Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg ("University of Fine Arts Hamburg"), also known as HFBK Hamburg, is an arts university in Hamburg, in northern Germany. It dates to 1767, when it was called the Hamburger Gewerbeschule; later it became known as Landeskunstschule Hamburg. The main building, in the Uhlenhorst quarter of Hamburg-Nord borough, was designed by architect Fritz Schumacher, and built between 1911 and 1913. In 1970, it was accredited as an artistic-scientific university.
Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule,
Landeskunstschule Hamburg
Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK Hamburg) | |
Main building | |
Former names | Hamburger Gewerbeschule, Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule, Landeskunstschule Hamburg |
|---|---|
| Type | Public Fine Arts University |
| Established | 1767 |
| President | Martin Köttering |
| Students | 650 |
| Location | , |
| Campus | |
| Website | hfbk-hamburg.de/en |
 | |
 | |
History
The Hamburger Gewerbeschule ('Hamburg vocational school') was founded in 1767 by the Patriotische Gesellschaft ('patriotic society'). It was named the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule ('school of arts and crafts' or 'school of applied arts') in 1896, later the Landeskunstschule Hamburg ('state school of art').[citation needed]
Fritz Schumacher designed the main building especially for the art school. Located at Am Lerchenfeld 2 in Uhlenhorst, a quarter of Hamburg-Nord, it was built between 1911 and 1913. After World War II, it re-opened as the Landeskunstschule by Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, who had previously been a professor at the Kölner Werkschulen ('Cologne academy of fine arts'). He was succeeded by architect Gustav Hassenpflug, who changed the institution to the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. The school was accredited as a university in 1970.[1][non-primary source needed]
.Schmuckhof.2.22260.ajb.jpg)
Degree programmes
In the winter semester of 2008/09, HFBK introduced a consecutive Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programme in Fine Arts, replacing the previous Diplom programmes. The interdisciplinary programme covers all artistic and academic disciplines represented at HFBK. All students are enrolled in Fine Arts, while they can choose to combine several areas of study or focus on a single one. This allows students to develop an individual artistic and/or academic profile.
The Bachelor’s programme takes four years (eight semesters), followed by a two-year Master’s programme (four semesters). Since 2008, HFBK has also awarded the doctoral degree Dr. phil. in art (Doctor philosophiae in artibus). In January 2015, the graduate research programme Ästhetiken des Virtuellen (Aesthetics of the Virtual) began at HFBK. Since 2025, HFBK Hamburg has offered the doctoral programme PhD in Art Practice.[2]
Areas of study
Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Fine Arts
Students can choose to combine different areas of study or focus on a single one.[3]
- Sculpture
- Stage Design/Stage Space
- Design
- Film
- Graphic Design/Type/Photography
- Painting/Drawing
- Theory and History
- Time-Based Media
The architecture programme was transferred in 2006 to the newly established HafenCity University Hamburg, following the merger of all architecture programmes in Hamburg, including those at HFBK and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
PhD in Art Practice
Since 2025, HFBK Hamburg has offered the PhD in Art Practice, a doctoral programme focused on practice-based artistic research. The programme aims to develop and strengthen the production of aesthetic knowledge in and through the arts, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research carried out through artistic practice. Research is understood as an open-ended process of knowledge production. [4]
The programme places particular emphasis on the methods of artistic knowledge production and their critical reflection. Doctoral projects combine artistic practice and theoretical research, with the aim of developing independent and critical knowledge within a specific field of the arts. The programme also seeks to strengthen the dialogue between artistic research and wider society. [5]
The PhD can be pursued in several of HFBK's artistic fields, including Sculpture, Design, Film, Painting/Drawing, Stage Space, Time-Based Media, and Graphics/Photography. Research topics and methods are expected to engage with the contemporary and historical practices and theories of the respective field. [6]
The interdisciplinary programme prepares graduates to conduct independent artistic research in accordance with international standards and to take on teaching, coordinating and leadership roles in higher education and the art world. Doctoral candidates complete an 11-SWS programme of in-person courses, taught in both German and English, focusing on the foundations of artistic research and its presentation. [7]
After five semesters of participation in the programme, doctoral candidates are eligible to take the examination, for which they submit a research-based artistic work. The detailed examination requirements are set out in HFBK's doctoral regulations. [8]
Dr. phil. in art.
