CIHA as the Subject of Art Theory. The Methodological Discourse in the International Congresses of Art History from Post-War Years to the 2000s (original) (raw)

The article analyses the international congresses of the history of art organised by the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art from the post-war years to the contemporary. By examining both the sessions specifically dealing with matters of theory and method, and also those that have constituted a turning point in the debate, the purpose is to take CIHA meetings as a yardstick of the critical orientations in art history. A trajectory that encompasses the celebration of iconology as a unifying paradigm in the Bonn and New York conferences of the 1960s, the structuralist and semiotic turn marked by Budapest, Granada and Bologna meetings, the crisis of art history reflected in Vienna 1983, and the emergence of visual studies and the critical reconsideration of Aby Warburg in the 1990s. CIHA’s role in the theorisation of world/global art is also considered, from the path-making congress in Washington (1986) to the full-fledged elaboration in the new millennium.