CAA News Today

Getty-Sponsored Meetings on the Future of Art Bibliography

In response to the uncertain future of the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA), and concerned with helping anticipate and facilitate new developments in art scholarship, the Getty Research Institute organized two meetings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the ARTstor office in New York on April 20–21, 2010. Funded with a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the event, called “The Future of Art Bibliography in the 21st Century,” convened a small but passionate group of art librarians, professors, publishers, information specialists, and CAA representatives that began discussing the state of art bibliographies, research, and scholarship.

Kathleen Salomon, head of library services and bibliography at the Getty Research Institute, writes, “Our goal was to review current practices, take stock of changes, and seriously consider developing more sustainable and collaborative ways of supporting the bibliography of art history in the future.” The Getty has just released a brief summary of the April meetings, which describes outcomes and indicates important next steps. Appendices list the twenty-four members of the Future of Art Bibliography in the 21st Century Task Force, which includes Linda Downs, CAA executive director; the forty-five participants in the open meeting on April 20; and agendas for the two meetings.

CAA Summary of the Meetings

During the two days of discussion, ideas of scholarly authority and discipline comprehensiveness were discussed in relation to BHA. A key topic was a systemic process (creating a record of publication in the field) versus a critical approach (emphasizing the reliability or authority of a search). While many meeting participants agreed that complete breadth is an impossible goal, approaches to a future art bibliography should be as complete as possible, which is helpful in fending off duplicative research and the misrepresentation of ideas, according to Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann of Princeton University.

With internet research ever increasing, especially among undergraduate students, the popularity-driven results of search engines must be countered with reliable sources of knowledge, said Elizabeth Mansfield of New York University. She recently entered a lesser-known artist from the nineteenth century into Google Scholar; of the fifteen pages of results, none referenced the work of the most important scholar on that artist. Without a trustworthy body of knowledge on the web, authoritative research may drown in a sea of extraneous, even irrelevant material.

Since BHA covered only Western art—the founding editor Michael Rinehart noted that H. W. Janson’s survey textbook was the original model—inclusiveness is key to moving forward. Tom Cummins of Harvard University mentioned that references to only half his scholarship on South American art is archived in BHA: work dealing with colonialism (that is, Western influences) is included, but other publications are not found there. Any future bibliography should, of course, embrace scholarship on Asian, African, and South American art.

Further, because of increasingly multidisciplinary approaches in art history, an art bibliography should establish consistent metadata, with much of the information (from general publication information to keywords to abstracts) for a database generated by authors and publishers before publication. Multilingual subject headings, for example, are a must for a future art bibliography, as are linking, tagging, and other user-generated notations, as recommended in a paper by Jan Simane of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. Simane cited artlibraries.net as a model for a art-historical bibliography that would include such additional capabilities. Concerns about how to include citations from born-digital academic journals, which have become more numerous in recent years, into an art bibliography were also touched on in the meeting, as were resources in art history not traditionally captured by existing catalogues.

Collaboration and sustainability are also necessities, as single organizations like the Getty, CAA, the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS), or the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA) can no longer host and maintain a bibliographic database on their own. This is especially evident with BHA, which received its final update of 135,000 records in spring 2010. Since BHA indexing ceased in summer 2009, one meeting participant estimated that two weeks would be needed to catch up on cataloguing one week’s worth of backlogged entries. However, it is unclear to the task force if there is an immediate need to plug this deepening hole, or if alternative approaches to bibliographies could better serve scholars.

Representatives from art bibliographies similar to BHA made short presentations. The Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, reported Carole Ann Fabian of Columbia University, has three full-time indexers and a couple part-timers, but the bibliography’s scope—English-language publications from the 1930s to the present—is narrow enough to be sustainable. Fabian also talked about the index’s financial model as relying on aggregators, subscriptions, and technological and administrative resources at her university. Volunteer groups of scholars, it was thus determined at the meetings, could not sustain a comprehensive bibliography, but collaborations among institutions could alleviate the cataloguing burden. For example, the European-based Kubikat has no harvesting tool and all entries are done manually, said Rüdiger Hoyer of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, but the three German and Italian institutions that operate it are assigned specific periodicals to index.

Questions that remain open for discussion ranged from practical issues (“Do we need full abstracts or just subject headings?”) to philosophical inquiries (“Does an art bibliography best facilitate art-historical research, or do other methods need exploring?”) Creating an environment for discovery and enlightened self-interest in an art bibliography, in contrast to the older method of working toward the greater good, was put forward in the meetings. In the face of the increasing instrumentalization of the humanities in higher education, perhaps the most pressing concern is how to more strongly articulate the need for a comprehensive art bibliography.

