Programs » Support and Travel Grants

Codjovi Etienne Joseph Adande
Docteur d'Etat
Maître de Conférences des Universités Africaines
Université d'Abomey-Calavi, Benin
joadande@yahoo.fr

Joseph Adandé received a PhD in art history from the Université de Paris I, Sorbonne, where he focused on a comparative study of Ashante stools and the Dahomey royal stools. Since 1986, he has taught art history at the Université d’Abomey-Calavi and at the Institut Supérieur d’Information, de Communication et des Arts (ISICA), at the University of Lomé, Togo. He defended a "Doctorat d'Etat in 2012 on "Humor in Traditional and  Contemporary African Arts" at the Université de Lomé. Dr. Adandé has taught and lectured in universities in Italy and Germany and served as a resource person for the School of African Heritage in Porto-Novo. Dr. Adandé received a fellowship to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to write a book on appliqué cloth in West Africa.  Currently active in launching a school of fine arts at his university, he recently obtained a three-month invitation to the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (INHA) in Paris from September to November 2012.

Priscila Arantes
Professor, Pontificia Universidade Católica
Curator and Technical Director, Paço das Artes
São Paulo, Brazil
priscila.a.c.arantes@gmail.com

Priscila Arantes is a cultural critic, curator, professor and director. She has been director and curator of Paço das Artes (State Secretariat of Culture/SP/Brazil) since 2007 and professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC/SP) (Pontifical Catholic University) since 2002. Dr. Arantes received her PhD in Communication and Semiotics from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo and conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Visual Art at Penn State University. Between 2007 and 2011 she was associate director of the Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo and in 2010 she was a member of the São Paulo Art Biennial's Editorial Council of the Polo de Arte Contemporânea magazine.  Dr. Arantes has published widely about digital aesthetics and also curated exhibitions at Paço das Artes, notably Assim é, se lhe parece (Right You Are! (If You Think So) (2011) and Projeto 5X5 (Project 5x5) (2012). Her research interests include contemporary art, Brazilian and Latin American art and postcolonial studies.

W.M.P. Sudarshana Bandara
Senior Lecturer
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
sudabandara@gmail.com

W. M. P. Sudarshana Bandara is a lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Trained as a painter, he received an MPhil in art history in 2009. He is currently pursuing a PhD, exploring how Eastern and Western concepts of art are used in the analysis of modern and postmodern works of art. He is particularly interested in the intersection of art, Marxism, semiotics, and the Indian concept of Rasa. Professor Bandara teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in fine arts, art history, aesthetics, and criticism. In addition to teaching, he assists and supervises research work of BA and MPhil students. The author of three academic research books and over twenty research papers, Professor Bandara is also an active painter, exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions in Sri Lanka and internationally.

Marly Joseph Desir
Art History Teacher
Department of Fine Arts
College La Renaissance, Haiti
marlydesir@hotmail.com

Marly Joseph Desir received his PhD in art history from the University of Arts, Haiti. He is a professor at the College La Renaissance, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, specializing in European and American art. As a teacher he uses lectures and multimedia technology to present a rich tapestry of visual information to his students, guiding them through the history of art, connecting historical traditions and practices to techniques through the ages, and linking them to a practical application of these techniques. His most recent publication is “True Art and Pseudo Art: Symbolist Discource on Autonomy and Value,” (2012). Earlier work includes: “Art Ethics: Thomas Kinkade and Contemporary Art,” (2011), “National Art from a Local Perspective,” (2008), and “Foreign or Native ,Perception and Reception of Impressionism in American Art Criticism” (2006). Dr. Desir’s research focuses on twentieth U.S. history and Byzantine manuscipts from the ninth through fourteen centuries.

