Max Boersma is a historian of European modernist and avant-garde art in a global context. His current research focuses on interdisciplinary, transnational, and transcultural histories of abstract art, as well as intersections of art with histories of craft, science, technology, and design. His first book, provisionally titled Technical Implications: The Making of Interwar Abstraction in Russia and Germany, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press.

Boersma received a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, MA in Art History from Williams College, and BA from the University of Colorado Boulder. Prior to joining the University of Iowa, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kunsthistorische Institut of the Freie Universität Berlin. His research has been supported by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Stiftung Arp e.V., and Deutsch-Amerikanische Fulbright-Kommission.

Teaching and Research Areas

Global modern and contemporary art with emphasis on Europe and the Americas; transnational and transcultural histories of modernism and abstract art; imperialism, colonialism, and coloniality; interdisciplinary, object-centered methodologies

Publications

• “Global Patterns: Hannah Höch, Interwar Abstraction, and the Weimar Inflation Crisis,” Grey Room 91 (Spring 2023): 6–35.
• “Le patron dégenré: Hannah Höch, le cubisme et les collages-dessins,” Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne no. 159 (Spring 2022): 40–52.
• “From Material to Infrastructure: Germaine Krull’s Métal,” October 173 (Summer 2020): 118–142.

Recent Talks 

• “‘Prolific in Invention’: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Ethnography, Labor,” Modern Women and Textile Politics, CAA 114th Annual Conference, February 18–21, 2026
• “On the Coloniality of Abstract Art,” Art History, Epistemic Injustice and Ideological Violence, workshop at Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence, October 17–18, 2025
• “Abstraction and Transculturation: Anwar Jalal Shemza, Paul Klee, Tunisia,” Rethinking Modernism in North Africa and the Arab World, symposium at Tate Modern, November 20, 2024

Recent Conference Sessions

•  “Transcultural Abstraction, Colonial Histories,” Association for Art History 2026 Conference,April 8–10, 2026, organized with Yiqing Li and Stephanie Su
• “Abstraction, Artisanal Knowledge, and Craft Epistemologies,” Association for Art History 2025 Conference, April 9–11, 2025, organized with Cora Chalaby
• “Abstract Art and Colonial Systems,” CAA 113th Annual Conference, February 12–15, 2025, organized with Julia Silverman