Conference 2024

The 11th International Academic Conference Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art took place in St Petersburg on 14–19 October 2024. It was organised by Saint Petersburg State University and Lomonosov Moscow State University, with the State Hermitage Museum as the conference’s permanent partner.

At a glance

• Location: St Petersburg
• Dates: 14–19 October 2024
• Format: in person and online
• Working languages: Russian and English
• Venues: the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg State University, and the National Library of Russia

Academic programme

The conference continued an interdisciplinary conversation on the history and theory of visual art and architecture, the conservation and interpretation of cultural heritage, and relationships between academic research and museum practice. Its sessions considered periods from antiquity to the present.

Alongside the established subject areas, the 2024 programme introduced two special sections: “Types of Visual Texts: The History of Development and Modern Culture” and “An Artist in a Printing House”. They broadened the discussion of how visual images are created, reproduced, and understood.

The plenary meeting and the Ancient Art sessions were held at the State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg State University hosted the other subject sessions, while the National Library of Russia provided the venue for discussions of interdisciplinary methods in cultural heritage research.

Preparing the conference

The dates were announced in November 2023. Applications were accepted from 1 April to 1 June 2024; the Organising Committee formed the sessions during the summer and published the schedule in September. The final programme followed on 7 October. In-person participants completed the registration required for access to university buildings, while online attendees used a separate registration process.

The conference’s academic work continued in Volume 15 of Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, published in 2025. It contains articles in Russian and English based on papers presented at the 11th conference. View the volume on the publication website.