Call for papers (2027, Vol. 37) Workshops and Studios
For its 2027 issue, Anales de Historia del Arte plans a volume dedicated to the study of workshops and studios throughout the history of art. From ancient cases to most contemporary examples, workshops and studios have been scenarios for artistic production; also for training, experimentation and transmission of knowledge. They have functioned as spaces that are key to understand the creation process in its essential materiality, to appreciate the collaborative work and the production of copies or to illustrate the way in which art, market and society have been and still are deeply intertwined. The analysis of workshops and studios also invites to challenge more traditional narratives of our discipline, that in many cases still seem interested in celebrating individual, social and historically decontextualized genius.
Thus, this issue seeks to investigate workshops and studios not only as physical spaces, but also as nodes of social, intellectual, and material exchange, as environments that shape the practice and meaning of the artistic work in its creation, circulation and reception.
The journal welcomes contributions that examine workshops and studies from various geographies and periods; texts that channel diverse methodological approaches interested in opening art history to archaeology, anthropology, social history, material culture studies and digital humanities.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- The organization, hierarchy and work structures of the workshops. Spaces of collaboration, authorship and collective production: from the Renaissance workshop to the contemporary film studio.
- Pedagogy, learning and transmission of skills and knowledge.
- Practical materials, tools, technologies and manufacturing processes.
- Economic, legal and institutional frameworks that shape the formation of workshops and studios, but also of academies, guilds or artistic communities.
- Gender, race and class as categories of inclusion and exclusion within workshops.
- Mobility of artists, replication models and circulation of formal solutions.
- Studios and workshops as spaces for sociability and the creation of public spheres.
- Representation of the studio and workshop through artistic practice.
- Archaeological and archival approaches to reconstruct workshops. Digital reconstructions and technical analysis.
- Contemporary reconfigurations of the artist’s studio and collective practices.