Next Steps

After intensive discussion, the task force did not come to consensus on an immediate plan of action. Some members believed that the BHA model should be adhered to and expanded, and others felt a wholly new approach to art bibliographies is needed. Therefore, within the next six months the task force plans to seek funding for two things. First, it will create an international working group, which will include an outside specialist, to scan currently operating art bibliographies, which in addition to BHA include artlibraries.net, arthistoricum.net, the Avery Index, Arcade, and Kubikat, among others. The task force will also examine emerging resources and other technological opportunities. Second, the task force will establish another group, again with an outside consultant, that will conduct focus groups with librarians, scholars, publishers, and nonprofit and commercial vendors to determine their professional needs. The task force also plans to explore different business models and more clearly identify the technological and financial challenges that can sustain BHA or something like it.

A follow-up discussion took place at the ARLIS annual meeting, held on April 25, 2010, in Boston. Further meetings will be held this month at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (for participants who could not attend the New York meeting because of flights cancelled from the volcanic ash); at the yearly International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, in August 2010; and at the CAA Annual Conference in New York in February 2011.

CAA’s Online Career Center, the major database for job classifieds in the academic art world, is also an indicator of professional trends in the visual arts. As anticipated in this economic downturn, job postings decreased for full-time positions from CAA’s fiscal year 2008 (July 1, 2007–June 30, 2008) to fiscal year 2009 (July 1, 2008–June 30, 2009).

In addition, indicators from the US Department of Education and the American Association of University Professors show an increase in contingent faculty (e.g., part-time or adjunct positions). CAA, however, is not able to keep statistics on contingent faculty since most hires are made locally and not posted nationally on the Online Career Center.

General Jobs Statistics

Overall, the Online Career Center posted 1,263 jobs in FY 2009, down from 1,757 in FY 2008. A total of 643 jobs have appeared in the first six months of the current fiscal year (July 1–December 31, 2009).

In the charts below, please keep in mind that each job can be posted to multiple categories, so there is not a one-to-one relationship between job and category. Also, the category “Any” is for employers that are looking for someone to teach a broad range of classes.

The ten most frequent postings by specialty for studio art and art history in fiscal year 2009 are used as the baseline in the following four charts:

Studio Art	FY09	FY08
Any	629	1,005
Graphic/Industrial/Object	185	246
Digital/Media/Animation	150	220
Drawing/Printmaking/Paper	96	130
Sculpture/Installation/Environmental Art	92	99
Ceramics/Metals/Fiber	89	92
Photography	85	143
Art Education	73	90
Film/Video	70	89
Foundations	59	90

The above statistics represent a 30.7 percent decline in the number of positions posted in studio art.

Art History	FY09	FY08
Any	445	561
Contemporary Art	101	107
Twentieth-Century Art	79	89
General Art History	77	110
Renaissance/Baroque Art	60	64
Japanese/Korean Art	56	39
Nineteenth-Century Art	52	61
Chinese Art	49	39
South/Southeast Asian Art	45	47
Art of the United States	35	49

The above statistics represent a 14.3 percent decline in the number of positions posted in art history.

A comparison of the top-ten specializations posted in last six months (July 1–December 31, 2009) to the same period in 2008 demonstrates an overall decline of 28.9 percent in studio-art job postings.

Studio Art	2009	2008
Any	320	524
Graphic/Industrial/Object	109	124
Digital/Media/Animation	80	112
Drawing/Printmaking/Paper	45	74
Sculpture/Installation/Environmental Art	72	32
Ceramics/Metals/Fiber	42	69
Photography	50	63
Art Education	33	56
Film/Video	39	55
Foundations	31	46

Similarly, job postings in art history has seen an overall decline of 36.9.

Art History	2009	2008
Any	234	329
Contemporary Art	34	77
Twentieth-Century Art	26	60
General Art History	38	56
Renaissance/Baroque Art	25	46
Japanese/Korean Art	28	47
Nineteenth-Century Art	21	42
Chinese Art	28	41
South/Southeast Asian Art	24	38
Art of the United States	22	24

 

Jobs by States and Provinces

All postings indexed by US state and Canadian province include the following top ten in the two previous fiscal years, and the first six months of the current year.

FY 2008 (July 1, 2007–June 30, 2008)

1. New York	196
2. California	139
3. Pennsylvania	107
4. Texas	100
5. Illinois	99
6. Michigan	87
7. Massachusetts	81
8. Georgia	70
9. Florida	62
10. Ohio	55

FY 2009 (July 1, 2008–June 30, 2009)

1. New York	119
2. California	92
3. Pennsylvania	78
4. Illinois	75
5. Georgia	72
6. Texas	64
7. Massachusetts	62
8. Ohio	58
9. Michigan	55
10. Indiana	33

First half of FY 2010 (July 1–December 31, 2009)

1. New York	66
2. Illinois	50
3. Pennsylvania	42
4. Texas	36
5. California	31
6. Florida	28
7. Georgia and Missouri	27
8. Massachusetts	26
9. Michigan	25
10. Ohio	23

 

2010 CAA Annual Conference in Chicago

As of February 2, 54 employers have indicated they are interviewing at the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago: 16 booths and 31 tables in the Interview Hall have been rented, and 7 employers have told CAA about plans to interview offsite. Additional employers, which do not always inform CAA of their presence, are expected.