.Südflügel.Erker.Detail.2.21686.ajb.jpg)
HFBK Hamburg awards the doctoral degree Dr. phil. in art. (philosophiae in artibus). In keeping with the university’s transdisciplinary approach, the programme supports doctoral research that contributes to the study of the arts from a range of perspectives, including analyses of artistic works and investigations into historical, social, media-related and cultural processes that have influenced artistic discourse or have themselves been shaped by it.
HFBK also supervises dissertations that explore concepts in art theory and philosophy through which artistic practices reflect on themselves and examine their own nature and understanding. In addition to conventional research-based doctorates, the university also supports doctoral projects with a substantial artistic component, provided that the relationship between the artistic work and the academic requirements of the doctorate is clearly defined.[9]
Internationalisation
HFBK places a strong emphasis on the internationalisation of the university and its student body. In addition to appointing internationally renowned professors and academics with international experience, the university actively promotes international exchange among its students. Its large network of partner institutions within the European Union's Erasmus programme provides students with extensive opportunities for international mobility.[10]
Since 2010, international exchange has also extended beyond Europe through the Art School Alliance (ASA), established in cooperation with the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S.. The programme provides scholarships for up to 18 international art students each year, allowing them to live and work together for one semester in a former factory loft in Hamburg without paying rent or tuition fees. In return, up to 18 HFBK students each year spend a semester at one of the partner institutions without having to pay tuition fees there.[11]
Current Art School Alliance partner institutions include:
- School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Boston
- Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires
- China Academy of Art, Hangzhou
- Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
- Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Art
- California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles
- Kindai University, Department of Design, Osaka
- École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris
- San Francisco Art Institute
- Institute of Design, China Academy of Art, Shanghai
- Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
- School of Arts, University of Haifa
- Makerere University, Kampala
- University of Lagos, Visual Arts
The mural Die ewige Welle by Willy von Beckerath
→ Main article: Die ewige Welle
The mural Die ewige Welle (The Eternal Wave) in the auditorium is considered the major work of Willy von Beckerath. Consisting of eight sections, it symbolically depicts the rise and fall of a cultural era. The mural was created between 1911 and 1918. Around 2009, it was restored in several stages to recover its original colour scheme.[12]
To mark the centenary of the HFBK building in 2013, the ceiling and wall paintings in the auditorium were also uncovered and restored, while the ornate parquet floor was renovated. As a result, the auditorium can once again be experienced as a unified large-scale work of art.[13]
Public events
Many events at HFBK are open to the public.[1] In addition to regular symposia, lectures, performance nights and film screenings, the university hosts three major annual exhibitions: the Graduate Exhibition, held in early July; the Annual Exhibition, presenting work produced by students during the academic year and held in February; and the Hiscox Art Prize Exhibition, which takes place in October to mark the beginning of the academic year.
Throughout the semester, exhibitions presented in HFBK’s gallery, which is curated by changing teams of students, as well as the regular Tuesday evening exhibition series Folgendes, provide opportunities for artistic exchange both within the university and with the wider public.
Protests (2007)
In July 2007, a scandal occurred when the university administration under Martin Köttering came under political pressure to expel students for having protested newly introduced tuition fees. Joerg Draeger and the Hamburg Senate, dominated by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) demanded expulsion of more than half of the art students for having taken part in a tuition boycott. The scandal gained nationwide press coverage.[14] In June 2008, about 680 students were enrolled at HFBK Hamburg.
Memorials
Two stolpersteine – memorials to victims of Nazism – were laid for two faculty members in 2009 by then president of HFBK Peter Hess and members of the Hamburg-Walddörfer Lions Club.[15] The stolpersteine were laid for Friedrich Adler, who taught at the Kunstgewerbeschule from 1907 until his forced retirement in 1933, who was killed in Auschwitz in 1942,[16] and Hugo Meier-Thur, who taught from 1910 to 1943, was killed at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in 1943.[17]
Notable alumni
This list includes alumni from University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, listed by last name alphabetical order.
