Perspectives on art histories in the Balkans : Actors, Networks and Practices from the Early Modern to the Contemporary (Paris, 18-20 mars 2026)
Institut national d’histoire de l’art
This symposium aims to bring together innovative research devoted to the visual arts of the Balkans, from the modern era to the contemporary period. Researchers and actors from the French and international cultural world will discuss circulation, identity construction, and memory issues, as well as the different ways in which art is produced, opening up a new comparative space for reflection in French art history research.
Vlado Martek, USA – Balkan, 2019, wall painting (image based on the eponymous screenprint, 1996), installation view Vlado Martek, Exhibition With Many Titles, held at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 2019. Courtesy Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia and the artist. Photo credit: Damir Žižić
Organizing Committee
Daniel Baric (Sorbonne Université) Ina Belcheva (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, LIRA) Naïma Berkane (Sorbonne Université )Falma Fshazi (CETOBaC, EHESS) Alessandro Gallicchio (Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis) Melody Robine (CETOBaC, EHESS)Vincent Thérouin (Ghent University)
Academic Committee
Eloïse Brac de la Perrière (INHA) Victor Claass (Musée d’Orsay)Nathalie Clayer (EHESS) Milena Dragićević-Šešić (University of Arts in Belgrade) Irina Genova (New Bulgarian University) Maximilian Hartmuth (Austrian Academy of Science) Jean-Baptiste Minnaert (Sorbonne Université) Zef Paci (University of Arts in Tirana) Gilles de Rapper (École française d’Athènes) Clara Royer (Sorbonne Université) Pierre Sintès (Aix-Marseille Université)
THURSDAY 19.03.2026
09:00 Welcome / Registration
09:15 Opening remarks Anne-Solène Rolland (INHA)
09:30 Panel 1 Architectures and Circulations in the Early Modern Period
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Panel 2 Movements, Transfers & Exchanges (1960s–1990s)
16:15 Panel 3 Institutions, Networks & Sites
FRIDAY 20.03.2026
09:00 Welcome
09:30 Panel 4 Identity, Nation & Politics (20th–21st c.)
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Panel 5 Formal & Prosopographic Approaches
16:00 Panel 6 New Patterns of Commitment
17:30 Closing remarks
18:30 Opening of the exhibition of Bojan Stojčić at the Institut d’études slaves (9, rue Michelet, 75006 Paris) followed by a cocktail
Panel 1 Architectures and Circulations in the Early Modern Period
From cartographic gazes to architectural idioms and confessional border-zones, this panel analyses visual and spatial recompositions in the Balkans between the 16th and 19th centuries
Moderation: Vincent Thérouin (Ghent University) & Nathalie Clayer (EHESS)
Nicole Kançal‑Ferrari (Marmara University)
Fluid Visualities in a “Border Region”: Renegotiating Artistic Dialogue and Patronage between the Eastern Balkans and the Ottoman Empire through the Monastery Church of Curtea de Argeş
Thaleia Mantopoulou‑Panagiotopoulou (University of Thessaloniki)
The Emergence of a New Basilica Type in the Aegean Islands in the 19th Century and Its Subsequent Spread to the Southern Balkans and Asia Minor
Iván Szántó (Eötvös Loránd University)
Water Sanctuaries along the Drava and Sava between Islam and Baroque
Ana Marija Grbanović (University of Bamberg)
Artistic Knowledge Exchange and Transfer via Craftspeople’s Mobility in South-Eastern Europe, as told by Mosques, Churches and Mansions with Wall Painting Decorative Programmes from the Ottoman Baroque Period
Panel 2 Movements, Transfers & Exchanges
Genealogies and circulations of practice: transnational fiber art, postal networks, Franco‑Yugoslav relational geographies, and Yugoslav counter‑genealogies
Moderation: Philippe Gelez (Sorbonne Université)
Seraina Renz (Leiden University)
A Genealogy of “New Artistic Practices” in Yugoslavia: Raša Todosijević – Ad Reinhardt – Kazimir Malevich
Monica Seiceanu (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Textile as Threshold: Jagoda Buić and the Transnational Circulation of Yugoslav Fiber Art during the Cold War
Sanja Sekelj (Institute of Art History in Zagreb)
Intersecting Networks: Mapping French–Yugoslav Cultural Relations at the End of the 1980s6
Panel 3 Institutions, Networks & Sites
From production and mediation venues to micro‑editorial cultures: how institutional infrastructures configure Balkan art histories?
