNST, Berlin, 27 January.

2023–2024

  • Velvet Voice Club, event series presented by Volksbühne Berlin and TEXTE ZUR KUNST, Roter Salon, Berlin, January 2023–May 2024.

2023

  • Anita Steckel: Lust, conversation with Juliette Desourges, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris, December.
  • Feminist Pleasure? Pornography, Penetration, and the Problem of Sex in the 1970s, lecture, Academy of Fine Arts Munich, November.
  • Trans Perspectives, performative lecture series with Luce deLire, University of Cologne, November; Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, May; and Berlin University of the Arts, April.
  • Sexually Explicit Art: A Talk and Reading with Jillian McManemin, Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, New York, February.

2022

  • Lesbian Domesticity between Queer Home- and World-Making: Photography and US-American Lesbian Separatist Communities, conference paper, University of Johannesburg, November.

2020

  • Ambivalent Work*s: Queer Perspectives and the History of Art, international workshop co-organised with Daniel Berndt, Susanne Huber, and Fiona McGovern, University of Zurich, December.

2019

  • How to Formulate Questions Concerning Desire? Overview and Insight, lecture, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin, August.
  • The Crayon as Mighty as the Sword? The “Cunt Coloring Book” and Feminist Theory after Stonewall, lecture, Open Source Gallery, New York, April.
  • meeting with the other as such, but still…: Encountering the Work of Natalie Czech and Mirjam Thomann as Luce Irigaray and Sara Ahmed, lecture, Bärenzwinger, Berlin, January.

2018

  • intensify DESIRE, lecture series co-organised with Susanne Huber, Freie Universität Berlin, May–July.

2014

  • Representing AIDS in New York, Embodiment of Disease within Photographic Portraits of the 1980s, paper presented at the conference HIV/AIDS – Interdisciplinary Perspectives, University of Bayreuth, September.

2013

  • Qua patet orbis – Colonial Knowledge and Visual Representation: Albert Eckhout’s Type Portraits as Negotiations of Cultural Alterity, conference paper, University of Zurich, June.

Other Activities

  • Fistule (2026), film by Emre Busse. Contributed to the libretto alongside Nikolaj Tange Lange and Emre Busse. About the film.