Reflections on the South African Visual Arts Historians and the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art (or What happens when art history collides with the global South and Vasari's Lives of the artists)

Abstract

When reflecting on the recent symposium at the University of the Witwatersrand, organised by the South African Visual Arts Historians (SAVAH) under the aegis of the Comite International d'Histoire de l'Art (CIHA), I could not help but think that such organisations - both committed to the perpetuation of very different types of art-historical discourse - made for an unanticipated pairing.