CAA News

CAA has designed the Career Services Guide to inform job seekers and employers about placement activities at the 2013 Annual Conference in New York. The publication, available as a PDF, will help you navigate Career Services events and provides answers to frequently asked questions. Study this guide carefully so that you will know what to expect from conference interviewing and how best to prepare for a successful experience.

Job candidates can review the basics of the conference employment search. Read about the Candidate Center, your home base at the conference, as well as Orientation, an introduction to Career Services where you can ask questions. In addition, learn more about the Online Career Center, where you can search for position listings, post application materials, and arrange interviews. The publication includes tips for improving your CV, portfolio, and supplemental application materials.

Employers will find details in the guide for renting interview booths and tables as well as recommendations for posting jobs and conducting interviews at the conference. You can begin preparations now for Career Services through the Online Career Center or onsite at the Interviewer Center.

Printed copies of the Career Services Guide will be distributed onsite at Orientation and in the Candidate Center. All conference Career Services will take place at the Hilton New York. For more information about job searching, professional-development workshops, and more, visit the Career Services section of the conference website.

CAA’s Services to Artists Committee invites artist members to participate in ARTexchange, an open forum for sharing work at the 2013 Annual Conference. Free and open to the public, ARTexchange will be held on Friday, February 15, 5:30–7:30 PM, in a central location at the Hilton New York. A cash bar will be available.

ARTexchange is an annual event showcasing the art of CAA members, who can exhibit their paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures, and digital works using the space on, above, and beneath a six-foot folding table. Artists may also construct temporary mini-installations and conduct performance, sound, and spoken-word pieces in their space. In the past, many ARTexchange participants found the event to be their favorite part of the conference, with the table parameter sparking creative displays.

To be considered for ARTexchange in New York, please send your full name, your CAA member number, a brief description of the work you want to exhibit (no more than 150 words), and a link to your website to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs. Artists presenting performance or sound art, spoken word, or technology-based work, including laptop presentations, must add a few sentences about their plans. Accepted participants will receive an email confirmation. Because ARTexchange is a popular venue with limited space, early applicants will be given preference. Deadline: December 14, 2012.

Participants are responsible for their work; CAA is not liable for losses or damages. Sale of work is not permitted. Participants may not hang artworks on walls or run power cords from laptops or other electronic devices to outlets—bring fully charged batteries.

Image: the artists Jeff Schmuki and Wendy DesChene, founders of PlantBot Genetics, demonstrate their products during ARTexchange at the 2012 Annual Conference in Los Angeles (photograph by Bradley Marks)

Robert Storr, dean of the Yale University School of Art and a former senior curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), will deliver the keynote address during Convocation at the 2013 Annual Conference in New York. Convocation, which includes the presentation of the 2013 CAA Awards for Distinction, will take place on Wednesday evening, February 13, from 5:30 to 7:00 PM. Free and open to the public, the event will be held in the East Ballroom, on the second floor of the Hilton New York in midtown Manhattan.

Storr joined the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA in 1990, where he has organized solo exhibitions on Elizabeth Murray (2005–6), Max Beckmann (2003), Gerhard Richter (2002), Chuck Close (1998), Tony Smith (1998), and Robert Ryman (1993–94). He also coordinated the Projects series at the museum from 1990 to 2000. More recently, Storr served as commissioner of the 2007 Venice Biennale, which was titled Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense. He was the first American invited to the position.

A painter and a critic, Storr has written on art for Art in America, where he has been a contributing editor since 1981, and for Frieze, where he wrote a regular column from 2004 to 2011. In addition to publishing books on Close and Philip Guston, he has recently completed Intimate Geometries: The Work and Life of Louise Bourgeois (forthcoming).

Storr earned a BA from Swarthmore College in 1972 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978. The recipient of numerous grants, awards, and honors, he has lectured at colleges and universities throughout the northeastern United States. Storr began his official academic career in 2002, leaving MoMA to become the first Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Storr joined Yale in 2006 as dean and was recently reappointed to that position for a second five-year term. He is also professor of painting and printmaking at his school.

Storr has intersected with CAA at various points throughout his career. He has chaired several Annual Conference sessions and has spoken on even more. He served on the Art Journal Editorial Board from 1985 to 1995 and, with the attorney Barbara Hoffman, guest edited two issues on censorship and the visual arts, in fall and winter 1991. A ever-passionate advocate, Storr took up the issue again in 2011, writing a piece in Frieze on the Hide/Seek controversy.

On Tuesday, February 12, a day before Convocation, Storr will participate on a panel, titled “Hands On,” at the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village. Joining him will be the art historians Svetlana Alpers, professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, and David Rosand, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History Emeritus at Columbia University, who will discuss the connections between making art and writing about it. David Cohen, an art critic and the editor of Artcritical.com, will moderate. The event, starting at 6:30 PM, is free and open to the public; seating, however, may be limited.

