Common Ground: An Exploration of Modern Art through a Renaissance Lens | A Series of Online/In-Person Talks by Prof. Bette Talvacchia (28 January – 6 February 2025, 6 PM)
This series explores the relationship between Renaissance art and its modern descendants, examining how contemporary artists engage with historical art to create new meanings. Topics include narration, formal concerns, icons, body symbolism, and gender in portraiture. The lectures aim to highlight the relevance of the past to contemporary art practices, promoting a connected understanding of art across time.
[In-Person/Online] Conference hosted by NIKI & NYU-Florence, January 17–19, 2025: “Hidden in Plain Sight: Black African Lives and Visual Histories in the Early Modern World”
How do representations of marginalized bodies challenge dominant narratives in history? What new realities are revealed about the absence and agency of Black Africans by a more global approach to the 14–17th centuries? The international conference Hidden in Plain Sight, co-hosted by the NIKI and NYU-Florence, will explore a range of interrelated themes, drawing from art history, anthropology, African studies, history, musicology, and other fields. By critically re-examining histories of colonialism and slavery, the event seeks to reshape our understanding of disciplinary boundaries and spark new scholarly debates.
[In-Person/Online] Lecture by Astrid Van Oyen, March 5 , 2024: ”Drama in the Tuscan countryside: excavations of the Marzuolo Archaeological Project (2016-2024)”
Astrid Van Oyen, Professor of Archaeology at Radboud University, will discuss the archaeological findings from the Marzuolo site in Tuscany, revealing the dramatic turns of rural Roman life, including a failed wine business, a smithy fire, and a potter’s innovations. The lecture also explores archaeological methods and the importance of reconstructing everyday lives in history.
Expert meeting “Drawing Empirical Knowledge in Early Modern Europe” (18 – 19 October 2024)
This expert meeting will be based on conversations around drawings. We will bring together historians of art and science who work with early modern drawings. With short presentations of current research objects (drawings of all kinds), we will discuss how drawings on paper were part of a process of observation, thinking, and communicating. We will specifically look at materials involved, the processes used, the subjects depicted and the draughts(wo)men who produced the drawings.
Workshop “Flanders in Florence: Architectural Exchanges in Context, 1400-1600” (17 – 18 October 2024)
The workshop brings together scholars from various disciplines to discuss the current state of research on architectural exchanges between the Low Countries and Florence at the time of the Renaissance. Focusing on exchanges from North to South, the aim is to improve our understanding of how the intense commercial, artistic, political and military ties with ‘le Fiandre’ have enriched Florence’s architectural culture.
[In-Person/Online] Conference hosted by NIKI & NYU-Florence, January 17–19, 2025: “Hidden in Plain Sight: Black African Lives and Visual Histories in Early Modern Europe”
How do representations of marginalized bodies challenge dominant narratives in history? What new realities are revealed about the absence and agency of Black Africans by a more global approach to the 14–17th centuries? The international conference Hidden in Plain Sight, co-hosted by the NIKI and NYU-Florence, will explore a range of interrelated themes, drawing from art history, anthropology, African studies, history, musicology, and other fields. By critically re-examining histories of colonialism and slavery, the event seeks to reshape our understanding of disciplinary boundaries and spark new scholarly debates.
Hybrid lecture: “The Last Days of the Virgin Mary in Medieval Art” on March 5, 2024 at 6PM
The theme of the Last Days of the Virgin was a frequent subject of pictorial representation in the Mediterranean area from the ninth century to the end of the fifteenth century, despite the absence of any canonical evidence for Mary’s death and Assumption.
Hybrid conference ”Johannes Stradanus (1523-1605): A Flemish Artist in Florence in the Age of Exploration” on 30 November – 1 December 2023
On the occasion of the exhibition ”Giovanni Stradano. Le più strane e belle invenzioni del mondo”, curated by Alessandra Baroni and held at Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (17 November 2023-18 February 2024), the Netherlands Interuniversity Institute for Art History (NIKI) organises an international conference on Johannes Stradanus and on the many ways in which the artist from Bruges,“with the flowers of his art, made Florence appear even more beautiful” (Van Mander).
Hybrid lecture: “Perugino and the Management of Styles: ‘Andrea d’Assisi’ Reconsidered” on November 7, 2023 at 6PM
On behalf of the Director of the Netherlands Interuniversity Institute for Art History (NIKI), Michael W. Kwakkelstein, we have the pleasure to invite you to the lecture by our scholar-in-residence, Takuma Ito (Associate Professor, Renaissance Art History, Kyushu University, Japan), entitled “Perugino and the Management of Styles: ‘Andrea d’Assisi’ Reconsidered”.
Dutch Alumni Event in Rome & Milan (8-9 November 2023)
The collaborating Dutch universities: Leiden University, Utrecht University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam), along with the Dutch University Institute for Art History in Florence (NIKI) invite alumni from these universities to attend an evening of academic discussion and networking.