These numbers are similar to those for last year’s conference, when 59 institutions came to Los Angeles. CAA rented 9 booths and 37 tables in the Interview Hall; 13 employers interviewed offsite.

In comparison, at the 2008 Annual Conference in Dallas–Fort Worth—held before the recession had emerged—CAA rented 40 booths and 64 tables in the Interview Hall. Thirty institutions made interview arrangements elsewhere, bringing the total for that year to 134.

That’s a 56 percent drop in the number of institutions between the 2008 and 2009 conferences, and nearly the same decrease (60 percent) when comparing 2008 to the early totals for 2010.

Interviews at the Annual Conference, however, are just one part of Career Services offered by CAA in Chicago. Schools and institutions also meet informally with job seekers in the tables section of the Interview Hall. CAA offers professional-development workshops and roundtable discussions on a variety of career-related topics at the conference, and networking is encouraged in the Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge, which is host to special events throughout the 2010 conference.

Contact

You may request statistical information in other specializations for studio art and art history from Eugenia Lewis, CAA controller.

With this feature on the Google Book Settlement, CAA hopes to better inform you about the issues at stake, with links to articles and editorials from authors and reporters supporting or criticizing the settlement. CAA’s constituency includes both creators and users of books, and the Committee on Intellectual Property has taken up the matter for consideration and is currently considering what position, if any, to recommend.

For nearly five years, Google has been scanning books, most still under copyright, for its Google Library Book Project. More than ten million books, including many that are out of print, have been scanned since 2004.

Proponents of Google Books, which include authors, researchers, librarians, disability-rights advocates, and more, have been enthusiastic about the possibilities it offers them. However, opponents of the project—other authors, academics, publishers, and organizations such as the Open Book Alliance (which includes Microsoft, Yahoo!, Amazon, and the Internet Archive), as well as foreign governments (Google has been scanning books in languages other than English)—have been equally fierce.

Among other individuals and groups, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers protested the unauthorized copying of in-copyright books by Google. Two suits, one of them a class action, were filed against the internet company in the fall of 2005; a Copyright Class Action Settlement between Google and the author and publisher class representatives was announced in October 2008.

Objections to the settlement and statements of support were filed by September 8, 2009. The US Department of Justice launched an inquiry into the settlement and filed a statement on September 18, raising numerous concerns, including one that the agreement might violate antitrust laws. The settlement is pending before US District Judge Denny Chin, who held a status conference on October 7. At the status conference, the parties announced that they would be filing an amended settlement agreement, and Judge Chin set a November 9 deadline to do so. The parties also announced that the deadline for filing claims to receive cash payments for books that were scanned prior to May 6, 2009, has been extended to June 5, 2010.

The original settlement was complex, and parts of it will likely change during the renegotiations. One important feature was that copyright holders had the responsibility to limit previews of their out-of-print, in-copyright works, that is to say, the author or publisher would have had full rights to tell Google to remove the book if it has already been scanned or to refrain from displaying the contents of that book. Otherwise, Google could have displayed larger previews of books without the copyright holder’s permission. Unless copyright holders opted out of the settlement by September 4, 2009, their works—both in and out of print—that have already been scanned would have been subject to the settlement. As mentioned before, however, these terms may change.

The status of copyrighted images within books scanned by Google is not yet clear. Artists and photographers (except illustrators of children’s books) were excluded from the old settlement. Important questions, which may or may not be addressed in the revision, include: Will copyrighted images be reproduced in volumes available in Google Books? Will the authors or publishers who signed (sometimes limited) reproduction-rights be liable for infringement?

Recent Press and Points of View

Below are summaries of recent articles on Google Books and the settlement, which can give you a better understanding of the issue.

“Depending on one’s perspective, the landmark book-search deal represents either a literary cartel that would lead to higher prices and less competition—or a breakthrough that would make millions of hard-to-find books available to anyone online.” So writes the authors of “Google wants to be world’s librarian,” published in the October 2009 issue of eSchool News. This text is a broad account about the issues at stake and a good place to start for beginners.¹

Kenneth Crews of the Copyright Advisory Office (CAO) at Columbia University Libraries/Information Services was present at the October 7 status conference and gives an account on the CAO blog.

Alexis Madrigal, a science writer at Wired.com who is working on a book about the history of green technology, makes an impassioned case for Google Books, without which his study would have been impossible to write. He also cites online sources such as JSTOR, Proquest, arXiv, and of course Google Books as indispensable resources for twenty-first-century research, which save authors and scholars immeasurable time and money. The comments section of his article contains a useful dialogue among Madrigal and his readers; some new ideas, such having an NGO or other “profit-neutral org” take over the stewardship of Google’s initial work, have come forth in the discussion.

