Why Scenography and Art History?

It has to be noted that the longstanding and complex concept of scenography pertains not only to theatre and performance studies, but also to design, architecture, technology and – last but not least – art history. For example, in Sweden where I live and work, scenography studies has been a marginalized sub-field of art history since the s. This special issue of Journal of Art History explores scenography’s current relevance to art history more broadly and looks into ways in which art history and scenography can interact and vice versa. The “Scenography and Art History” session that gave rise to this special issue was held at the  NORDIK conference in Copenhagen, and was co-organized by me, and my colleague Viveka Kjellmer, both art historians at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. While the individual contributions in this special issue emanate from the NORDIK session, I will here discuss the most recent developments within scenography theory, and propose approaches that can hopefully be inspirational and useful for art historians as well as scholars from related disciplines such as visual studies. What brings the diverse articles in this special issue together is their capacity to unpack and exemplify the significance of a scenographic approach to art and related occurrences.