Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine

The Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine is a two-year scholarly initiative committed to rethinking methodological approaches and future directions of art history within Ukraine. 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.

It arises from a recognition of the structural and institutional discontinuities, which continue to shape the academic field in Ukraine today. At the same time, the ongoing Russian military aggression and broader processes of political transformation have intensified the need to preserve cultural heritage, reevaluate dominant narratives, and develop new interpretative tools that are responsive to the complexities of Ukraine’s historical and contemporary experiences. While more traditional methodological frameworks — such as connoisseurship, formalism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and semiotics — remain well-integrated within Ukrainian art historical research, the seminars delve into more recent approaches, which are less established in Ukraine. Rather than imposing a single theoretical model, the seminars encourage pluralism, experimentation, and transhistorical inquiry. It draws on a wide range of methodological perspectives, including horizontal models of art historiography, material histories, and posthumanism, while also integrating more interdisciplinary theoretical tools of visual culture, anthropology, and decolonial studies. 

The seminars are designed as a platform for early-career researchers from Ukraine to take part in critical, collaborative, and practice-oriented reflection on art historical methodology. It aims to cultivate a deeper awareness of how knowledge is produced, transmitted, and framed — and to explore how disciplinary practices might be reconfigured in light of both local contexts and global shifts in the humanities. Participants are invited to situate their research within a broader intellectual landscape, share their work in progress, and build lasting connections with peers and mentors.

Two seminars (July-October 2025, and spring 2026) will be held in hybrid formats, with blocks of deep-reading webinars, and the residency part in Lviv, during which the participants will present their research. Senior Experts from the international institutions will both engage with the participants in peer-to-peer discussions and join the onsite program.

By centering Ukrainian voices and fostering international collaboration, the seminars seek to contribute to the development of a more self-reflexive, inclusive, and interconnected art historical field. It is also a response to the urgent need for sustainable academic support — not only for individual researchers, but for structural renewal of art history as a critical discipline due to Ukraine’s shifting cultural and geopolitical environment.
 

Webinar topics for the 1st Methodology and Ideology seminar can be found here. Sessions will take place weekly in the late afternoon, each lasting two hours. The final schedule will be shaped in consultation with the selected participants. 

Senior Experts

PD Dr Mateusz Kapustka, Institute of Art History, University of Zurich 

Dr Olenka Pevny, Associate Professor in Ukrainian Studies and in Medieval and Early Modern Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge

Edit András Ph.D., Dr.h.c., independent scholar, senior member of the HUN-REN, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of Art History, Budapest

Advisory Board

Dr Bohdan Shumylovych, Associate Professor,  Department of Cultural Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University

Dr Stefaniia Demchuk, Associate Professor, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Oksana Barshynova, Deputy Director of the National Art Museum of Ukraine