Miguel Helft of the New York Times addresses the prehearing issues in “In E-Books, It’s an Army vs. Google,” with a good number of objections about Google becoming too powerful, locking out competitors, and neglecting user privacy. Meanwhile in the same paper, Lewis Hyde address a subissue in the settlement, that of orphan works, whose rights Google could exploit—and profit from—in the absence of copyright holders who come forward to claim their books. “Of more than seven million works scanned by Google so far,” Hyde estimates, “four to five million. appear to be orphaned.” The settlement was “a smart way to untangle the orphan works mess, but it has some serious problems…. [P]arties to the Google settlement are asking the judge to let them be orphan guardians but without any necessary obligation to the public side of the copyright bargain.”

At the Huffington Post, Peter Brantley calls Google’s plans wrong and even dangerous in “Google Books: Right Goal, Wrong Solution.” Even though digitizing millions of books and making them searchable internationally is a laudable goal, “[a]ny settlement these parties reach will necessarily consider their own commercial gain first, trampling public rights in the process.” Congress, he feels, is the place in which the issue should be dealt.

Tim Wu at Slate writes that Google Books is “great for a researcher like me, but as a commercial venture it is almost certainly a perpetual money-loser.” With their stacks of old and unpopular books, brick-and-mortar libraries aren’t generally run for profit, and public utilities like sewer systems aren’t built “without prodding or—dare I say it—a monopoly of some kind.” Scanning books isn’t a profitable enterprise, he notes. (Even eSchool News reports that years ago Microsoft scrapped plans for a book-scanning project years ago due to unprofitability.) Wu does concede that the settlement “isn’t perfect and needs to be better to serve the public.”

November 9 Update

In addition to his own post from last week about his thoughts on the pending revision to the Google Books settlement, Kenneth Crews of the Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University provides links to two recently published articles in the November issue of the Economist’s Voice:

• Paul Courant, “What’s at Stake in the Google Books Search Settlement”
• Pamela Samuelson, “The Google Book Settlement: Real Magic or a Trick?”

Matthew Sag of DePaul University’s College of Law has recently published a substantial essay on the settlement, “The Google Book Settlement and the Fair Use Counterfactual,” which is available for download on the Social Science Research Network.

Using Google Books

According to Google, pages from books scanned without permission are not currently displayed in Google Books. However, the company is presenting preview pages from some titles through the Google Partner Program, which is not part of this settlement. The Partner Program scans only books that are approved by their copyright holders. (Of course, public-domain books are available in their entirety.) If you believe Google is displaying pages from your book without your permission, you should contact your agent, publisher, or Google directly.

Note

1. Reprinted with permission (http://www.eschoolnews.com; info@eschoolnews.com). © 2009 eSchool News, all rights reserved.

The roundtable discussion, “Leading the Full Life: Balancing Career and Family,” took place at the 2009 CAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, February 26, 2009. As a part of the Career Development Mentoring Sessions, the discussion was hosted by an artist, Marie Thibeault of California State University, Long Beach, and an art historian, Nicola Courtright of Amherst College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Thibeault prepared questions to open the discussion with the participants. Each forty-minute session was attended by a variety of individuals who were contemplating having family while either pursuing or maintaining an academic career. Practical advice was sought and discussed, and issues of breaking stereotypes and overcoming limiting prejudice, especially against women who try to achieve both career and family within academia, particularly in the field of art history, were addressed. In general, the discussion brought to light the many choices and creative strategies, including resiliency and flexibility, that one could option for in attempts to balance a very full life.

Afterward, a number of artists—nine women and one man—were asked about their experiences being a parent and raising a family while maintaining an active art practice. Here are their written responses. Click on the images of artwork to see a larger view.

Constance Mallinson

Constance Mallinson

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

When my two children were really young, I found this extremely difficult. The fatigue factor, the awesome responsibility, and the love affair you have with your children sucked up most of my creative energy. But as I was able to get some scheduled household help—and this is completely dependent on financial resources, which were very tight at the time—I managed to schedule about twenty hours of painting time during the work week. The rest of the time I was either teaching (so I could afford the childcare) or playing and caring for my children. Finances eased up a bit when they entered school, and I usually had a good six-hour workday. I had to be extremely disciplined to get work done in those time slots, though. I had to work and not wait for inspiration. Work and inspiration—they are very tied together. Also I had to accept that at some times in my life I will be more productive than in others. Right now, my children will soon both be college age, and I see incredible amounts of time opening up. But would this free time develop any differently if I were caring for a sick mate or aged parent?

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

Parenting has made me more patient and appreciative of the creative process. One really values making art when it is constantly being challenged by time constraints. There’s a connection to life and the human spirit in family. Perhaps another question might be: how has creative practice affected your parenting? I think I have given my children an appreciation and love of life and a way of interacting and being in the world.