Ding Ning
Vice Dean and Professor                             
Peking University, China
dingning@pku.edu.cn

Ding Ning graduated with a PhD degree from Beijing Normal University in 1988. He was the British Council’s post-doctoral fellow at the University of Essex from 1993-4. Before moving to Beijing in 2000, he served as professor and chair of the Department of Art History and Theory, China National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. He is currently a professor and vice dean at the School of Arts, Peking University. Dr. Ding’s publications include Dimensions of Reception, Psychology of Visual Art, Dimensions of Duration: Toward a Philosophy of Art History, Depth of Art, Fifteen Lectures on Western Art History, Spectrum of Images: Toward a Cultural Dimension of Visual Arts. He has also translated extensively, including Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix, Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting, Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics between the Modern and the Postmodern, and Museum Skepticism: A History of the Display of Art in Public Galleries. 

Davor Džalto
Professor of History and Theory of Art
The Institute for the Study of Culture and Christianity (Belgrade)
Faculty of Arts, University of Niš, Serbia
davordzalto@gmail.com

Davor Džalto is a professor of history and theory of art at the Institute for the Study of Culture and Christianity, Belgrade, and the University of Niš. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade and received his PhD from the University of Freiburg, Germany. Dr. Džalto also conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Muenster, Germany. A visiting professor at various European and American universities, he has published four books and over thirty scholarly articles and essays in the field of art history and theory, cultural studies, philosophy and Orthodox theology. Dr. Džalto is also an artist, working in the media of painting, objects, installations, performances and video art. He has exhibited in numerous one-man and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia and USA.

Richard Gregor
Director of the Centre and Curator of the Gallery
Cyprián Majernik Gallery, Slovakia
richard.gregor@staremesto.sk

Richard Gregor is an art historian, curator and visual art critic who studied at Trnava University and Charles University in Prague. Currently the Director of Bratislava Old Town Visual Art Centre, he was previously the chief curator of Nitra Gallery and Bratislava City Gallery. He has also served as a professor of art history and theory at the Academy of Art in Banská Bystrica and as a consultant on gallery issues at the Ministry of Culture of Slovak Republic. Between 2007-08 and again in 2011, Mr. Gregor was the Head of the Cultural Department at Bratislava–Old Town City Council. Through his initiative, the Cyprián Majerník Gallery, originally established in 1957, re-opened in 2008 as a part of the Visual Art Centre. Mr. Gregor has curated more than thirty exhibitions in Slovakia and abroad, and written numerous critical articles and studies in catalogues and books, including Slovak Painting Since 1918, published on the official governmental website.

AKM Khademul Haque
Associate Professor
Department of Islamic History and Culture   
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
sumanhaque@gmail.com

AKM Khademul Haque teaches Islamic art and architecture in the Department of Islamic History and Culture, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. After completing his undergraduate and MA degrees from the same department, he joined his alma mater as a lecturer in 1999 and became an assistant professor in 2004. He is currently pursuing his PhD from the same institution, researching weaponry and war techniques in medieval Bengal. His interests include the development of Islamic art and architecture internationally. In 2007, Mr. Haque received the Hamad bin Khalifa Fellowship to attend the 2nd Biennial Conference on Islamic Art, organized by the School of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar. In 2010, he received the Indranee Roy Memorial Award for presenting the best paper in the 26th Annual Conference of Paschimvanga Itihasa Samsad (West Bengal History Association), held at the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India.

Musarrat Hasan
Advisor to the Institute of Art and Design and Professor of Art History
Lahore College Women’s University
Lahore, Pakistan
drmusarrathasan@gmail.com

Musarrat Hasan received an MFA from the Punjab University Lahore,
Pakistan in 1961 and a PhD in art history in 1997. She is a professor, painter and writer, currently also serving as a Member of Provincial Assembly, the highest legislative body of Punjab. In 1972, Dr. Hassan established a department of Fine arts at the Queen Mary College Lahore. To overcome the language barriers of her students, she translated into Urdu an English-language survey of prehistoric and ancient art, a book based on the college’s curriculum in fine arts. In 1997 she received her doctorate, publishing her dissertation the following year. All of her five publications since then have been an effort to compile and preserve data about contemporary art in Pakistan. She designed the course of South Asian art for PhD studies in two universities in Lahore and is currently teaching that course at the Punjab University Lahore.

