Art in Times of War and Peace Conference

Art in Times of War and Peace is an international, interdisciplinary conference that addresses the ways in which conflict and its resolution have historically moved, modified, and reclassified art objects in the long early modern period.

The conference interrogates the material, ethical, legal, political, and narrative implications of the claiming and reclaiming of objects in early modern war- and peacetime, as well as the ongoing resonance of these issues into the present.

A category of objects that exists entirely as a function of violence, the term “loot” describes a relationship of possession, if not more specifically of dispossession. This conference revisits the pre-modern origins of the discourse around cultural property with an eye to the challenges facing museums today. It investigates the long history of the restitution of objects and its repercussions for what is accessible to art history, where, and in what condition.

“Art in Times of War and Peace” is organized by Francesca Borgo (BHMPI/University of St Andrews) and Julia Vázquez (BHMPI) as part of the Lise Meitner Group Decay, Loss, and Conservation in Art History.