Constance Mallinson, Couple, 2009, oil on paper, 96 x 54 in. (artwork © Constance Mallinson)

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

While there have been times I was fearful that just mentioning that I was a mother might prejudice others as to the seriousness and intentions of my work, I now see that there are many connections between parenting and making art: sensitivity, perception, caring, hard work, discipline, communication, and so on. I see raising children and being an artist as mutually reinforcing rather than at odds—but that took years to realize. I just become more relaxed about it all as it unfolds. Being a parent has been especially good for my teaching style. All the things you learn as a parent transfer to effective teaching: nurture, empathy, knowing when to let an experience happen, knowing when to let them fail, etc. Also, being a parent means having little time for socializing and networking with other artists unless they are also parents. The self-absorption of artists makes them pretty unwilling to share time with children. But I did find other artist parents to be with, and that’s important.

What support systems have been the most important to you?

Hands down—having a supportive, understanding, and contributing husband. My children’s grandparents were too old to be of help, sadly. The only time a friend ever offered to help was in exchange for writing a review of her work! There were many times I had wished for grants to be awarded only to mothers, so they could afford childcare. Not having financial resources for childcare was really frustrating at times.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

My strongest advice would be having enough money for childcare and having a supportive and willing mate. Without those, don’t consider it. You will be frustrated, angry, and exhausted. Or you have to compromise with the idea that you will not make much art until your child reaches school age. But there is always the issue of working a job too, and finding studio time. There is just nothing easy about being an artist. I wouldn’t do it differently, but I might have done it when my parents were younger. But the determination to keep making art through some very trying times has made me a stronger, more flexible, and more compassionate person overall—those are qualities a person needs to have no matter what the profession.

Hagop Najarian

The Najarian Family. From left: Dash, Andrea, Evy, and Hagop

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

I am fortunate to have a spouse that is also an artist and completely aware of the demands of being in the studio. Because parenting works at its best when both parents are sharing the duties, my creative time is only possible when my wife and I agree on a time when the children do not need our help. My kids are now eleven and twelve and more independent. When they were younger, my creative time took place after the children went to bed. So I got in the schedule of working in the studio from 8:00 to 11:00 PM. This task is always more difficult for a mother, especially in the early years of nursing and transitioning from not having a second person (the child) always reliant on you.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

It is a reality check, forcing me to be more critical with my time and the structural elements in the creative process of painting. Worrying about the right color or composition in a painting is put into a different perspective when you are changing diapers and folding laundry. The time in the studio becomes very specific: starting the work, studying the work, and deconstructing the work.

Hagop Najarian, Nature Is a Language, 2008, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 in. (artwork © Hagop Najarian)

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

We are who we are due to our life experiences. Everything I am relates to the foundational years of my youth. My identity as a parent is to provide an honest example as a human being to my children. Likewise in my paintings, I am always hoping to express an optimistic human level. As an artist, you can’t fool yourself.

The adjustments I have made as an artist are probably in the time spent socializing in the art community, which is usually the best way to be successful in exhibiting work. A direct result of being less social is not showing my work as much—parenting became a priority in my life.

What support systems have been the most important to you?

Keeping relationships with other artists who are making the same adjustments and compromises while parenting and having a productive studio life. Also, other forms of art such as making music—which really isn’t related to my exhibition career—keep me sane.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

Prioritize the important things in their lives—family, job, art career—and figure out where the art career is on that list. Prioritize what part of the art world you want: showing, selling, the community, or just making art for your own sanity. Choose your audience: who do you really want to see your work?

Do not let the social conventions and pressures of the art world dictate your happiness and joy of living life and raising your children.

Amy Thornberry

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

Really I combine the two—they completely overlap. I get many ideas while reading my daughter stories, for instance, or while making a bed I may see a marvelous shadow cast on the wall and will have to stop and draw, if only for ten minutes.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

It’s a lot about stringing those little ten-minute stretches together until I’m able to carve out larger chunks of time. For me there are no more eight-hour periods of uninterrupted time. I’m more flexible and consider change differently. I try to remember my vision for the big picture.

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

My identity as a parent is that of a sun. My daughter’s existence fills me with light and joy. As an artist I always felt I was lacking, searching. Now as a parent I try to teach my artist self that whatever I have here will be enough, that I can make it work, and to go with the light for better or worse. Foolish missteps along the way mean little in the big picture.

Whenever you have a Kramer versus Kramer day, do something to change it. Write in a journal to record your small progress, and to capture the joy and beauty in your life. Reading over this journal can help revive you when you are feeling buried in bills and chores. Do whatever feeds you, so that the discouraging times pass and you can not only function but also radiate love in your home. Then your art can grow.

And try not to let three years pass without going to the dentist.

What support systems have been the most important to you?

