Dr. Matisse Huiskens

Lecturer
Art History

About

I am an art historian and critic currently working as a Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. My current book project is titled ‘The Exile of Fred Carasso in the Low Countries: Art, Antifascism, and the Rebirth of Modern Italy.'

More broadly, my research deals with art and social challenges in the twentieth and twenty-first century. In particular, I focus on artistic and curatorial practices tied to political ideologies, national identities, (forced) migration, self-representation, and exhibition histories. Most recently, I have refocused my scholarly outlook to artists who migrated to Ireland from the 1950s onwards and curatorial practices on the island since 1991, which marked the foundation of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, with special attention devoted to the practice of Paul O'Neill.

Over the last several years, I have been a Research Fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) and the Dutch University Institute for Art History in Florence (NIKI). In the Fall of 2024, I was re-invited to the KNIR to teach a newly designed course on artists in residence in Rome from 1500 to the present day, together with Dr Laura Overpelt. In collaboration with Melle van Maanen (Museum Het Schip, Amsterdam), I am the curator of the exhibition 'Liga Nieuw Beelden: Samenwerken voorbij Cobra en Zero' at Atelier Volten in Amsterdam, planned to open in the Spring of 2026.