Žene u/o umjetnosti [Women in/about Art]

In the volume Women in/of Art, the collected papers are based on presentations from the scholarly conference "Days of Cvito Fisković", held from October 28 to 30, 2021, in Imotski. The event was organized by the Department of Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and the Croatian Society of Art Historians. Originally scheduled for early October 2020, the conference was postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the same reason, the ninth edition dedicated to the memory of Cvito Fisković was also delayed. However, this postponement of both the conference and the publication of the volume—now available in both digital and printed formats—did not diminish the freshness of the contributions collected here. On the contrary, they clearly demonstrate the long-term relevance of research into women's experiences related to art and architecture in Southeastern Europe, spanning a wide historical timeframe from the Middle Ages to the present day. Throughout history, women have actively participated in various ways in the creation, preservation, and evaluation of works of visual and other arts, as well as architecture—acting as creators, patrons, collectors, curators, restorers and conservators, historians, and theorists. Furthermore, spaces and buildings, as well as works of visual, literary, and musical art, were specifically created for them. Given that—aside from a few pioneering studies—such active roles of women have often remained unrecognized or have been deliberately marginalized in academic research on Southeastern Europe, this volume, while providing an overview of the state of research in the third decade of the 21st century, is above all an invitation to consider new approaches and contributions to the topic.