My fellow mom friends at the Isabel Patterson Child Development Center at California State University, Long Beach.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

Do not feel you have to adhere to anyone else’s priorities or schedule. Do what feels right for you, and don’t beat yourself up if it feels like you’re not making art for a period—you will. Take baby steps. Take tiny baby steps and ask for help.

Sandra Dal Poggetto

Sandra Dal Poggetto

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

Quite well, by keeping regular hours in the studio and being disciplined.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

Parenting has deepened my life experience and slowed down the development of my work, and perhaps broadened and deepened it—one can’t know.

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

There has not been an adjustment, only disappointment. My experience has been that an artist is judged as not being as serious about the commitment to art by choosing to have a child. This is a prejudice in the art community. Men can have children and still be an artist without this judgment.

Sandra Dal Poggetto, Alagnak, 2007, soft pastel, ptarmigan feathers, and steel wire on paper, 54 x 46 in. (artwork © Sandra Dal Poggetto)

What support systems have been the most important to you?

My husband and a few art friends, of course, but also writers—reading a lot of fiction and nonfiction has helped. Also, I try to stay rooted in my work by being very selective in the use of my time.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

I wouldn’t say “art career.” I’d say if a person is an artist by nature and wants to have a child, then he or she makes it work in whatever ways are available and possible. The solution will be imperfect. By not having children one maintains more control over one’s life—this allows an artist to be more productive, but not necessarily a better artist.

Virginia Katz

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

During the hours my children were in elementary, middle, and high school, I worked in my studio. After school, I did all the “mom” things with them: sports, music, homework, and dinner. I was tired at night but it worked. Now that my kids are in college, looking back I don’t think I would have done much very differently. There are a few moments I wish I could have done better, for example, when my elementary-age son was sick at school, it took me longer than I had wanted—I was at grad school, which was a half hour away—to get to him and take him home.

Virginia Katz and her sons, Jason and Warren

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

Parenting has given me a strong work ethic because I made the most of my available time. The way I did that was to be very organized.

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

I really wanted to have children. It was a very strong desire for me. I spent the first three years at home with them, and when they were old enough to go to preschool, I reestablished my studio practice. By now, this is not a new identity since my two sons are in college! I’m a very happy mother, and at this stage I have no empty-nest syndrome.

Virginia Katz, detail of Formations – Mixed Terrain, 2009, mixed media and mixed process on paper, 66 x 36 in. (artwork © Virginia Katz)

What support systems have been the most important to you?

My family was very helpful. My mother was happy to help me, and she did believe in me! Take family and friends up on their offers to assist, but be careful that you feel comfortable with those who help you, particularly if they stay with your children one-on-one as opposed to just picking up something at the grocery store for you.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

There are two sides to being a practicing artist. On the one hand, an active practice is divine, wonderful, fulfilling, and intellectually stimulating. However, it can be extremely frustrating and difficult if you’re making your financial living this way. At the same time, being a parent no matter what your profession is a full-time commitment. Personally, it is my belief that the child’s needs must come first; however, it is possible to work in the studio and be a good parent; it just takes patience and planning.

Philippa Blair

Philippa Blair (center) and her daughters

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

It’s not a matter of balance but instead of organizing time for creative work separate from parenting responsibilities. From a young age, my children were aware and respected their mother’s work ethic and commitment to her art. This work ethic also transferred to the children. They are now both adults and in creative professions, as an artist and an art historian, writer, and curator.

Independent of spirit, I tried to ignore my detractors. The positive side is that the criticism made me stronger and more determined. The activity of painting sometimes merges with kid’s play, and studio time was incorporated into my children’s lives at an early stage. Fun is important. Make it fun—kids learn when they make things! Balancing being a mother, artist, teacher, and partner is difficult but not impossible.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

The joys, pleasures, and hardships of parenting and the necessity of managing time have greatly improved my creative process. There is osmosis both ways, through ideas, humor, curiosity, new subject matter, travel, and more. The everyday working artist and teacher is exhausted a lot of the time, but having children can help, inspire, relax, and excite the imagination. Watching them grow, change, and develop is a bonus. We take pride in each other’s achievements.

As an artist, I never questioned my choice to become a mother. One makes it work. There are organic connections, parallels, and possibilities as creative parents, which help intellectual, spiritual growth in a wider, less self-obsessed world. Having the responsibility of children solidified my artistic commitments, and I see parenting and artistic practice as concurrent developments in a long, human life.

Philippa Blair, Dancing Bear Diptych, 2009, mixed media, 48 x 96 in. (artwork © Philippa Blair)

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

Being an artist is not always a typical nine-to-five activity. Having a home studio can help, as can having babysitters. Teaching from the time the kids were in preschool was a financial necessity. The past ten years I have been a full-time artist. Fractured conversations and interrupted sleep, though, were small prices to pay.

