Andrew Weinstein, PhD

Education

BA, Brown University
MA, University of Pennsylvania
MA, New York University
PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

2015-2016 State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching

Biography

Andrew Weinstein is a specialist in modern and contemporary art with a focus on art theory and the ethical mandates and challenges of Holocaust representation. His current research explores the relationship between the protocols and practices of Nazi-era human-subject experimentation and those today of genomics and bioengineering, as represented in Bio Art.

Dr. Weinstein has curated exhibitions of contemporary art at museums in Budapest, Kiev, Prague, and Vienna, and at the Cooper Union and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Apart from scholarly pursuits, he has lectured publicly for The Museum of Modern Art, the Oxford University Discovery Programme, and Road Scholar. He has published criticism, reviews, personal essays, stories and other writings in American Book Review, Bloomsbury Review, Boulevard, High Plains Literary Review, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Studies in Short Fiction, zingmagazine and other publications.

Selected Publications

"Baneful Medicine and a Radical Bioethics in Contemporary Art." Recognizing the Past in the Present: New Studies on Medicine Before, During and After the Holocaust. Eds. Sabine Hildebrandt, Miriam Offer and Michael Grodin, New York: Berghahn Books, 2021. 327-53. 

"Beyond Argument: Contemporary Artists on Euthanasia." Medical Ethics in the 70 Years Since the Nuremberg Code: 1947 to the Present. Eds. Herwig Czech, Christiane Druml, and Paul Weindling, Special issue of the Wiener klinische Wochenschrift/The Central European Journal of Medicine, 2018 (vol. 130: supplement 3). 231-38.

"Taking Abjection to Holocaust-Related Art." The Holocaust: Art and Taboo: Transatlantic Exchanges on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Representation. American Studies 189. Eds. Sophia Komor and Susanne Rohr, Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2010. 75-92.

"From the Sublime to the Abject: Six Decades of Art." Absence/Presence: Critical Essays on the Artistic Memory of the Holocaust. Ed. Stephen C. Feinstein. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2005. 70-92.

"The Healing Power of the Artist?" Vitaly Komar: Three-Day Weekend. Ed. Andrew Weinstein. New York: Humanities Gallery, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, 2005: 20-25.

"From International Socialism to Jewish Nationalism: The John Reed Club Gift to Birobidzhan." Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art. Eds. Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2001. 142-61.

"Art After Auschwitz and the Necessity of a Postmodern Modernism." Contemporary Portrayals of Auschwitz and Genocide: Philosophical Challenges. Eds. Alan Rosenberg, James R. Watson, and Detlef Linke. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2000. 151-67. 

Conferences and Presentations

“Scientific Research Subjects in Nazi Times and the Present: Contemporary Artists Respond,” 16th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law, Brasilia, Brazil, July 2024.

“Meshes of Nazism, Neo-Nazism and the Confederacy: Stories of Opposition to Monuments that Honor the American Doctor J. Marion Sims,” Conference: "Travels Beyond the Holocaust: Memorialization, Musealization and Representation of Atrocities in Global Dialogue," Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Vienna, Austria, June 2024.

“Contemporary Artists on Scientific Research Subjects in Nazi Times and the Present,” 54th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, Dallas, TX, March 2024.

“Baneful Medicine and a Radical Bioethics in Contemporary Art,” Invited Lecture: Daniel H. Silberberg Lecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, November 2023.

“The ‘Good Death’? Contemporary Artists on Euthanasia from Nazi Times to the Present,” 15th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law, Porto, Portugal, October 2023.

“Psychological Readings of David Levinthal’s Use of Toys in Hitler Moves East and Mein Kampf,” 53rd Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, Dallas, TX, March 2023.

“Lessons from Germany: The Case of Monuments that Honor the American Doctor J. Marion Sims,” 14th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law, Porto, Portugal, March 2022.

“Staging Operation ‘Barbarossa’ with Toy Soldiers: David Levinthal’s Hitler Moves East,” Conference: “Between War and Mass Murder: 80 Years to Operation ‘Barbarossa,’” Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel, June 2021.

Discussant on Panel: “From Monuments to Anti-Monuments of Contemporary Art in the Age of Globalization,” 107th College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, NY, February 2019.

Exhibitions

Baneful Medicine. New York: Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 1 May – 27 June 2019. (Exhibition catalog)

Mastering Death: Artistic Perspectives. Vienna: Josephinum Museum, Medical University of Vienna, 2 March – 1 April 2017. (Exhibition pamphlet)

Vitaly Komar: Three-Day Weekend. New York: Humanities Gallery, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, 25 October – 11 December 2005. (Exhibition catalog)

Courses

• HA 111 History of Western Art and Civilization: Ancient to Renaissance
• HA 112 History of Western Art and Civilization: Renaissance to the Modern Era
• HA 214 Art in New York
• HA 217/FI 224 History of Avant-Garde Film
• HA 231 Modern Art
• HA 232 Dada and Surrealism
• HA 304 Holocaust Representation in Art (Honors)
• HA 331 Contemporary Art
• HA 332 Modern Architecture
• HA 345 History of Industrial Design
• HA 394 History of New York Architecture (Honors)
• HA 411 Western Theories of Art
• HA 499 Independent Study in History of Art and Civilization