34th World Congress of Art History in Beijing

The Chinese CIHA Committee will host the 34th World Congress of Art History in Beijing, and invites art historians from all over the world to attend and discuss "terms".

Art and cultural historians from a vast cross-section of disciplines and fields of professional interest are called upon to discuss together ways of seeing, describing, analyzing and classifying art works. The topics are divided into 21 sessions, which will enable comparisons to be made between different viewpoints and methods. Each panel will compose a program reflecting the CIHA's commitment to the idea of diversity, so as to allow talks on different genres, epochs and countries to be brought together.

The chosen theme for the Beijing 2016 CIHA Congress is the logical counterpart of that of the Nuremberg 2012 CIHA Congress (The Challenge of the Object). In CIHA Beijing 2016, it is a matter of questioning words, definitions, and the very concepts used to study art by different scientific traditions with this essential question: how can the methodology of our discipline be enriched by being conscious of the diversity of terms and approaches to art?

The Congress uses the word "terms" to draw upon a wide range of case studies. The 2016 CIHA Congress will analyze different concepts of art in diverse cultures, and  strives to achieve three goals: the first is to respond to the latest development of art history as a global discipline; the second is to explore art through different definitions that underline its relationship to respective cultural frameworks, and the disparities between different cultures in various periods throughout history; the third is to gain a more comprehensive understanding of art as an essential part of human culture.