Hlynur Helgason
Associate Professor
University of Iceland
hlynurh@hi.is

Hlynur Helgason is a practicing artist and philosopher residing in Reykjavík, Iceland. He received a doctorate in media philosophy from the European Graduate School in Switzerland and currently holds the post of assistant professor in art theory at the University of Iceland, Reykjavík. His main topic of research is the temporality of contemporary art, drawing inspiration from the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard and Michel de Ceertau, among others. His current topics of study include the art of Vito Acconci, Andy Warhol, Christian Marker, as well as Icelandic contemporary artists Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson, Níels Hafstein and Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir.

Bogdon-Teodor Iacob
Senior Lecturer and Director for Theoretical and Pedagogical Disciplines
University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania
iacob_uad@yahoo.com

Bogdan Teodor Iacob is the director of the Department for Theoretical Disciplines at the University of Art and Design in Cluj–Napoca where he teaches art history and contemporary art. Between 2008 and 2011, he served as chancellor of the university. Dr. Iacob holds a BA in art history from Babes–Bolyai University in Cluj–Napoca, Romania and an MA in socio-anthropology from the same institution. In 2011, he obtained a PhD in Visual Arts with the thesis From Pathos to Cynicism: The Image of History in Modern and Contemporary Art. Primarily concerned with contemporary artistic practices, he has published and lectured widely, including the Offline book (2010). His current focus is Romanian art criticism during the communist era.

Peju Layiwola
Associate Professor of Art History
Department of Creative Arts
Faulty of Arts
University of Lagos, Nigeria
pejulayiwola1967@gmail.com  

Peju Layiwola is a visual artist and art historian working in a variety of media including installation, sculpture, printmaking and jewellery. Dr. Layiwola began her studies in the arts at the University of Benin, Nigeria and obtained a doctorate in art history from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She has had several group and solo exhibitions both locally and internationally. In addition to these shows are lectures and workshops she has held in the US, South Africa and Austria. Her most recent travelling exhibition and edited book, Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question presents an artist’s impression of the cultural rape of Benin. Dr. Layiwola has also published widely on various aspects of the visual culture of Nigeria. She runs an active studio in Ibadan, Nigeria as well as a Women and Youth Art empowerment initiative for community development. She is currently an Associate Professor and teaches art and art history at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. 

Parul Dave Mukherji
Professor and Dean
School of Arts and Aesthetics
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India
parul.dm@hotmail.com

Parul Dave-Mukherji is currently the dean at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She holds a PhD in Indology from Oxford University. She is the co-convener of the Forum on Contemporary Theory and co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary Thought.Her publications include Towards A New Art History: Studies in Indian Art (co-edited, 2003) and a special issue on Visual Culture of the Journal of Contemporary Thought, 17 (guest editor, Summer 2003). She also published Rethinking Modernity, (co-edited, 2005) and “Putting the World in a Book: How Global Can Art History Be Today”in Anderson, J. (ed) Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence (2009). Her current research focuses on comparative aesthetics, contemporary art in India and Asia and the impact of globalization on art theory and the discipline of art history.

Venny Mary Nakazibwe
Senior Lecturer/Deputy Principal
College of Engineering, Design Art and Technology
Makerere University, Uganda
vnakazibwe@sifa.mak.ac.ug

Venny Nakazibwe is a textile designer and art historian, currently a senior lecturer and dean of the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University, Uganda. She holds an MA in textile design and a PhD in art history. She has conducted extensive research on the history of African textiles, focusing on indigenous fabric design and decorative techniques, as well as the contemporary use of these materials in art and design practice. Dr. Nakazibwe is the winner of the 2007 Roy Sieber Award for her outstanding PhD dissertation on bark-cloth of the Baganda of Southern Uganda. She has conducted lectures, workshops and consulting work locally and internationally on the historical and contemporary use of bark-cloth in art and design practice and on design education for creative enterprises.

Mheesung Park
Art Critic
Lecturer
Hongik University
Seoul, South Korea
upgradesun@hanmail.net

Mheesung Park received an MA in art theory from Seoul National University with a thesis about Gutai art and received an MA in art history from University College London. She is a doctorate candidate in Art Criticism at Hongik University in Seoul, Korea. She is currently a lecturer in art history at several universities and plays an active role as an art critic. Her scholarly interests focus on the human body expressed in different contexts and figurative or abstract representation of embodied subjectivity in the field of vision.

