HICSA Histoire sociale et culturelle de l’art

The HiCSA research team is one of the most important university research centres in art history in France, both in terms of the number of professors (40 in 2019) and the research fields, from the medieval worlds to the most contemporary art. If creative works and processes are at the heart of the laboratory, institutional issues, the study of the relationship between art, architecture and heritage, the consideration of the economics of art and the study of the art worlds are some of the directions currently being taken by HiCSA. Within HiCSA, art history is understood in an open sense, beyond the classical perimeter of fine arts, as a crossroads welcoming and confronting disciplines such as the history of cinema, photography, decorative arts, but also the conservation and restoration of cultural property. Several projects on non-European worlds, Africa, Latin America or the Near and Middle East, testify to the desire to think about art history in a broader field, open to contemporary issues both in terms of methods (visual culture) and the geography of art in the era of globalization.