Image: Robert Storr (photograph by Herbert Lotz)

CAA is pleased to announce this year’s recipients of its International Travel Grant Program, generously funded by the Getty Foundation. Twenty art historians, including professors, curators, and artists who teach art history, will attend the upcoming Annual Conference in New York, taking place February 13–16, 2013. This is the second consecutive year that CAA has received a Getty grant to support the program.

Please read the full article to learn more about the twenty recipients, who come from the Caribbean, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

In addition to covering travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and per diems, the CAA International Travel Grant Program includes conference registration and a one-year CAA membership. At the conference, the twenty recipients will be paired with hosts, who will introduce them to CAA and to specific colleagues who share their interests. CAA is grateful to the National Committee for the History of Art (NCHA) for its generous support in underwriting the hosts’ expenses. Members of CAA’s International Committee have agreed to serve as hosts, along with representatives from NCHA and CAA’s Board of Directors. This year, the program will begin with a one-day preconference for grant recipients and their hosts in New York on February 12.

CAA is delighted by the range of interests and accomplishments of this year’s grant recipients and looks forward to welcoming them in New York.

Image: Ding Ning, a professor and vice dean of the School of Arts at Peking University in China, is a 2013 travel-grant recipient.

CAA is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2013 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award and the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award. The winners of both prizes, along with the recipients of ten other Awards for Distinction, will be announced in January and presented during Convocation in New York, in conjunction with the 101st Annual Conference.

The Charles Rufus Morey Book Award honors an especially distinguished book in the history of art, published in any language between September 1, 2011, and August 31, 2012. The four finalists are:

• Esra Akcan, Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey, and the Modern House (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012)
• Mary K. Coffey, How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012)
• Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012)
• J. P. Park, Art by the Book: Painting Manuals and the Leisure Life in Late Ming China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012)

The Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for museum scholarship is presented to the author(s) of an especially distinguished catalogue in the history of art, published between September 1, 2011, and August 31, 2012, under the auspices of a museum, library, or collection. The two finalists are:

• Philipp Kaiser and Miwon Kwon, eds., Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2012)
• Luke Syson with Larry Keith, Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan (London: National Gallery, 2011)

The Barr jury has shortlisted a second Barr Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, or Collections. The two finalists are:

• Joanne Pillsbury, Miriam Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara-Brito, and Alexandre Tokovinine, eds., Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2012)
• Anne T. Woollett, Yvonne Szafran, and Alan Phenix, Drama and Devotion: Heemskerck’s “Ecce Homo” Altarpiece from Warsaw (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2012)

The presentation of the 2013 Awards for Distinction will take place on Wednesday evening, February 13, 5:30–7:00 PM, at the Hilton New York. The event is free and open to the public. For more information about CAA’s Awards for Distinction, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs and archivist.

Students and emerging professionals have the opportunity to sign up for a twenty-minute practice interview at the 2013 Annual Conference in New York. Organized by the Student and Emerging Professionals Committee, Mock Interview Sessions give participants the chance to practice their interview skills one on one with a seasoned professional, improve their effectiveness during interviews, and hone their elevator speech. Interviewers also provide candid feedback on application packets.

Mock Interview Sessions are offered free of charge; you must be a CAA member to participate. Sessions are filled by appointment only and scheduled for Thursday, February 14, 10:00 AM–NOON and 4:00–6:00 PM; and Friday, February 15, 10:00 AM–NOON and 4:00–6:00 PM. Conference registration, while encouraged, is not necessary to participate.

To apply, download, complete, and send the Mock Interview Sessions form to Jennifer Stoneking-Stewart, chair of the Student and Emerging Professionals Committee. You may enroll in one twenty-minute session. Deadline: February 4, 2013.

You will be notified of your appointment day and time by email. Please bring your application packet, including cover letter, CV, and other materials related to jobs in your field. The Student and Emerging Professionals Committee will make every effort to accommodate all applicants; however, space is limited.

Onsite enrollment will be limited and first-come, first-served. Sign up in the Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge starting on Thursday, February 14, at 8:00 AM.

For the 2013 Annual Conference in New York, the Student and Emerging Professionals Committee seeks established professionals to volunteer as practice interviewers for the Mock Interview Sessions. Participating as an interviewer is an excellent way to serve the field and to assist with the professional development of the next generation of artists and scholars.

In these sessions, interviewers pose as a prospective employer, speaking with individuals in a scenario similar to the Interview Hall at the conference. Each session is composed of approximately 10–15 minutes of interview questions and a quick review of the application packet, followed by 5–10 minutes of candid feedback. Whenever possible, the committee matches interviewers and interviewees based on medium or discipline.

Interested candidates must be current CAA members and prepared to give six successive twenty-minute interviews with feedback in a two-hour period on one or both of these days: Thursday, February 14, 10:00 AM–NOON and 4:00–6:00 PM; and Friday, February 15, 10:00 AM–NOON and 4:00–6:00 PM. Conference registration, while encouraged, is not required to be a mock interviewer. Desired for the sessions are art historians, art educators, designers, museum-studies professionals, critics, curators, and studio artists with tenure and/or experience on a search committee. You may volunteer for one, two, three, or all four Mock Interview Sessions.

Please send your name, affiliation, position, contact information, and the days and times that you are available to Jennifer Stoneking-Stewart, chair of the Student and Emerging Professionals Committee. Deadline: January 14, 2013.

The Mock Interview Sessions are not intended as a screening process by institutions seeking new hires.

This week CAA will begin mailing Conference Information and Registration, which provides important details, instructions, and deadlines for attending and participating in the 101st Annual Conference, to all individual and institutional CAA members. Nonmembers and those wanting a digital file now can download a PDF of the booklet. The conference will take place February 13–16, 2013, in New York.

Following sections on registration and CAA membership, Conference Information and Registration describes travel, lodging, and transportation options and explains the basic processes for candidates seeking jobs and employers placing classifieds and renting booths and tables in the Interview Hall. In addition, the publication lists topics for eleven Professional-Development Workshops. If you want to connect with former and current professors and students, consult the Reunions and Receptions page. The booklet includes paper forms for CAA membership, conference registration, workshops, special events, and mentoring enrollment.

The contents of Conference Information and Registration also appear on the conference website, which is being updated regularly between now and the February meeting. You may also choose to join CAA and register online.

CAA invites interested participants to attend its first Humanities and Technology Camp (THATCamp) “unconference” on digital art history, taking place on the two days immediately preceding the Annual Conference: Monday, February 11, NOON–5:00 PM, and Tuesday, February 12, 9:00 AM–3:00 PM. The event will take place at Macaulay Honors College, City University of New York, located at 35 West 67th Street in Manhattan.

CAA’s THATCamp is free and open to graduate students and scholars at all career stages. The only requirements for attendance are an active interest in how digital technology is affecting the discipline of art history and the humanities in general and a willingness to share your questions and ideas. Space is limited! Register today to secure your place. Graduate students may apply for a limited number of fellowships funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to lessen the cost of travel expenses to New York.

The purpose of the CAA unconference is manifold: to increase awareness of existing digital projects in art history, architectural history, and archeology; to foster a community of scholars invested in digital art history; to identify digital tools that may be used to improve future CAA conferences; to facilitate technology workshops and training sessions; and to provide support for art-history professionals pursuing nontraditional career paths.

“Unconference” is a term that may be new to people in art and academia but has, in fact, been around since the late 1990s. It is used to describe a participant-driven meeting that in many respects is the opposite of a traditional academic conference. Formal presentations or a set program of speakers are not determined beforehand. Unconferences generate productive encounters among diverse groups of people, an experience that can be compared to being a member of an improvisational acting troupe.

THATCamp itself, however, is a recent invention, founded in 2008 at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as a meeting for technology and humanities professionals—including professors, librarians, and museum curators—to share ideas and collaborate on projects. The camps have since sprung up in locations across the United States and internationally.

Registration is now open for the 101st Annual Conference, taking place February 13–16, 2013, in New York. Register before the early deadline, December 14, 2012, to ensure the lowest rate and your place in the online Directory of Attendees.

Registration includes access to all conference sessions and to the Book and Trade Fair. Each registrant will receive a copy of the Conference Program and access to the online Directory of Attendees, along with online access to Abstracts 2013 and free admission to selected museums and galleries throughout greater New York during the conference.

Those interested in Career Services should sign up now to secure a place in several high-demand activities. Register for a variety of Professional Development Workshops covering topics ranging from grant writing to tenure issues. Sign up for Mentoring Sessions that include the Artists’ Portfolio Review and Career Development Mentoring.

Making travel plans and hotel reservations? Check out the special discounts available to conference attendees. Students can take advantage of further reductions on accommodations at select conference hotels.

You may also purchase tickets for a variety of Events taking place in the New York area, including:

• Opening Night Reception at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Chelsea Gallery District Walking Tour
• Montclair Art Museum Tour and Reception

Space is limited, so please register early.

CAA will regularly update the conference website over the next few months, with additional details on the program, awards, tours, and more. A list of session names and chairs has been posted, with the names of all speakers and the titles of their presentations coming in November.

The CAA Annual Conference is the world’s largest international forum for professionals in the visual arts, offering more than two hundred stimulating sessions, panel discussions, roundtables, and meetings. CAA anticipates more than six thousand artists, art historians, students, curators, critics, educators, art administrators, and museum professionals to attend the meeting, which brings CAA’s Centennial year to a close.