Trinidad Pérez
Profesor and Coordinator of the Museums and Historical Heritage Program, History Area
Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito Ecuador.
trinidadperezarias@hotmail.com
trinidad.perez@uasb.edu.ec

Trinidad Pérez is an art historian who is currently professor and researcher at FLACSO-Ecuador (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales), a graduate university system where she has designed a Masters of Fine Arts Program to open next year. She has previously taught and directed the art history program at Universidad San Francisco de Quito and designed art history master programs at other local universities to help develop the field in the country. She received a BA from the University of Maryland and an MA from the University of Texas at Austin, both in art history. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito. Her research and publications focus on the emergence of modern art as an institution in Ecuador: the local and international conditions that made it possible, the roll of education, theory and institutions, and the way this art deals with national identity.

Isabel Plante
Researcher and Professor
Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales
Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Argentina
isabelplante@gmail.com

Isabel Plante is a researcher of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) at the Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (IDAES-UNSAM), in Argentina. She also teaches at the Universidad Nacional General Sarmiento (UNGS) and the Universidad Nacional de La Matanza (UNLaM). She received her PhD in art history from the School of Philosophy and Letters, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Dr. Plante’s doctoral thesis is about to be published as Argentinos de París. Arte y viajes culturales en los años sesenta, [Argentines of Paris. Art and cultural travel during the sixties]. Both her dissertation and current postdoctoral research focus on international art exchanges, cultural identification and geographical migrations of artists and works of art during the 1960s between Paris and South American cities such as Buenos Aires. It is in this context that she studies this period in terms of artistic legitimization and the institutional critique of Argentine and other South American artists in France.

Ohioma Pogoson
Senior Research Fellow and Honorary Curator
Institute of African Studies
University of Ibadan, Nigeria
tellohio@tahoo.com

Ohioma Ifounu Pogoson is a senior research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, the same university from which he received a PhD in visual arts in 1990. He has studied the social history of Benin arts in Germany and worked with American universities on African-Studies-based curricula. In 2006 he won a MacArthur Foundation grant to make a comparative study of Anglophone and Francophone museums across West Africa and Britain. This year he is participating in the University of Cambridge/Africa Collaborative Research Program on Art and Museums in Africa. Dr. Pogoson curates exhibitions and writes extensively about visual arts of Southern Nigeria, particularly Yoruba and Edo arts. His more recent publications include three edited books aboutDotun Okubanjo, Moyo Ogundipe and Lamidi Fakeye. He is the consulting curator of Africa's largest private art collection, Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation (OYASAF) in Lagos, Nigeria, and honorary curator of the Museum of the Institute of African Studies.

Marina Vicelja-Matijasic
Professor of Art History
University of Rijeka, Croatia
marina.vicelja@ri.t-com.hr

Marina Vicelja-Matijasic is a professor of art history in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the director of the Center of Iconographic Studies at the University of Rijeka in Croatia. With an undergraduate degree in art history and English language and literature from the University of Zagreb, she completed her PhD in 1999 at the same university with a dissertation entitled Byzantium and the stone sculpture in Istria – origins and influences. Dr. Vicelja-Matijasic's research interests include Late Antique and Early medieval art, Christian iconography, iconology, and Urban Studies.

Karen Von Veh
Associate Professor
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
karenv@uj.ac.za

Karen von Veh is associate professor of art history and theory in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg.  She is also the current president of SAVAH (the South African Visual Arts Historians association) and a member of ACASA and CIHA.  She studied at WITS University, obtaining BA Honours and Masters degrees, and received a PhD from Rhodes University.  The title of her PhD thesis is Transgressive Christian Iconography in Post-apartheid South African Art.  Dr. von Veh has written several articles and book chapters and delivered national and international conference papers on this and related subjects with reference to works by Diane Victor, Wim Botha, Conrad Botes, Christine Dixie, Majak Bredell, Tracey Rose and Lawrence Lemaoana among others. Her research interests include contemporary South African art, religious iconography, gender studies and postcolonial studies in identity and culture.