CAA News

CAA invites individual members to submit abstracts for Poster Sessions at the 101st Annual Conference in New York, taking place February 13–16, 2013. Poster Sessions—presentations displayed on bulletin boards by an individual for small groups—usually include a brief narrative paper mixed with illustrations, tables, graphs, and similar presentation formats. The poster display can intelligently and concisely communicate the essence of the presenter’s research, synthesizing its main ideas and directions. Colorado State University has published useful general information on Poster Sessions.

Poster Sessions offer excellent opportunities for extended informal discussion and conversation focused on topics of scholarly or pedagogical research. Posters are displayed for three days during the conference, so that attendees can view the work even when the authors are not physically present. Poster Sessions take place in a high-traffic area, in close proximity to the Book and Trade Fair and conference rooms.

Proposals for Poster Sessions must include the following:

• Title of Poster Session
• Summary of project, not to exceed 250 words
• Name of presenter(s), affiliation(s), and CAA member number(s)
• A two-page CV
• Complete mailing address and telephone number
• Email address

Proposals are due on May 4, 2012—the same deadline as the regular call for papers for the 2013 conference. Send all materials to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs. A working group of the Annual Conference Committee selects Poster Sessions based on individual merit and space availability. Accepted presenters must maintain their memberships through the conference.

Displays must be assembled by 10:00 AM on Thursday, February 14, and cleared by 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 16. Live presentations last ninety minutes and are scheduled during the lunch breaks on Thursday and Friday, 12:30–2:00 PM. During this time, presenters stand by their poster displays while others view the presentation and interact with the presenters.

CAA assigns presenters one freestanding bulletin board (about 4 x 8 feet of display space) onto which they can affix their poster display and other materials, as well as a table to place materials such as handouts or a sign-up sheet to record the names and addresses of attendees who want to receive more information. CAA also provides pushpins or thumbtacks to attach components to the bulletin board on the day of installation.

Printed materials must be easily read at a distance of four feet. Each display should include the title of the presentation (104-point size) and the name of the presenter(s) and his or her affiliation(s) (72-point size). CAA recommends a point size of 16–18 or larger for body text. No electrical support is available in the Poster Session area; you must have your own source of power (e.g., a battery).

Contact

For more information about proposals of Poster Sessions for the 2013 Annual Conference, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-392-4405.

CAA wishes to thank the artists, art historians, curators, critics, educators, and other professionals in the visual arts who generously served as mentors in two Career Services programs at the 2012 Annual Conference in Los Angeles: the Artists’ Portfolio Review and Career Development Mentoring. The organization also thanks participants in the Mock Interview Sessions and the leaders of the Roundtable Discussions. Last, CAA acknowledges the efforts of Professional Development Workshops presenters and the speakers at Orientation.

Artists’ Portfolio Review

Michael Bzdak, Johnson & Johnson; Susan Canning, College of New Rochelle; Brian Curtis, University of Miami; Diane Edison, University of Georgia; Peter Kaniaris, Anderson University; Jason Lahr, University of Notre Dame; Suzanne F. W. Lemakis, Fine Arts Department, Citigroup; Craig Lloyd, College of Mount St. Joseph; Margaret Murphy, New Jersey City University; Judith Pratt, Judith Pratt Studio; Habibur Rahman, Claflin University; John Silvis, New York Center for Art and Media Studies; and Steve Teczar, Maryville University of Saint Louis.

