The Research Centre for Primitive Art (CIAP) is formed of a group of people working together to develop a theory of primitive art. This will include a specification of the concepts of primitive, primitivism and primitive art, which have not been precisely defined to date.

The aim of this research is, on the one hand, to track the historical evolution of the notion of "primitive” and the associated primitivist phenomena throughout their complex development from their first appearance in the 18^th century up to the 21^st century. Another aim is to establish a theoretical definition of primitive art, conceived as an autonomous manifestation of art not linked to western cultural constructs. The subject of the research is interdisciplinary, since it deals not only with the history of art, but also with a wide range of humanistic studies, including aesthetics, the history of ideas, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, ethnography of primitive societies and history of colonialism.

The project is meant to open a new line of research in university studies in Spain. The subjects of primitive art and primitivism are almost totally absent from the literature published in Spanish and Catalan, in clear contrast with the literature published in French and English.