About Us
Vision Statement
CAA will be valued by its members as a diverse and highly effective learned society and professional service association that serves the fields of art, art history, and visual studies by uniquely bridging:We envision increased recognition of the fundamental contributions of art in diverse cultures to every society in the world throughout history. CAA has a critical role in fostering the ongoing exchange, dissemination, and interpretation of a diversity of artistic viewpoints. Art's visual language—vivid, contradictory, and creative—is one different from any other discipline's language, which means it is often misunderstood and suppressed. Its evocative and profound nature is most keenly comprehended by artists and scholars, whom CAA represents. CAA will serve as a professional resource for its members and for the wider public, providing essential programs and services to insure the continuation of a full range of artistic expressions and scholarship.Artists, scholars, and other visual arts professionals
Education and career
Over the next 5 years our programs and services will focus upon and attract a larger percentage of our core constituencies—and thereby increase our membership total.
At the same time, CAA, as the umbrella association for art, art history, and visual studies, will continue to expand its membership recruitment to reflect those whom our members consider to be important components of their world, as the fields we represent are redefining their own boundaries.
While we expect our main base of membership to remain within North America, we will increase our efforts to recruit internationally, often through cross-affiliations with comparable associations.
We anticipate that our essential services will remain conferences, publications, exhibition opportunities, professional development, advocacy, and research and data collection. As our membership evolves, these services will always reflect the needs of the fields of art, art history, and visual studies. We will continue to raise the level of discourse in all CAA-sponsored services and programs.
We will build a program of field and workplace research and data collection and analysis. With due regard to the importance of personal privacy, this program will gather data that will position CAA as the voice of art, art history, and visual studies and as a leading analyst of current trends and issues. Good field data will enable CAA to assist policy makers to make better decisions in defense of artistic and academic freedom and in support of the arts.
We will aggressively enhance our visibility, accessibility, and transparency through improved communications internally, with our membership, with the wider academic and museum communities, and with the general public.
Additionally, we will offer products, services, and information beyond our membership to the larger fields as a long-term means of expanding our membership base. We envision an increasing effort to attract collectors, dealers, publishers, secondary-school teachers, and (as appropriate) a general audience interested in art history, studio art, and related fields. By enhancing CAA’s visibility, and providing products and services beyond our membership, we will assert a leadership role within the field of visual arts and generate additional revenue that will help support our programs.
Return to 2005 Strategic Plan