Career Development Mentoring

Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Jeff Downing, San Francisco State University; Ciara Ennis, Pitzer Art Galleries, Pitzer College; James Farmer, Virginia Commonwealth University; Reni Gower, Virginia Commonwealth University; Amy Hauft, Virginia Commonwealth University; Richard Heipp, University of Florida; Jim Hopfensperger, Western Michigan University; Dennis Y. Ichiyama, Purdue University; Sue Johnson, St. Mary’s College of Maryland; Bob Kaputof, Virginia Commonwealth University; Mitch Kern, Alberta College of Art and Design; John Kleinpeter, California State University, Long Beach; Heather McPherson, University of Alabama, Birmingham; Jo-Ann Morgan, Western Illinois University; Anna Novakov, St. Mary’s College of California; Morgan Paine, Florida Gulf Coast University; Pamela Patton, Southern Methodist University; Doralynn Pines, Metropolitan Museum of Art (retired); Andrea Polli, University of New Mexico; Judith Pratt, Judith Pratt Studio; David Raizman, Drexel University; David Sokol, University of Illinois, Chicago (emeritus); Katherine Taylor, Kennesaw State University; Joe A. Thomas, Kennesaw State University; Ann Tsubota, Raritan Valley Community College; Jenifer K. Ward, Cornish College of the Arts; John Watson, Webster University; and Charles Wright, Western Illinois University.

Mock Interview Sessions

Temma Balducci, Arkansas State University; Steven Bleicher, Coastal Carolina University; Susan Bowman, Rowan University; Scott Contreras-Koterbay, East Tennessee State University; Jessica Dandona, Dishman Art Museum, Lamar University; Sara Dismukes, Troy University; Randall C. Griffin, Southern Methodist University; Dottie Habel, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Carolyn Henne, Florida State University; Janet Hethorn, University of Delaware; Dennis Y. Ichiyama, Purdue University; Bob Kaputof, Virginia Commonwealth University; Deborah Karpman, University of Montevallo; Niku Kashef, California State University, Northridge; David LaPalombara, Ohio University; Beauvais Lyons, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Rebecca Nolan, Savannah College of Art and Design; Anna Novakov, St. Mary’s College of California; Kim Russo, Ringling College of Art and Design; Joe Seipel, Virginia Commonwealth University; Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Vanderbilt University; David Yager, University of California, Santa Cruz; and Sam Yates, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Roundtables

Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Diane Edison, University of Georgia; Suzanne F. W. Lemakis, Fine Arts Department, Citigroup; Leo Morrissey, Winston-Salem State University; Edward Shanken, University of Amsterdam; and John Silvis, New York Center for Art and Media Studies.

Professional Development Workshops

Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Barbara Bernstein, Rhode Island School of Design and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Steven Bleicher, Coastal Carolina University; Mika Cho, California State University, Los Angeles; Craig Dietrich, University of Southern California; Tara McPherson, University of Southern California; Nicholas Mirzoeff, New York University; Joan Saab, University of Rochester; Susan Schear, ArtIsIn; David M. Sokol, University of Illinois, Chicago (emeritus); and Blaise Tobia, Drexel University.

Orientation

Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Margaret Lazzari, University of Southern California; and David M. Sokol, University of Illinois, Chicago (emeritus).

Earlier this month, CAA sent an email blast to 2012 Annual Conference attendees, asking for feedback on all aspects of last February’s event. Please complete the survey, which has several fields for open-ended answers, by Friday, March 23, 2012.

The survey asks you to identify yourself (artist, art historian, student, etc.) and your type of institutional affiliation and then to rate your experiences with various conference events and services—from online registration and the conference hotels to session content and Career Services activities. If you attended the Book and Trade Fair or used your conference badge for free museum admission, let CAA know. The survey also asks your thoughts about the conference website and how CAA can better deliver conference information.

CAA hosted its 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration, February 22–25, 2012, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This year’s program included: four days of presentations and panel discussions on art history and visual culture; Career Services for professionals at all stages of their careers; a Book and Trade Fair; and a host of special events throughout southern California.

Attendance

Five thousand art professionals from throughout the United States and abroad—including artists, art historians, students, educators, curators, critics, collectors, and museum staff—attended the conference.

Sessions

Conference sessions featured presentations by artists, scholars, graduate students, and curators, who addressed a range of topics in art history and the visual arts. In total, the conference offered over 200 sessions, developed by CAA members, affiliated societies, and committees.

