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The paper is a reminiscence of my first meeting with the colleagues from the Institute of Art History of Adam Mickiewicz University, which took place at an annual conference of the Association of Art Historians in 1974, titled “Reflection on Art.” Choosing an unusual title, I wanted to convey the impetus with which a group of young art historians from Poznań entered the decent and somewhat stagnant stage of Polish art history. The critique they presented was directed against Polish academic institutions, the problematic of the conference, the empty rituals of academic life, etc. Even though I did not accept all their objections, the heated debate suddenly turned out for me to be a liberating factor, stimulating continuous critical thinking which is an antidote for spiritual and intellectual captivity.

The paper is a reminiscence of my first meeting with the colleagues from the Institute of Art History of Adam Mickiewicz University, which took place at an annual conference of the Association of Art Historians in 1974, titled “Reflection on Art.” Choosing an unusual title, I wanted to convey the impetus with which a group of young art historians from Poznań entered the decent and somewhat stagnant stage of Polish art history. The critique they presented was directed against Polish academic institutions, the problematic of the conference, the empty rituals of academic life, etc. Even though I did not accept all their objections, the heated debate suddenly turned out for me to be a liberating factor, stimulating continuous critical thinking which is an antidote for spiritual and intellectual captivity.

The paper is a reminiscence of my first meeting with the colleagues from the Institute of Art History of Adam Mickiewicz University, which took place at an annual conference of the Association of Art Historians in 1974, titled "Reflection on Art." Choosing an unusual title, I wanted to convey the impetus with which a group of young art historians from Poznan entered the decent and somewhat stagnant stage of Polish art history. The critique they presented was directed against Polish academic institutions, the problematic of the conference, the empty rituals of academic life, etc. Even though I did not accept all their objections, the heated debate suddenly turned out for me to be a liberating factor, stimulating continuous critical thinking which is an antidote for spiritual and intellectual captivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a short report on two events which addressed the critical historiography of Irish art, architecture and material culture, both titled ‘Writing Irish Art History’. The first was a student-led research day, with papers which challenged received strategies in the writing of Irish art, and included keynote addresses by both Professor Tom Dunne and Dr. Róisín Kennedy, and a performance by Dr. Nicholas Johnson and Nathan Gordon adapted from Samuel Beckett’s Three Dialogues from Georges Duthuit. The second event reviewed here was a session at the 2011 Association of Art Historians’ Annual Conference at Warwick, which brought together several scholars who contributed close readings of individual key texts and documents towards a critical investigation of the historiography of Irish art, and queried the categories of Irish art and its institutional implications. These events are placed in the context of the absence or presence of the debate on historiographical practices relating to Irish art history over the past decade.