- Theo Akkermann (1907–1982) sculptor, was a student from 1926 to 1929[18]
- Fatih Akin (born 1973), film director, screenwriter and producer, student from 1994 to 2000[19]
- Uwe Bahnsen (1930–2013), German car designer
- Esther Berlin-Joel (1895–1972) Israeli designer
- Hans Breder (1935–2017), interdisciplinary artist and professor, student from 1961 to 1964
- Woldemar Brinkmann (1890–1959), architect and interior designer
- Bruno Bruni (born 1935), Italian lithographer, graphic artist, painter and sculptor, student from 1960 to 1965
- Bernhard Cella (born 1969), Austrian artist and curator
- Bastian Clevé (born 1950), filmmaker, student from 1971 to 1976[20]
- Hanne Darboven (1941–2009), conceptual artist, was a student from 1962 to 1965
- Isa Genzken (born 1948), student from 1969 to 1977
- Oliver Hirschbiegel (born 1957), film director
- Rebecca Horn (born 1944), interdisciplinary artist, was a student from 1963/1964–1970
- Alfonso Hüppi (born 1935), Swiss painter, was a student, guest professor
- Hermine Huntgeburth (born 1957), film director
- Francesco Mariotti (born 1935), student from 1965 to 1969
- Horst Janssen (born 1929–1995), draftsman, printmaker, poster artist and illustrator, was a student from 1946 to 1951
- Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997), sculptor, student from 1972 to 1976
- Wolfgang Lauenstein (born 1962), film director
- Jonathan Meese (born 1970), painter, sculptor, performance artist and installation artist, student from 1993 to 1998
- Holger Meins (1941–1974), former Red Army Faction (RAF), student from 1962 to 1966
- Herbert Niebling (1903–1966), lace knit designer, student in the 1930s
- Albert Oehlen (born 1954), contemporary artist, student in the 1980s
- Hans Jürgen Press (1926–2002), illustrator and children's book author
- Astrid Proll (born 1946), early member of the Red Army Faction (RAF), and photo editor
- Daniel Richter (born 1962), painter
- Nicolaus Schmidt (born 1953), photographer and historian
- Santiago Sierra (born in 1966), performance and installation art, student 1989–1991
- Cornelia Sollfrank (born 1960), digital artist and early pioneer of internet art and Cyberfeminism, student from 1990 to 1994
- Annegret Soltau (born 1946), mixed media collage art, student from 1967 to 1972
- Otto Waalkes (born 1948), comedian, actor, and musician, a student in the 1970s
- Paul Wallat (1879–1964), landscape artist, draftsman and sculptor, student 1899–1902
- Ignatz Wiemeler (1895–1952) bookbinder
- Vicco von Bülow (1923–2011), student from 1947 to 1949
- Yüksel Yavuz (born 1964) film director
Notable academic staff
This list includes present and past academic staff, listed by last name alphabetical order.
- Friedrich Adler (1878–1942), design, metalwork
- Joseph Beuys, guest professor in 1974
- Max Bill (1908–1994), professor from 1967 to 1974
- Bazon Brock, professor 1965–1976
- Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, photography
- Bernhard Blume, professor 1987–2011
- Angela Bulloch, sculpture
- John Burgan, guest professor 2002
- Carl Otto Czeschka, professor 1907–1943
- Thomas Demand, sculpture
- Simon Denny, time-based media
- Cyprien Gaillard, sculpture
- Gotthard Graubner, professor 1969–
- Rudolf Hausner, professor
- Alfred Hrdlicka, professor 1973–1975
- Friedensreich Hundertwasser, professor 1959
- Jutta Koether, painting
- Isaac Julien, professor 2006
- Sigmar Polke, professor
- Dieter Rams, professor 1981−1997
- Anselm Reyle, professor
- Helke Sander, professor 1981–2003
- Edwin Scharff
- Paul Schneider-Esleben, professor 1961–1972
- Paul Wunderlich, professor 1963–1968
- Carl Vogel, professor 1962–1989, president 1976–1989
- Jorinde Voigt, professor, painting/drawing