RIHA Journal

About the Journal

Journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art

The RIHA Journal was launched in 2010 by The International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA). It is a peer-reviewed and open access e-journal devoted to the full range of the history of art and visual culture. The RIHA Journal especially welcomes papers on topics relevant from a supra-local perspective, articles that explore artistic interconnections or cultural exchanges, or engage with important theoretical questions that are apt to animate the discipline. As a collective endeavor, the RIHA Journal seeks to share knowledge and materials issued by scholars of all nationalities, and by doing so, to make a significant contribution to dissolving the boundaries between scholarly communities. Languages of publication are English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

 

Latest research article: 
Daniela Stöppel, "Verlockende Struktur und gefährliche Ganzheit. György Kepes' Band Struktur in Kunst und Wissenschaft als Bindeglied zwischen Vorkriegsavantgarden, Strukturalismus und Postmoderne" (RIHA Journal 0299)

          

Thematic issue "Photography and Art" of the magazine Das Kunstwerk 12, no. 4 (October 1958): Double page with juxtaposition of a photograph by Helmut Hahn (left), sandstone formations, with a work by Kemeny (right), metal relief, n.d. (reprod. from: Das Kunstwerk 12, no. 4 [Oct. 1958], no p.)

After 1945, the term 'structure' became a guiding category not only in the sciences but also in the arts. In 1965, while teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, György Kepes published in the MIT series vision + value the anthology Structure in Art and Science, which contains individual contributions by various authors from different disciplines. Through a close reading, I show how these build on elementarist concepts of the pre-World War II period, while at the same time offering connecting possibilities to so-called poststructuralist models of thought. In addition, I examine how macro photographs were used suggestively in this context to create a holistic unity of art and nature.

 

Latest special issue: The Fate of Antiquities in the Nazi Era
A collaboration of the Getty Research Institute and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte,
guest-edited by Irene Bald Romano


Resting Hermes from the Villa dei Papiri, Herculaneum (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 5625), without its head, which was damaged in the course of its plunder. Photograph by Herbert List in the Munich CCP [Mü no. 2448], March 1946 (reprod. from print in Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Johannes Felbermeyer Collection, box 79, folder 8)

This publication was inspired by the 2017–2019 German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP). We hope that it will augment our understanding of the role of antiquities in the art world in the Nazi period, the aesthetics of National Socialism, antiquities collectors and dealers in Europe in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and the various ways in which antiquities changed hands during the precarious Nazi period. The articles also provide a wealth of bibliographic and other resources, as well as a framework for research methodologies that can be employed by other scholars examining works of ancient art and archaeological objects that have a history in the Nazi period.