Helena Bair is interested in concepts of the image and art theories of modernity from the end of the eighteenth century onward. She studied Art History and Theatre Studies (B.A.) at Freie Universität Berlin and completed her degree with a thesis on the relationship between image and language using Cézanne’s still lifes as an example. She completed her master’s degree at the University of Hamburg with a thesis on the pastel portraits of Anton Raphael Mengs at the Dresden court (distinction). During her studies she worked as a tutor in Art History at Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Hamburg, as well as a student assistant at the Bucerius Kunst Forum, at the University of Hamburg (Prof. Dr. Iris Wenderholm), and at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS). Since 2025 she has been a doctoral student and a member of the eikones Graduate School.

“A Cynegetics of Appearances”? Image – Body – Nature in the Work of Marie Čermínová, Known as Toyen

The dissertation project is dedicated to the concept of the image in Czechoslovak Surrealism, using its most important representative as an example, and examines her graphic work of the 1930s. At the center stands Toyen’s treatment of image-objects, which she conceives as cracked shells, husks, or membranes. Central is the question of how the appearances preceding the image are constituted for the artist, and how they relate to image, body, and nature. It is assumed that Toyen develops a concept of the image that understands image-objects as dead envelopes of once-living appearances (“cynegetics,” André Breton). She creates painted image-body-shells that are preceded by an intensive engagement with nature (for example animal skeletons, eggshells, insect cocoons). In this way, image, body, and nature intertwine into an independent concept of the image. This concept stands in tension with those image-conceptions of French Surrealism that understand appearances as bodiless illusion. Research on surrealist thinking about images has so far been dominated by these French positions, leading to an imbalance in the historiographic representation of surrealist thought. The project aims to contribute to broadening the focus towards the image theories developed in Czechoslovakia.