[spectre] ANN: Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine (Rome, 27-31 Oct 25)

[Andreas Broeckmann LEU]

From: Oleksandra Osadcha
Date: Oct 23, 2025
Subject: ANN: Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine (Rome, 
27-31 Oct 25)

Bibliotheca Hertziana, via Gregoriana 22, Rome, Oct 27–31, 2025

The Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine: Epistemologies, 
Agencies, and Margins is a first edition of a two-year scholarly 
initiative committed to rethinking methodological approaches and future 
directions of art history within Ukraine. Designed for early-career 
researchers from Ukraine it encourages critical, collaborative, and 
practice-oriented reflection on art historical methodology and the 
development of own research projects.

 From August to October, 12 Ukrainian art historians participated in the 
weekly deep-reading methodological webinars and peer-to-peer 
consultations with experts, while developing their own research projects 
in art history.

In the last week of October, they will gather in Bibliotheca Hertziana 
to present their work-in-progress and take part in a series of intense 
workshops with renowned scholars.

PUBLIC PROGRAM

Monday, October 27, 18:00–19:30
Olenka Pevny. Between Theory and Practice: Studying Medieval Monuments 
of Kyiv
This talk explores the medieval visual inheritance of Ukraine and the 
coloniality of knowledge that continues to shape the study of Kyiv’s 
sacred monuments. Through close consideration of three key sites—the 
eleventh-century Cathedral of St Sofiia, the twelfth-century Church of 
St Cyril of Alexandria, and the Church of the Saviour in Berestovo, 
restored in the seventeenth century—it examines how these monuments have 
been interpreted, restored, and appropriated within imperial and 
national frameworks. Ultimately, the talk calls for an epistemic 
decolonisation of medieval and early modern Central-East European 
studies—inviting us to see Kyiv’s cultural landscape not as a reflection 
of imposed narratives, but as a vibrant nexus of multiple identities, 
transcultural connections, and historical continuities.

Tuesday, October 28, 14:30–16:00
Edit Andras. Region or not Region, that is the question
The lecture explores the shifting meanings of Central and Eastern 
Europe’s regional identity from the end of the Cold War to the present. 
It traces how post-socialist optimism and European integration gave way 
to nationalist revivals, political dissonance, and new alignments amid 
global tensions—particularly Hungary’s hinge toward illiberalism and 
Eastern alliances. Through examples from politics, art, and cultural 
diplomacy, the text reveals how unresolved historical losses, collective 
trauma, and the “fear of disappearance” continue to shape regional 
narratives and artistic expression. Ultimately, it argues that 
transnational and regional approaches in art history can serve as 
antidotes to nationalism, offering a shared framework for solidarity and 
critical reflection across the fragmented post-socialist landscape.

Thursday, October 30, 14:00–15:30
Oksana Barshynova. The Archive and the Afterlife of Images
In thе lecture we explore the archive as a dynamic site where 
preservation, erasure, and reinterpretation intersect. Rather than a 
neutral repository, the archive functions as a locus of power that 
determines which images endure and how they are framed within 
art-historical discourse. By tracing the afterlives of images—how they 
circulate, are reactivated, or suppressed in shifting cultural and 
political contexts—the theme foregrounds questions of memory, authority, 
and historiographical responsibility in transcultural art history.

Friday, October 31, 18:00–19:30
Mateusz Kapustka. Burckhardt’s Demons: Contesting Visuality in 
Transcultural Art History
The lecture explores the potential for broadening the notions of image 
and visuality within the framework of contemporary transcultural art 
history. It specifically analyzes how the image cultures of the Indian 
subcontinent were addressed in early academic art history, particularly 
by Jacob Burckhardt. The discussion will take a dialectical-historical 
approach to explore how the European canon of visuality and the 
aesthetic validation of images in art history have been overdetermined 
by alienating discursive preconceptions.

SPEAKERS

Edit András is a Hungarian art historian, an independent scholar. She 
holds a Ph.D. in art history from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. 
She is a senior member of the HUN-REN, Research Centre for the 
Humanities, Institute of Art History, Budapest. Her main interest 
concerns Eastern and Central European modern and contemporary art, 
gender issues, socially engaged art, public art, critical theories, 
post-socialist condition, and nationalism in the region.

Dr. Mateusz Kapustka is a Privatdozent at the Art History Institute of 
the University of Zurich (UZH) and, since 2025, the PI of a DFG research 
project at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU). His research interests 
include image conflicts, visual anachronism, idolatry and iconoclasm, 
images of protest, transcultural art history, and early modern 
intersections of knowledge and visual propaganda (focus Central and 
Eastern Europe).

Oksana Barshynova, deputy director of the National Art Museum of 
Ukraine, is an art historian, curator, and researcher studying 
contemporary art and the history of Ukrainian art in the second half of 
the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. She is 
codeveloper of the new concept for exhibiting modern and contemporary 
art at NAMU and the author of many articles on the history of Ukrainian art.

Dr Olenka Pevny, Associate Professor in Ukrainian Studies and in 
Medieval and Early Modern Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge. She 
studies the art and culture of Kyivan Rus’ and Ruthenia. She is 
particularly interested in the reception and acculturation of the 
Orthodox tradition in Eastern Slavic lands and in the place of visual 
culture in narratives of national, regional, religious, and gender identity.

Scientific Organization: The project is realized with the support of the 
Getty Foundation, as a part of the Connecting Art Histories program, by 
the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome 
and the Max Weber Foundation’s Research Centre Ukraine.


Reference / Quellennachweis:
ANN: Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine (Rome, 27-31 Oct 
25). In: ArtHist.net, Oct 23, 2025. <https://arthist.net/archive/50973>.