New Year's Greeting
Dear Colleagues，
The New Year is approaching! However, as the pandemic still runs rampant, I wish you and your family all safe and sound! Let’s hope this harsh winter passes by soon and a benign spring awaits us. During this ordeal of isolation and separation, there is a compelling necessity to communicate with colleagues. Thus, I had sent a greeting to you all via email in April, 2020, with a message,”At the Moment, May We See Each Other, and the World See Us.”
In October 2020, we founded the World Art History Institute (WAI) at both the Shanghai International Studies University and the China Academy of Art, where I serve as the director for both institutes. The responsibilities of WAI are as follows:
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As the secretariat of CIHA, WAI aims to strengthen the collaboration of art history studies in all member countries of CIHA, improve communications and exchanges online, build a virtual bridge between all member countries and art history academia across the world, and lay a foundation for future corporations.
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Edit and publish the CIHA Journal. A request for contributions has already been sent out by the CFP early December.
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Bao Jingjing, the deputy director of WAI, is the chief editor at the Shanghai branch of the Commercial Press, a press pioneering in publishing modern scholarship in China. The 4 volumes of the Proceedings of the 34th World Congress of Art History have been published by the Commercial Press. The Commercial Press will continue to collaborate with language experts at the Shanghai International Studies University and art history experts at the China Academy of Art to introduce and translate canonical works of world art history, compile general art histories of various nations, publish dictionaries and reference books, archive and document art history materials, as well as showcase works of your specialties to Chinese audiences and Chinese academia.
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Engage in doing field work, collating and publishing art history literature, and building an image-word-thing database, so that WAI can become a key player in the world art history community. Our long-term goal is to fulfill one of CIHA’s key visions since the 1980s, i.e. to build a worldwide database that concatenates and unifies various art history databases into a holistic whole.
At the board meeting on December 7, 2020, Jean-Marie Guillouët, the Secretary-General of CIHA, introduced CIHA’s connection with its member countries and welcomed countries that have newly joined in. Through online communication, CIHA’s official website (www.ciha.org) will be upgraded to ensure that information of every member country is more accurate and up-to-date, and we will continue reaching out to nations and regions that have yet to join CIHA’s network. WAI at the Shanghai International Studies University will mobilize faculty members and student assistants, whose specialties and majors cover 46 languages, to assist in building connections with various member countries of CIHA. We plan to incorporate collaborative projects to incrementally promote the interconnectedness of world art history academia. With the help of foreign language resources at the Shanghai International Studies University, our first major step will be to promote arts and art histories of different nations, and publish and post related research outputs on CIHA’s official website. This will become an accessible tool for global viewers to explore the art and art history of your nations. Hereby, I would kindly make an appeal to all of our fellow colleagues. Please recommend us the most canonical or updated works of general art history from your country of familiarity, and we will assist in translating them into Chinese and other languages, as well as update them on CIHA’s official website.
The two World Art History Institutes are twin institutes. With the help of language experts at the Shanghai International Studies University and art history experts at the China Academy of Art, they aim to methodically conduct research on world art history and publish related scholarship. Translation is the initial, practical step they will be taking. Hence, please recommend us noteworthy art history works and projects, as we are enthusiastic and looking forward to working with you.
Thank you and I appreciate your help and contribution to CIHA!
LaoZhu (Zhu Qingsheng)
President of CIHA
World Art History Institute, Shanghai International Studies University
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