Parent versus artist implies a struggle to survive in a competition. Both are equally important lifelong commitments, and it’s important to include children in your creative life—it’s character building for all of us.

What support systems have been the most important to you?

Loving parents, grandparents, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, extended family members, babysitters, teaching colleagues, school and university faculties, social clubs, and artist friends. Also important were several very caring and supportive art dealers who I knew from when I first started exhibiting at the age of twenty-three. It takes a tribe of supporters to raise a child, but it also takes mostly the parents’ support. Avoid those who are waiting for you to topple off the pedestal of Supermum—you represent a threat more than anything. Male colleagues can get jealous and rage, trying to erase you from art history and advancement—but that’s okay. It’s about their fears, not yours. Concentrate on your work!

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

Being a young parent (in my mid-twenties) helped, as I had more energy and multitasking wasn’t so hard. I just worked all the time at everything—it was naïve, really! Avoid negativity and power playing, and understand that not everyone is thrilled, appreciative, understanding, or generous about your situation. Health, energy, fertility, and financial considerations are important, although I believe there is too much emphasis on materialistic culture. Money is not the answer to a richly creative life, but poverty is demoralizing—somehow there should be a balance. My children were raised in a South Pacific nation with many cultural influences and languages, and also proximity to vast natural resources and excellent schools. Their parents separated, but they maintained a connection to both.

Try and get a good general education and professional qualifications before embarking on the childrearing phase. Talk to others in similar positions who have started families. Often careful planning and other people’s advice can help calculating when the time is right. Often timing is blown apart: circumstances for me changed when I became a solo parent, when my children were five and three.

Don’t stop your artistic practice for too long. As a new parent, it’s harder to retrain, focus, and wind into it again. Keep practicing, creating something every day, so that no experience is wasted.

The privileges that come from maintaining the fluctuations of an art career develop over a long time, and the ups and downs of parenting to me are part of this journey.

Never give up and enjoy your kids—learn from them too. They are always such great artists!

Nancy Curran

Nancy Curran and her two sons

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

When my children were younger, I tried to use every minute while they napped, played with friends, or after they went to bed at night, to create. As they have grown and developed busier lives themselves, I can pretty much use a structured and preplanned time each day.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

At times, it has both helped and hindered. Parenting has helped in that I can put my worst art moments into perspective and know what is truly important are my children. It has also helped me to compartmentalize my time. I have very little spare time, so when I enter the studio, I need to focus right away.

Parenting has hindered me because, due to time constraints, it has taken me a long time, educationally, to obtain my MFA degree. On the other hand, had I not decided to take time off from my first field of study, speech pathology, to raise my children, I probably would not have taken the opportunity to return to school to develop my artistic skills until even later in life.

Nancy Curran, Submerge-Emerge, 2009, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 in. (artwork © Nancy Curran)

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

For me, this was reversed: I was a parent before I became an artist.

What support systems have been the most important to you?

Husband, mother-in-law, girl friends, and neighbors

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

Probably to be aware that parenting will be the most rewarding thing you will do in your life—but also the most frustrating thing. To balance parenting and an art career, I think it’s important to set goals, but be ready to achieve them at a slower pace. Know that there will be times of unexpected interruptions or situations beyond your control when you cannot work creatively, for example, child illness, temper tantrums and meltdowns (both yours and theirs), childcare not working out, etc. Go with it. Pick up the pace when things return to a more even level.

Hilary Norcliffe

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

I haven’t. As a single parent, I have decided I can teach and mother. I can make art and mother. But I can’t teach, make art, and mother. Making art always comes last.

As my daughter Sophie has grown older, one change I’ve found, though, is that while all my art making happened only in my head, in my exhaustion while she was a baby, I am now able to actually jot down my ideas and test out a few samples of them—which is more satisfying. One or two ideas actually manifest themselves into actual work.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

I have changed my content: my work is about my life, and my life is mainly about my daughter. I pay close attention to anthropomorphisms and fairies now. I have dreams of writing a children’s book. I have less space to work in, so my work is smaller and more self-contained. I don’t take on big projects. I let Sophie interfere in my art making (to a controlled extent), so that it can also be about spending time with her. I also try to set up work that can be done in short bursts of time—take a few stitches or strokes while the kids are distracted.

Interestingly, the content in my three-dimensional work hasn’t changed nearly as much as that in my two-dimensional work.

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

I love it. I love the much broader social circle in the community that parenting has drawn me into, and it in turn loves having an artist in their midst. I find it much healthier to have connections with a broader social spectrum.

I’ve pretty much had to give up going to openings, as they usually happen around bath time. But I never liked them that much anyway!

What support systems have been the most important to you?

Family, friends, neighbors, church. The artist community is the least supportive when it comes to parenting. However, as a single parent, I have held as beacons single mother artists such as Kim Abeles and Ann Hamilton, who have pursued highly successful careers and raised children on their own. These women are lights in the storm for me, and just knowing they exist encourages me to not give up art making.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

Marry someone rich, sane, and supportive. Failing that, as long as you have financial stability somewhere, it’s all so worth it.

