Biographical Information:
Andrés Mario Zervigón is Professor of the History of Photography at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (USA), and Co-Editor in Chief of the journal History of Photography. His scholarship concentrates on the interaction between photographs, film, and fine art, generally focusing upon moments in history when these media prove inadequate to their presumed task of representing the visual. Zervigón is the author of John Heartfield and the Agitated Image: Photography, Persuasion, and the Rise of Avant-Garde Photomontage (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and Photography and Germany, for the Reaktion Books Exposures series (2017). With Tanya Sheehan he edited Photography and Its Origins (Routledge, 2014), with Sabine Kriebel Photography and Doubt (Routledge 2017), with Donna Gustafson Subjective-Objective: A Century of Social Photography (Zimmerli Musuem/Hirmer Verlag, 2017) and with Antonella Pelizzari Print Matters: Histories of Photography in Illustrated Magazines (Getty Publications, 2025). His current book projects include Die Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung -- The Worker's Illustrated Magazine, 1921-1938: A History of Germany's Other Avant-Garde, for which he received a CASVA Senior Fellowship (2013-14). Zervigón leads The Developing Room, an academic working group at Rutgers that promotes interdisciplinary dialogue on photography’s history, theory and practice. Since January 2025, he is coeditor of the journal History of Photography.
Undergraduate Classes Taught:
History of 19th-Century Photography
History of 20th-Century Photography
Contemporary Photography
Photography and AI
Art Photography and Its Critics
Documentary Photography
Intermediality
Graduate Classes Taught:
Photography and Doubt
Science-Art-Photograpy
Intermediallity
Technical Perspectives on Media Technologies
Modernist Photography
German-Soviet Exchanges in Interwar Photography
Selected Publications:
Books:
Print Matters: Media and Modernity in Illustrated Magazines, 1910-1970, coedited with Antonella Pelizzari (Hunter College/CUNY Graduate Center). Los Angles: Getty Publications, 2025
Photography and Germany. London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
John Heartfield and the Agitated Image: Photography, Persuasion, and the Rise of Avant-
Garde Photomontage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012
Book chapters:
“The Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung and Its Photography Supply Networks.” In Print Matters:
Media and Modernity in Illustrated Magazines, 1910-1970, co-edited with Antonella Pelizzari
(Getty Publications, 2025)
“Photography, Truth, and the Radicalized Public Sphere in Weimar Germany.” In
Photography and Its Publics, edited by Melissa Miles and Edward Welch, 41-61. London:
Routledge, January 2020.
“Ontology or Metaphor.” In Photography and Ontology: Unsettling Images, edited by Donna
Brett West and Natalya Lusty, 10-23. London: Routledge Book, 2018.
Articles:
"Visible Yet Transparent: The Lens in Nineteen-Century Photographic Cultures", Critical Inquiry Vol. 49, Issue 4 (Summer 2023): 626-662.
“L’image prolétarienne entre agitation politique et sobriété réaliste. L’Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung et le mouvement photographique ouvrier allemand,” in special issue devoted to worker photography, Transbordeur Nr. 4 (2020): 38-49.
“The Peripatetic Viewer at Heartfield’s Film und Foto Exhibition Room.” October 150 (Fall 2014): 27-48.
Edited volumes:
Subjective Objective: A Century of Social Photography, coedited with Donna Gustafson (Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers). Munich: Hirmer Verlag, September 2017.
Photography and Doubt, coedited with Sabine Kriebel (University College, Cork, Ireland). London: Routledge Books, 2016.
Photography and Its Origins, coedited with Tanya Sheehan (Colby College). London: Routledge Books, 2014.
Edited issues:
“Is Photomontage Over?” Special issue of History of Photography coedited with Sabine Kriebel (University College Cork, Ireland). Zervigón’s article “The Photomontage Activity of Postmodernism” is published along with the coauthored introduction. History of Photography Vol. 23, No. 2 (2019): 119-121 & 130-143.
Other publications:
“Magazine.” Essay in The Art Institute of Chicago Field Guide to Photography and Media. This publication (AIC/Yale U. Press, 2023) served as the catalogue for an exhibition of the same name at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2023.
“Fünf Finger hat die Hand.” Essay on the John Heartfield poster of the same name for catalog accompanying the exhibition “Engineer, Agitator, Constructor – The Merrill C. Berman Collection at MoMA, ” Museum of Modern Art, Spring 2020.
“Produktive Beziehungen. John Heartfield und Willi Münzenberg.” Essay for the catalog accompanying the exhibition Fotografie plus Dynamit. Zeitschnitt, curated & edited by Angela Lammert, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, March 2020, 38-45.
Selected fellowships, awards and distinctions:
Daphne Mayo Visiting Fellow, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, March 2023.
Visiting Fellow, Forschergruppe Journalliteratur, Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany, March 2019.
Paul Mellon Senior Fellow, CASVA, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery, Washington DC, September 2013-May 2014.
Clark-Oakley Humanities Fellowship, The Clark Institute and Williams College, Williamstown, MA (declined, 2013-14).
Partnership Development Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, made in amount of $197, 205.00 (Canadian) for the 2011-2014 project “The Photographic Situation.” Lead applicant: Prof. Elspeth Brown, University of Toronto
Curated exhibitions:
Subjective Objective: A Century of Social Photography. Co-curated with Donna Gustafson and Julia Tulovsky at the Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, September 5, 2017 – January 7, 2018.
Agitated Images: John Heartfield and German Photomontage, 1920 – 1938. Authored and Guest-curated by Andrés Mario Zervigón at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. February 21–June 25, 2006. Wolfsonian Museum [travel venue], Miami Beach, September 20, 2007–February 10, 2008.
Selected professional activities:
- Co-Editor, History of Photography. From January 2025, serving as Co-Editor with Patrizia di Bello (Birkbeck, University of London).
- The Developing Room. Academic working group co-founded with Art History Department colleague Prof. Tanya Sheehan in 2008. Since 2013, I chair it alone. The Developing Room is housed at the Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University. It promotes interdisciplinary dialogue among members of the Rutgers community whose research and/or teaching engages with the histories, theories, and practices of photography.
- Photography Network. Association of photo historians and curators recognized by the College Art Association as an Affiliated Society. Co-founded, and served on Steering Committee, with four colleagues, 2018-22.
- Photo-History-Listserv. Email-based listserv co-led with Monica Bravo (Princeton University). The listserv counts over 500 members from around the world.