Research: CIHA 2024 in Lyon – Art History in focus!

Our most important conference within the field of Art History – the CIHA - is taking place in Lyon, 23-28 June 2024. 1.800 participants from over 70 countries meet and discuss the latest and most interesting research within our field. We are proud to be a part of this extraordinary event!

The CIHA (Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art) is the oldest international organization of art history in the world. It was in fact as early as 1873 that the actors and institutions of the discipline in different countries began a dialogue that was to continue thereafter. For almost a century, every four years, the CIHA has organized a major International Congress on Art History that represented the state of art history throughout the world and which were and are open to all nationalities. The 2024 Congress will take place in Lyon.

This years CIHA theme is Materiality. Matter and materiality are inherent to the conception, production, interpretation and conservation of artifacts in all cultures across all periods of time. In recent decades these notions have given rise to theoretical reflections, including a rethinking of the hylemorphic model (form/matter opposition). A world is open to us in which matter is no longer fixed and inert but in motion, in the grip of infinite transformations, a world of flux (G. Deleuze, T. Ingold), where vital matter is endowed with agency (J. Bennett).

Materiality, resulting from the effect produced by the properties of matter, is grasped within environments and contexts of reception that are also changing and have nothing fixed or definitive. These properties are manifested through the effects of textures, surfaces, weight, extension in space, format, gestural traces, and material effects... The concept of materiality therefore refers to the fact that the artifacts are composed of materials and, at a theoretical level, to all the processes — technical, cultural and social — that undergird the realization and the material perception of works of art.

It is in this spirit that the theme chosen for the 36th CIHA congress is intended. This theme thus provides an opportunity for fruitful intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogue on questions that promote a transversal perspective at the intersection of approaches and methodologies.

Viveka Kjellmer

More info here: https://www.cihalyon2024.fr/en/