Moderation: Ina Belcheva (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Emilie Blanchard (Sorbonne Université)
Ljudmila (Ljubljana Digital Media Lab) as a Nodal Point in a Trans‑Balkan History of Digital Art
Adriana Sotropa (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
Romanian Art History from the Post‑War to the Early Years of Democracy: Beyond Erudition and Ideology
Darko Aleksovski (artist)
A Small Handbook for Daydreaming: Self‑Publishing as an Artistic Practice
Alina Popescu (University of Bucharest)
Film Production Units in Communist Romania: From Creative Promises to Political Constraints
Panel 4 Identity, Nation & Politics (20th–21st c.)
How artistic practices and trajectories participate in shaping identity and political constructions: landscapes and rurality, poetics of (un)belonging, cross‑border film heritage, and arts & crafts genealogies
Moderation: Alessandro Gallicchio (Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis) & Falma Fshazi (CETOBaC, EHESS)
Jérôme Bazin (Université Paris-Est-Créteil-Val-de-Marne)
Терен и конструкции (1979–1981) – Installations, Landscapes, Rurality
Lora Sariaslan (Utrecht University)
The Poetics of (Un)Belonging: The Art of Driton Selmani
Mélisande Leventopoulos (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis)
Film Heritage at the Confines of Macedonia: The Mirroring Histories of Florina and Bitola
Dimitra Douskos (EHESS)
Determining Artistic Authenticity in the Balkans: Angeliki Hadjimichali, Eva Palmer, and the Interlacing of the “Arts and Crafts” Movement with “Folklore Studies”
Gabriela Manda Seith (independent researcher)
Artistic Concepts in Transformation During the Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Panel 5 Formal & Prosopographic Approaches
Biographies, corpora and styles: re‑readings of artists and bodies in Balkan contexts, from modernist choreography to women artists’ biographical archives
Moderation: Naïma Berkane (Sorbonne Université)
Rada Georgieva (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
Local Beginnings, Translocal Dialogues: Vesselin Sariev, Guillermo Deisler and the Origins of Mail Art in Bulgaria
Eva‑Maria Ivanova (New Bulgarian University)
Material Presence and Phantom Archives: The Cases of Carol Rama and Lika Yanko
Jelena Sekulović (Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade)
Between Studio and Nation: Nadežda Petrović’s Paris Atelier as a Vernacular Display
Sandra Uskoković (University of Dubrovnik)
Crossroads and Cartographies: Geoaesthetics and Hybridity in Post-Yugoslav Art
Panel 6 New Patterns of Commitment
Artistic and curatorial practices that reconfigure national narratives: socialist feminisms, post‑Yugoslav activisms, and exhibitions as symbolic battlegrounds
Moderation: Melody Robine (CETOBaC, EHESS)
Sasha Dimitrova (University of Vienna)
Textile as Political: A Feminist Perspective on Textile Art, Cases on Bulgaria and Macedonia (1970s-1990s)
Ana Dević (Aix-Marseille Université) & Peter Vermeersch (KU Leuven)
Art Activism as Resistance to Nationalism in the Post‑Yugoslav Space
Ahmet Furkan Inan (University of Oxford)
Contemporary in the Margins: Cultural Difference at the Third Istanbul Biennial (1992)
In the context of the symposium, are organized :
18 March 2026, 18:00
Screening of the movie Notre endroit silencieux by Elitza Gueorguieva at the Jacqueline Lichtenstein Auditorium of the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA), followed by a discussion with Ina Belcheva, Alessandro Gallicchio and Melody Robine.
Elitza Gueorguieva films the creation of the novel that her Belarusian alter ego Aliona is writing about her father, a maritime adventurer, physicist, and dreamer who disappeared off the Turkish coast in 1995. Accompanying this process of mourning and emancipation through writing, the Bulgarian filmmaker invents her own visual language that amplifies the tension between dream and reality, poetry and memory
19 March 2026, 18:30
Opening of the exhibition of Bojan Stojčić curated by Melody Robine
at the Institut d’études slaves (9, rue Michelet, 75006 Paris) followed by a cocktail.
In his exhibition Bureau fantôme, Bojan Stojčić chases the spectres of an agreement signed in Paris more then thirtyyears ago. Expressing himselfbetween poetics and geopolitics, Stojčić explores the traces and transformations of the present.
Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA)
2, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
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Perspectives on Art Histories in the Balkans: Actors, Networks and Practices from the Early Modern to the Contemporary
18-20.03.2026
Auditorium Jacqueline Lichtenstein, INHA
2, rue Vivienne – 75002 Paris
