Jan Bäcklund is faculty member at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Laboratory of Art History. Studies Art Theory, Art History, and Philosophy of Art.
My interests are twofold, on the one hand much of my work has an empirical and almost quantitative stance in investigating how the institutions of art functions and produces meaning; on the other hand I am driven by a certain curiousity of how the art work itself articulates by means of formal configurations and qualitites. This is usually done in the fields of modern art (Duchamp, readymade, conceptualism etc.), in more theoretical subjects as art forgery, art historiography, museology, etc. and in an interest in Netherlandish painting, print and drawing of the 16th century in its literal and cultural context. Recently I have been interested in using late Soviet conceptualism and Chinese art as lacmus tests (or control subjects) to Western art history and theory.
Jan Bäcklund's profile at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts