CAA News

CAA warmly thanks the five thousand attendees, participants, exhibitors, and guests who made the 100th Annual Conference in Los Angeles a tremendous success.

In the next few issues of CAA News, you will read more about the conference—including summaries of ARTspace, the Distinguished Scholar session honoring Rosalind Krauss, the speakout sessions, and more—as well as reports from the meetings of the Board of Directors and the Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committees, which all have full, exciting agendas for the coming year.

The 101st CAA Annual Conference will take place in New York, February 13–16, 2012. The 2013 Call for Participation, which solicits your papers and presentations for the event, will be published and mailed in March and also be available on the CAA website as a PDF for download.

Image: Graduate Public Practice from the Otis College of Art and Design presented “Re/Locating Learning: Public Practices as Art” at the Los Angeles conference (photograph by Christopher Howard)

In 2013, Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation intends to publish a special issue dedicated to the topic of “Digital Art History.” For full details on the issue, please visit the Taylor and Francis webpage for the journal.

At present, the field of art history has amassed considerable knowledge concerning how to digitize texts and images and make them widely available in well-structured formats. However, the state of the field with respect to scholarship in the digital age is less clear. Visual Resources seek to answer the following questions and more:

• What kind of art-historical scholarship is now possible in the digital environment that could not be done before?
• What new types of questions can be posed now?
• How might digitized resources (texts and images) be used to produce innovative scholarship?
• How might the digital environment allow scholars to address existing or “traditional” questions with new evidence or conclusions?

While exploring what is now possible, it is also important to consider the challenges that the field of art history still faces with respect to scholarship in the digital age. Contributors might also ask what prevents the field of art history from widespread adoption of the new research tools and techniques associated with the digital humanities.

Visual Resources invites researchers and educators in art history and visual studies to submit proposals for this special issue. Abstracts should be 750 words in length and be accompanied by a one-page CV that includes up-to-date contact information for the proposed contributor(s). Abstracts and CVs should be sent to Murtha Baca and Anne Helmreich, coeditors for this special issue. Deadline: March 23, 2012 (5:00 PM PST).

Meet Baca, Helmreich, and representatives from Taylor and Francis at the upcoming CAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, February 24, 2012, 2:30 PM, at the Routledge booth in the Book and Trade Fair. Refreshments will be served at the booth.

CAA’s 100th Annual Conference takes place this week: Wednesday–Saturday, February 22–25, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Checking In

Early, advance, complimentary, exhibitor, and press registrants can check in at the registration area in Concourse Foyer, Level 1, at the Los Angeles Convention Center beginning Tuesday, February 21, at 5:00 PM. Each registrant is entitled to a conference tote bag, the Conference Program, the Directory of Attendees, online access to Abstracts 2012, and entry to the Book and Trade Fair (open Thursday–Saturday). Your tickets to special events and workshops will be included in your registration packet. If you have not yet purchased tickets for the Centennial Reception and for professional-development workshops, you can do so at registration. These tickets are subject to limited availability.

Registration days and hours are:

• Tuesday, February 21, 5:00–7:00 PM
• Wednesday-Friday, February 22–24, 8:00 AM–7:00 PM
• Saturday, February 25, 8:30 AM–2:30 PM

Plan Ahead

Two large, non-CAA events—ceremonies for newly naturalized US citizens—will take place on Wednesday, February 22, at 9:00 AM and at 1:30 PM. Approximately ten thousand new citizens and their guests are expected to attend each ceremony. CAA strongly recommends that you check in at registration on Tuesday evening. If you arrive on Wednesday, please allow yourself ample time before your first session.

Parking

Parking at the convention center is available in either the West Hall or the South Hall parking lots. The West Hall parking is closest to the conference and located off LA Live Way, between 11th Street and Pico Boulevard, The entrance to South Hall parking is off Venice Boulevard, west of Figueroa Street. Convention-center parking costs $12 per day (subject to change). Overflow parking areas can be found nearby—please download and review this map. Parking rates vary from $10 to $25 per day, and most lots have a daily rate of less than $20 per day. All parking is first-come first-served. For more information, contact the Los Angeles Convention Parking Office at 213-741-1151, ext. 5850.

Hotel Discounts and Shuttle

The Millennium Biltmore has a few rooms left in the CAA block. Prices start at $120 per night for students. Call 800-245-8673 to make your reservation. CAA offers a free shuttle-bus service between the convention center and the Westin Bonaventure and the Millennium Biltmore. The JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE and the Figueroa Hotel are within easy walking distance of the convention center.

Abstracts

Your conference registration includes access to the Abstracts 2012, which is available online as a PDF. This publication is not available in print. Log into your CAA account using your CAA User/Member ID# and password and click the Abstracts 2012 icon on the welcome screen to download the 1.9 MB document. If you do not know your User/Member ID# or password, follow the help instructions on the log-in screen.

Registrants for the 2012 Annual Conference in Los Angeles can now download Abstracts 2012. This publication, available as a PDF, summarizes the contents of hundreds of papers and talks that will be presented in program sessions.

Reading the abstracts in advance can help you plan your daily schedule at the conference. Program sessions are alphabetized by the chair’s last name and appear in the contents pages (4–10). An index in the back of the publication names all the speakers. Alternatively, use your Adobe Reader to conduct a keyword search for terms relevant to your interests.

After conference registrants log into their CAA account, they can click the “Abstracts 2012” image in the middle of the screen to download the PDF (1.9 MB). Abstracts 2012 is part of the registration package; there is no added cost to paid or complimentary registrants for this publication.

Conference attendees who purchase single-time slot tickets, or those who want Abstracts 2012 but are not coming to Los Angeles, may attain the document for a charge: $30 for CAA members and $35 for nonmembers. Abstracts 2012 will remain on the CAA website for download or sale through July 31, 2012.

Beginning with the 2010 conference in Chicago, CAA offers its Abstracts exclusively as a PDF download. Past issues of the printed publication from 1999 to 2009 are also available. The cost per copy is $30 for CAA members and $35 for nonmembers. For more information and to order, please contact Roberta Lawson, CAA office coordinator.

 

CAA encourages you to look into a handful of free and low-cost smart-phone apps to help you navigate museums, galleries, and other art-related events, enhancing your conference experience in Los Angeles. Most of the apps, which offer an abundance of exhibition information for the Hammer and Fowler Museums and for Pacific Standard Time, are designed for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches; several work with mobile devices using Android. A few of these apps assist with travel and transportation around the city, and with finding restaurants. The apps are available in the iTunes Store and in the Android Market.

Art Openings and Events

ArtConcierge is a free guide to galleries, art fairs, and art-related exhibits, including programming for the Getty Center’s Pacific Standard Time and to independently organized events. GPS navigation is available for all selections. ArtConcierge is produced by Fabrik Media Group, which publishes the magazine Fabrik.

Artcards gives you free instant access to a comprehensive list of current art openings, talks, performances, screenings, and related events in greater Los Angeles. Galleries are grouped by neighborhood or city. Artcards provides names of artists, titles of shows, event day and time, and links to maps and to each gallery’s website.

The free LA Weekly app offers content from the printed newspaper and its website. Updated events listings include: live music, art openings, comedy clubs, theater, and dining options. Search for a particular event or use a GPS device to find events near you. More than two thousand restaurant listings and write-ups by the celebrated food critic Jonathan Gold. Get it for Apple or Android devices.

Museums and Exhibitions

Learn all about the Los Angeles art world from the 1940s to today with The Getty: Art in LA, Pacific Standard Time at the Getty Center. This free app for both Apple and Android devices highlights all four Pacific Standard Time exhibitions held at the Getty Center. See paintings, sculptures, photographs, and archival material, listen to audio, and read the stories behind the artworks.

Getty Goggles will help you explore and learn more about paintings in the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Simply photograph a work of art you are interested in and click the Getty result to hear insightful commentary from artists, curators, and conservators. Getty Goggles works with Apple products and mobile devices using Android.

This free app for Apple and Android can help you plan a visit to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In addition to learning about the museum’s collection, you can reserve tickets for film screenings, concerts, lectures, and gallery talks. Video interviews with artists and curators are also available. The museum has also created an Apple-only app for its exhibition, California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way.”

Use the free Hammer Museum app to plan your visit and to experience in-depth content about the Hammer’s exhibitions and collections. Features include: interviews with artists and curators discussing specific works of art, videos of artists describing their practices, and excerpts from exhibition catalogues. The Hammer app is compatible with Apple products and mobile devices using Android.

The free Fowler Museum Guide app provides visitors with a tour of the Fowler Museum’s permanent collection of more than 150,000 art and ethnographic objects and 600,000 archaeological objects representing ancient, traditional, and contemporary cultures of Africa, Native and Latin America, and Asia and the Pacific. The app also gives information on temporary exhibitions.

Designed to help you learn more about the Norton Simon Museum’s current and upcoming exhibitions and events, this free app lets you browse the collections, listen to podcasts and audio stops, watch videos, and learn about the museum’s history. The app also lists the museum’s hours, admission fees, and directions.

Listen to the award-winning Norton Simon Museum Audio Tour. More than four hundred stops are featured in English and Spanish, including tours for adults and children. Look for the audio-tour icon and stop number on the labels of many of the museum’s artworks.

Navigating the City

Mappity Los Angeles, available for $.99, offers a map of Los Angeles with features such as street-level map details and custom mapping for door-to-door travel.

 

The free Beat the Traffic app for Apple, Android, and BlackBerry tells you about the road and traffic conditions in your desired city. Its features include: real-time traffic maps, GPS displays of traffic jams in your area, and weather information. Beat the Traffic HD Plus+ is an ad-free version that is available for $4.99 in the iTunes Store and $3.99 in the Android Market.

The California Traffic Report, a free app produced by the University of California, San Diego, delivers real-time traffic reports, including approximate commute time, traffic speeds, and maps. It covers greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego.

Yes, public transportation does exist in Los Angeles. Use the free Go-Metro Los Angeles app to help you navigate the city’s bus system. Features include: maps, timetables, fare information, and a trip planner.

 

Eat Like a Native

The Los Angeles Street Food app ($1.99) covers cheap eats in the city, from Vietnamese pho houses to Mexican taco stands to grilled-cheese food trucks. The interactive maps will help you navigate the city, while listings are organized into categories and publish in-depth reviews, Twitter links, and picture slideshows. This app, though, does not track food trucks.

Vegan Los Angeles supports a healthy vegan lifestyle in Los Angeles. Find recipes and vegan restaurants and watch cooking demonstrations using this free app for Apple and Android mobile devices.

 

Revised on February 16, 2012.

Please visit the website for the 100th Annual Conference in Los Angeles for complete details about obtaining access to wireless-internet connections at the Los Angeles Convention Center and the four conference hotels.

Rosanne Gibel, a professor of graphic design at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in Florida and chair of CAA’s Education Committee, has catalogued all design-related sessions and events taking place at next week’s 100th Annual Conference in Los Angeles. Below is a chronological list by day.

Wednesday, February 22

Deconstructing Costume Histories: Rereading Identities in Fashion Collections and Exhibitions
Wednesday, February 22, 9:30 AM–12:00 NOON
Concourse Meeting Room 409AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Ian McDermott, ARTstor; Consuelo Gutierrez, independent scholar

ARTspace
Citizen Designer: Authoring a Definition
Wednesday, February 22, 9:30 AM–12:00 NOON
West Hall Meeting Room 515A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Gary Rozanc, Columbia College Chicago; Alyson Beaton, Columbia College Chicago

Design Studies Forum Business Meeting
Wednesday, February 22, 12:30–2:00 PM
West Hall Meeting Room 515B, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center

CAA Education Committee
Who Do We Teach? Challenges and Strategies in Recognizing Our Students, and Developing and Supporting Curriculum for Multiple Constituencies
Wednesday, February 22, 12:30–2:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 403A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Joan Giroux, Columbia College Chicago; Cindy Maguire, Adelphi University

Design, from “California Dreamin’” to “Designed in California,” ca. 1965–2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2:30–5:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 406AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: James Housefield, University of California, Davis; Stuart Kendall, California College of the Arts

Art History Open Session: Renaissance Art
Form and Function: Art and Design?
Wednesday, February 22, 2:30–5:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 405, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Antonia Madeleine Boström, J. Paul Getty Museum

Thursday, February 23

SPEAKOUT! CAA’s Strategic Plan for the Annual Conference and You
Thursday, February 23, 8:00–9:00 AM
Concourse Meeting Room 402AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center

Foundations in Art: Theory and Education
Foundations in Literature: Developing a Culture of Reading within the Art and Design Foundations Program
Thursday, February 23, 12:30–2:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 404A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Sara Dismukes, Troy University

Critical Craft Forum
What Is Contemporary about Craft?
Thursday, February 23, 5:30–7:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 408A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Namita Gupta Wiggers, Museum of Contemporary Craft; Elizabeth Agro, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Friday, February 24

Design Education 2.0: Teaching in a Techno-Cultural Reality
Friday, February 24, 9:30 AM–12:00 NOON
Concourse Meeting Room 404A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Ashley John Pigford, University of Delaware

Centennial Session
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: CAA Town Hall Meeting
Friday, February 24, 9:30 AM–12:00 NOON
West Hall Meeting Room 515B, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Margaret Lazzari, University of Southern California

AIGA Business Meeting
Friday, February 24, 12:30–2:00 PM
West Hall Meeting Room 502A, Los Angeles Convention Center

Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design
Windgate Fellowship Program: A Case for Funding Professional Development Opportunities for Graduating Seniors
Friday, February 24, 12:30–2:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 408A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Stephanie Moore, Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design, University of North Carolina, Asheville

Is It Time to Question the “Privileging” of Visual Art?
Friday, February 24, 2:30–5:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 409AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Greta Berman, Juilliard School; Ellen K. Levy, independent artist, New York

Centennial Session
Connections: Architecture and Design in Los Angeles at Midcentury
Friday, February 24, 2:30–5:00 PM
Bing Theater, Plaza Level, Bing Center, Los Angeles Times Central Court entrance, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Chair: Ruth Weisberg, University of Southern California

CAA Annual Members’ Business Meeting and Reception
Friday, February 24, 5:30–7:00 PM
West Hall Meeting Room 503, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Keynote address: April Greiman

New Media Caucus
Code as Craft: Programming in the Art and Design Curriculum
Friday, February 24, 5:30–7:00 PM
Concourse Meeting Room 402AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Michael Salmond, Florida Gulf Coast University

Saturday, February 25

Design Studies Forum
Design, Thing Theory, and the Lives of Objects
Saturday, February 25, 12:30–2:00 PM
West Hall Meeting Room 503, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chair: Leslie Atzmon, Eastern Michigan University

CAA Committee on Intellectual Property
Give and Take: Copyright’s Balancing Act
Saturday, February 25, 12:30–2:00 PM
West Hall Meeting Room 515B, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Christine L. Sundt, Visual Resources; Doralynn Pines, Metropolitan Museum of Art, emerita

In honor of CAA’s Centennial, the artist Sheryl Oring will ask 2012 Annual Conference attendees a single question: What is the role of the artist? Over the course of a two-day performance in Los Angeles, Oring will pose the question to her visitors and transcribe their answers verbatim onto note cards using a manual typewriter, with a goal of collecting one hundred answers. Hence the title of her work, 100 Possibilities. Collectively, these answers will paint a portrait of academic views about the role of the artist as CAA enters its second century as a professional organization. After the performance, Oring will collect and organize the cards into an archive that may be used to create an artist’s book and an exhibition. In addition, digital scans of the cards may eventually be published on the CAA website.

Oring’s performance will take place 1:00–5:00 PM on Wednesday, February 22, and Thursday, February 23, 2012—or until she receives her one hundred answers. CAA will set up a table for the artist in the registration area, located in Concourse Foyer, Level 1, Los Angeles Convention Center.

Oring is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores technology and its role in society through projects that incorporate both old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange. She received a CAA Professional-Development Fellowship in the Visual Arts in 2010–11 as she completed her MFA at the University of California, San Diego.

CAA has awarded travel grants to twenty art historians and artists from around the world who will convene in Los Angeles to attend and participate in the 100th Annual Conference, taking place February 22–25, 2012. The CAA International Travel Grant Program was made possible by a generous grant from the Getty Foundation.

At the conference, the twenty recipients will participate in mentoring activities and other events planned in connection with the grant. Members of CAA’s International Committee have agreed to host the participants, and the National Committee for the History of Art will also lend support to the program.

This travel-grant program is intended to familiarize international professionals with the Annual Conference program, including the session participation process. CAA accepted applications from art historians, artists who teach art history, and art historians who are museum curators; those from developing countries or from nations not well represented in CAA’s membership were especially encouraged to apply. In late 2011, a jury of CAA members selected the final twenty awardees, whose names, home institutions, and primary areas of scholarly and professional interest are as follows:

• Salam Atta Sabri, Director, National Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad, Iraq. Atta Sabri conducts research on missing works of art from Iraq and is also a ceramic artist
• Parul Pandya Dhar, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. Dhar focuses on the history of Indian art and architecture to 1300 CE, cultural interactions in South and Southeast Asia, the visual arts and visual archives as sources of history, performing arts, and the historiography of Indian art
• Federico Freschi, Associate Professor, History of Art, Wits School of Arts, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Freschi’s work explores South African modern art and architecture and postcolonial identity politics
• Rosa Gabriella de Castro Gonçalves, Professor of Art Theory and Aesthetics, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil. Gonçalves is interested in the role of modernism in recent debates in art theory
• Angela Harutyunyan, Assistant Professor, Department of Fine Arts and Art History, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon. Harutyunyan is interested in methodologies of reading and historicizing contemporary art and studies the political aesthetics of the Armenian avant-garde
• Gyöngyvér Horváth, Assistant Professor of Art History, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, Hungary. Horváth studies the historiography of narrative painting
• Didier Houenoude, Assistant Professor, Université d’Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Benin. Houenoude teaches art history and drawing and closely follows contemporary art in Benin
• Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan, Visiting Faculty, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. Khan’s work focuses on Sikh art and architecture
• Irena Kossowska, Professor of Art History, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland. Kossowska works on national identity in Central Europe as reflected in the visual arts and also researches nineteenth- and twentieth-century European art
• Jean Celestin Ky, Professor of Art History, University of Ouagadougou, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Celestin researches African art and works with the National Museum of Burkina Faso in conserving and promoting contemporary art
• Pavlína Morganová, Researcher and Professor, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic. Morganová works on contemporary art
• Cristian Nae, PhD Lecturer, Department of Art History and Theory, Faculty of Fine Arts, George Enescu University of Arts, Iaşi, Romania. Nae examines post–World War II art history, critical theory, hermeneutics, and cultural studies
• Judy Peter, Lecturer, Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture, and Head, Department of Jewellery Design and Manufacture, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. Peter works in art history, theory, cultural and postcolonial studies, the history of jewellery. She is also interested in curriculum development in the context of a neoliberal South Africa
• Daniel Premerl, Research Associate, Institute of Art History, Zagreb, Croatia. Premerl is interested in Renaissance and Baroque art and art-historical methodology
• Malvina Rousseva, Professor, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria. Rousseva pursues research in archaeology, Thracian tombs and temples, interdisciplinary studies, architectural history, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy
• Ganna Rudyk, Deputy Director General of Research, Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine. Rudyk is a specialist in Islamic art who presents Islamic and generally non-Western art to broad publics
• Dóra Sallay, Curator of Italian Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary. Sallay works with thirteenth- to sixteenth-century Italian art, in particular Sienese painting, the history of collecting and museums, and the history of the reception of Gothic and Renaissance painting
• Olabisi Silva, Director, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria. Silva is working on the first roaming African art academy, placing equal emphasis on artistic practice, art history, critical thinking, and curatorial practice
• Shao-Chien Tseng, Associate Professor of Art History, Graduate Institute of Art Studies, National Central University, Jhongli City, Taiwan. A specialist in nineteenth-century French art, Tseng is interested in modern art and natural history, landscape painting and photography, and postcolonialism and Taiwanese art
• Jagath Weerasinghe, Director and Professor, Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Trained in fine arts, archeology, and conservation, Weerasinghe recently established his country’s first graduate program in art history, which will offer postgraduate diplomas and master of arts degrees in art history, focusing primarily on Asian art

CAA hopes that this travel grant will not only increase international participation in the organization’s activities, but will also expand international networking and the exchange of ideas. The Getty Foundation grant allows CAA to expand greatly the participation of international colleagues beyond its regular program of Annual Conference Travel Grants for graduate students and international artists and scholars.

Advance registration for CAA’s 100th Annual Conference, taking place February 22–25, 2012, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, has been extended to Monday, January 30, 2012.  This is also your last chance to purchase advance tickets for special events and workshops.

Registration

Advance registration ends on Monday, January 30, 2012.

• Members: $235
• Student and retired members: $135
• Nonmembers: $365

Special Events

Join us for a variety of special events including CAA’s Centennial Reception at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Tours to the Getty Villa and the Getty Center, An Evening at UCLA, as well as the Santa Monica and Venice Art Tour!

Workshops

Looking to advance your career? This year’s conference will include a bevy of professional-development workshops designed specifically for artists, art historians, and professionals in the visual arts. Workshops address topics such securing tenure, job hunting, and much more! Workshop space is limited, so book your place today! Each workshop costs $45.

Hotel Discounts

Have you booked your accommodation yet? Conference attendees can also take advantage of substantial discounts on rooms at the JW Marriott Los Angeles LA Live, just steps away from the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Westin Bonaventure, the Millennium Biltmore, and the Figueroa Hotel also offer discounts to conference attendees.