Colloque : “Perspectives on Art Histories in the Balkans : Actors, Networks, and Practices form the Early Modern to the Contemporary”, Paris, INHA, du 18 au 20 mars 2026.
The symposium “Perspectives on Art Histories in the Balkans: Actors, Networks, and Practices from the Early Modern to the Contemporary” is designed to be a forum for dialogue between academic researchers and cultural players. Devoted to the visual art of the Balkans, this will be the first of a series of triannual meetings bringing together in one place the fields of art research and artistic creation. The symposium is organized by a number of French research centers, and will be held at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. With the goal of stimulating new dynamics of research, it is open to the entire range of topics addressed by such disciplines as art history, the history of architecture, and the history of cinema.
Argumentaire
In the absence of a French specific tradition in the art history of the modern and contemporary Balkans, other disciplines (history, sociology, geography, anthropology, political science, and literature and language studies) have filled the void, supplying their various viewpoints on the objects of study. French and Francophone research is, in fact, made up of these contributions, and it is strongly marked by these intersecting methodologies and epistemologies. The same is true geographically, since the art of the Balkans has often been studied as a part of wider areal, political, or confessional frameworks. As a result of these boundary crossings, it has become possible to analyze artistic practices through transdisciplinary and transnational perspectives. Today, a new generation of specialists and researchers, as well as cultural players, are continuing these investigations, with conscious attention given to formal and aesthetic questions.
This conference takes its place, therefore, within the new academic tendency seeking to reevaluate, in terms of content and methodology, the frames of reference underpinning the study of the arts. The approach will be primarily diachronic (following initial artistic creation through its transformations), with the aim of establishing dialogue between studies of imperial dynamics in the modern era and research on the contemporary Balkans. Such boundary crossing will make possible the study of the formal, conceptual, and material development of the artworks by bringing to light borrowings, overlappings, and tensions. By including this wider historical dimension, the conference aims to explore, beyond heritage studies, the multi-faceted materiality of artworks.
Through this event, the conference organizers are hoping to be able to look at the visual art of the Balkans from a comparative and inclusive perspective. The Balkans are to be understood as an area of creativity with fluid frontiers – a space where art research can be conducted in terms that are global as much as national, regional, and diasporic (“beyond the state”). Such investigations will foreground the study of movements and exchanges, inviting formal and theoretical comparisons and contrasts.
Finally, it should be noted that French research on the Balkans, although certainly enriched by the fact that certain countries in the region are both French-speaking and Francophile, must still confront the question of language. Translation in this area is not extensive, and thus English has emerged as common territory for most specialists. It will be the language used for this first research meeting. At the same time, the conference will provide an opportunity to analyze the stakes involved in such a choice, notably with respect to differing epistemologies. It will provide an occasion, therefore, to foster the interrogation of translation and transfer, and the exploration of specific differences, incompatibilities even, of meaning.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
inessoltani (18 février 2026). Colloque : “Perspectives on Art Histories in the Balkans : Actors, Networks, and Practices form the Early Modern to the Contemporary”, Paris, INHA, du 18 au 20 mars 2026. Collectif d'Historiens de l'Art de la Renaissance. Consulté le 6 juin 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15pud



