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Hans Belting is among the most respected art historians living today. His book The End of the History of Art?, 1987, radically questioned art history's relevance to contemporary artistic concerns and triggered an unparalleled debate on the methods and structures of his discipline. Other publications include: Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, 1994; and The Invisible Masterpiece. The Modern Myths of Art, 2001. In 2000 he set up a Ph.D. programme, 'Kunstwissenschaft and Medientheorie', at the newly founded School for New Media in Karlsruhe, which is linked to the Centre for Art and Media Technologies (ZKM). For this lecture, Belting will explore the notion of the masterpiece and its relationship to the 'favourite'