Career Services

Career Services included four days of mentoring and portfolio-review sessions, career-development workshops, and job interviews with colleges, universities, and other art institutions. Approximately 200 interviewees and 46 mentors participated in Career Services.

Book and Trade Fair

This year’s Book and Trade Fair presented over 120 exhibitors, including participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Belgium, Mexico, China, Germany, Poland, and Cuba, displaying new publications, artists’ materials, digital resources, and innovative products of interest to artists and scholars. The Book and Trade Fair also featured book signings, lectures, and demonstrations, as well as three exhibitor-sponsored program sessions on art materials and publishing.

ARTspace and ARTexchange

ARTspace, a “conference within the conference” tailored to the needs and interests of practicing artists, presented this year’s Annual Artists’ Interviews with Mary Kelly and Martin Kersels. Over 300 people attended this extraordinary event.

The ARTspace program also featured four days of panel discussions devoted to visual-arts practice, opportunities for professional development, screenings of video work curated and produced by graduate students from six Los Angeles colleges, and a symposium exploring art in the public realm. Programmed by CAA’s Services to Artists Committee, ARTspace was made possible in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ARTexchange, an open-portfolio event in which CAA artist members displayed drawings, prints, photographs, small paintings, and works on laptop computers, took place on Friday, February 24. Nearly 50 artists participated in ARTexchange this year.

Convocation and Centennial Awards

More than 400 people attended CAA’s Convocation and presentation of the 2012 Centennial Awards. Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, delivered the keynote address.

The recipients of CAA’s Centennial Awards are:

• Deborah Marrow, Leadership and Service to the Field. Presented by James Cuno, President and CEO, J. Paul Getty Trust
• Edythe and Eli Broad, Patronage and Philanthropic Support of the Arts. Presented by Steven D. Lavine, President, California Institute of the Arts
• California Lawyers for the Arts, Advocacy for the Arts. Awarded to Maria Seferian, Copresident of California Lawyers for the Arts and presented by Joseph Lewis III, Dean, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, University of California, Irvine

Awards for Distinction

More than 300 people attended CAA’s ceremony for the 2012 Awards for Distinction. The recipients of this year’s awards are:

• David Hammons, Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
• Adrian Piper, Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work
• Lucy R. Lippard, Distinguished Feminist Award
• Allan Sekula, Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
• David Antin, Frank Jewett Mather Award
• Alexander Nagel, Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
• Maryan W. Ainsworth, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
• Roy Flukinger, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
• Jacki Apple, Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
• Gabriel P. Weisberg, Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
• Francesca G. Bewer, CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
• Rebecca Molholt, Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize
• Triple Canopy and Colby Chamberlain, Art Journal Award

Centennial Book

Edited by Susan Ball, executive director emerita, The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: 100 Years of the College Art Association surveys the impressive history of the organization from 1911 to the present. The 330-page hardcover book was published jointly by CAA and Rutgers University Press.

Special Events

Following the Centennial Convocation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted a Centennial Reception on Wednesday evening, February 22. Hundreds of attendees gathered to celebrate CAA’s 100th anniversary and enjoyed exclusive access to the museum’s galleries.

Save the Date

CAA’s 101st Annual Conference will be held in New York, February 13–16, 2013.

About CAA

The College Art Association is dedicated to providing professional services and resources for artists, art historians, and students in the visual arts. CAA serves as an advocate and a resource for individuals and institutions nationally and internationally by offering forums to discuss the latest developments in the visual arts and art history through its Annual Conference, publications, exhibitions, website, and other events. CAA focuses on a wide range of issues, including education in the arts, freedom of expression, intellectual-property rights, cultural heritage and preservation, workforce topics in universities and museums, and access to networked information technologies. Representing its members’ professional needs since 1911, CAA is committed to the highest professional and ethical standards of scholarship, creativity, criticism, and teaching.

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.