CAA News Today
Former CAA President Marvin Eisenberg Dies
posted by CAA — June 06, 2016
Marvin Eisenberg, professor of history of art at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and president of the CAA Board of Directors from 1968 to 1970, died on May 18, 2016. He was 93 years old.
In 1943 Eisenberg earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, after serving in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. Upon earning both an MFA and PhD from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, he began teaching at Michigan, where he worked for his entire career. Eisenberg won CAA’s Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award in 1987. He retired in 1989.
Read more about Eisenberg’s life and career on the website of the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Spring 2016 Recipients of the Millard Meiss Publication Fund
posted by Christopher Howard — June 01, 2016
This spring, CAA awarded grants to the publishers of six books in art history and visual culture through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund. Thanks to the generous bequest of the late Prof. Millard Meiss, CAA gives these grants to support the publication of scholarly books in art history and related fields.
The six Meiss grantees for spring 2016 are:
- Joanna Grabski, Art World City: The Creative Economy of Artists and Urban Life in Dakar, Indiana University Press
- Shelley Drake Hawks, Painting by Candlelight: The Art of Resistance in Mao’s China, University of Washington Press
- Miya Mizuta Lippit, Aesthetic Life: The Artistic Discourse of Beauty in Modern Japan, Harvard University Press
- Leora Maltz-Leca, William Kentridge: Process as Metaphor and Other Doubtful Enterprises, University of California Press
- Heather McPherson, Art and Celebrity in the Age of Reynolds and Siddons, Pennsylvania State University Press
- Amanda Wunder, Sacred Art and Society in Seventeenth-Century Seville, Pennsylvania State University Press
Books eligible for Meiss grants must already be under contract with a publisher and on a subject in the visual arts or art history. Authors and presses must be current CAA members. Please review the application guidelines for more information.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — June 01, 2016
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Surface, Image, Reception: Painting in a Digital Age
Painting has always existed in relation to technology, when the term is understood in its broad definition as the practical application of specialized knowledge: brush, compass, camera obscura, photography, or inkjet printer. Yet it is only now that, through a physical presence and a shared role as content-delivery system, painting is so closely affiliated with the technologies it engages. (Read more from Rhizome.)
The Rise of Pirate Libraries
All around the world, shadow libraries keep growing, filled with banned materials. But no actual papers trade hands: everything is digital, and the internet-accessible content is not banned for shocking content so much as that modern crime, copyright infringement. But for the people who run the world’s pirate libraries, their goals are no less ambitious for their work’s illicit nature. (Read more from Slate.)
Raid the Database 2 with Nafis White
Raid the Database 2 with Nafis White is the second artist-curated digital project inspired by the RISD Museum’s historic exhibition Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol (1969–70). Each project in the series takes shape as the artist works closely with museum staff to gather materials, navigate the museum’s database and website, and delve into the original show. (Read more from Manual.)
Academic Publishing: Toward a New Model
Academic publishing is one area on which the web’s impact has been modest at best. Though a few open-access journals exist and many academics maintain blogs, journal costs have soared. Our writings remain less accessible, locked behind paywalls while libraries forgo buying print versions. While we understand why this has happened, a solution to it has been elusive. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
How Does a Museum Sponsorship Deal Really Work?
Museums have needed to diversify revenue streams, and forging deeper ties with corporate sponsors has become widely seen as imperative. These pressures come at a time when there is an increased awareness of contemporary art in culture—allowing museums to offer a certain kind of cred, or cool, even, in addition to the obvious exposure to their moneyed audiences. (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)
Six Things to Keep in Mind When Applying for Art Grants
With governments cutting funding for the arts, it is getting harder for artists and art institutions to obtain art grants, fellowships, or scholarships. The professional grant writer Ethan Haymovitz has put together a list of things to keep in mind when writing your application. (Read more from Art Report.)
Recap of SAH’s 2016 Annual Conference
Seven hundred thirty-eight members participated in the Society of Architectural Historians’ sixty-ninth annual international conference, which took place April 6–10, 2016, in Pasadena, California. Attendees hailed from thirty-six countries and forty-two states. A brief recap of the conference’s events follows. (Read more from the Society of Architectural Historians.)
The Real Threat to Free Expression
The threat to free speech on college campuses has become a crisis, although not the one commonly posited in public debate. How young people armed with smartphones became so skeptical of expression and what to do about it is a fundamental challenge for higher education. The answer will be to change the discourse from what to allow to what to listen to. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)