Tera Galanti

Tera Galanti and her daughter, Mariah

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

I always feel like I am not doing enough! It is an ongoing challenge. I try to get as much done when my daughter Mariah is in school (if I am not teaching.) Another thing I try to do when possible: set aside parts of my project that I can work on when I am either waiting for her in a “lesson” or another time when I can do something with my hands.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

I need to have more patience with myself: even though I can’t complete a piece as fast as I would like to, I know that I will get back to it soon. My time is more fragmented, yet I work on creating a balanced life.

Tera Galanti, For Ruby 1, 2009, oil on panel, 3 x 3 in. (left); and For Ruby 2, 2009, oil on panel, 2½ x 4 in. (artworks © Tera Galanti)

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

I actually worked on a research project in graduate school based on these same questions. I interviewed other artists who were mothers and asked them how they managed it. This helped me quite a bit.

What support systems have been the most important to you?

My husband, and several very good friends.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

I think it’s important to know what your life goals are. If you are a person who wants art to be a constant part of your life, being a parent is definitely possible. When my son was young, I went to a counselor who showed me a “life grid.” On this grid were things like family, career, friends, religion, etc. This made a big impression on me, and I often visualize this grid and am happy to be filling out many of the squares. My son is now nineteen and my daughter is ten. I think it’s been healthy for them to be around my art-making practice. However, children have real needs that often won’t wait. If you are a person that really wants that art square to be the biggest and only square, then yours will be a long difficult road. I had a high school art teacher who once told me, “Well my dear, it’s all a matter of priorities.”

Christina Shurts

Christina Shurts and her daughter, Grace

How have you managed to balance your creative time with that of parenting?

I’ve had to completely combine everything: my practice, my four-year-old daughter, cleaning, and making dinner. She has a small spot in my studio with her own art stuff. But my quiet studio time is scheduled during hours of childcare. I get much done during this time and don’t feel as guilty, because she loves playing with other children.

We have a group project table in the house that must remain messy and creative. This way I don’t feel caged in while in the house.

Also, my home is never completely balanced. There is always something out of place. I haven’t accepted it yet but I know I will.

How has parenting affected your creative practice?

I’m not as selfish, and because of that I hope to offer more to the viewer than my own pleasure of making things.

How have you adjusted to your new identity as a parent versus that as an artist?

They came at the same time. I made the decision to follow the path of an artist when I was pregnant. One day my husband said, “What is it with this art thing?” I didn’t get mad, but I just knew it was what I must do. I made the decision because that’s what I would want my daughter and my nieces to do: follow their true nature.

Christina Shurts, Here, Now and Then, 2009, oil on canvas, 70 x 80 in. (artwork © Christina Shurts)

What support systems have been the most important to you?

My husband tries his best to understand and is very helpful. Also, my parents work hard to let me know they believe in me. My dad is an artist and an actor—he has even been in an “art group” with me. We would meet every week and chat.

What advice would you give someone now who is considering an art career and parenting?

I hope that it can be done. My husband is still paying the bills, and there have been weeks on end where we have to eat only from our cupboards. But I offer our family a community of artists and an open mindedness that I wouldn’t have access to if I hadn’t pursued this path.

I asked my daughter Grace if she thinks a person can be a parent and an artist. Here’s what she said: “It might be too much. It’s hard being a mommy and doing the paint. It’s hard doing stuff all by yourself, and it’s hard cleaning for Mom. I really like being a kid, and I know my Mom likes being a mommy. I wonder if you used to be a kid—did you?”

Los Angeles is home to four internationally distributed art magazines: the triannual Afterall and the quarterly X-TRA, both nonprofit publications, and two commercial magazines, Art Ltd and the newly created The Magazine.

In June 2008, Christopher Howard, editor of CAA News, talked via email with editors from the first two publications, Elizabeth Pulsinelli from X-TRA and Stacey Allan from Afterall, about their respective magazines.

X-TRA and Afterall

Cover of the Winter 2007 issue of X-TRA, with Marnie Weber, The Spirit Bear, 2007, wood, foam, resin, surfacing veil, acrylic paint, sword, rope, and casters, 120 x 56 x 50 inches (artwork © Marnie Weber)

Christopher Howard: Can you tell me about your backgrounds and how you came to your respective publications?

Elizabeth Pulsinelli: I joined the X-TRA editorial board a few years after I graduated with an MFA from CalArts. I was a founding member of the Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism, the nonprofit formed to act as publisher of the magazine. Later, I stepped down from the foundation to become the managing editor of X-TRA. I left that position to become the executive editor earlier this year. Before moving to Los Angeles several years ago, I received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Stacey Allan: I began as associate editor of Afterall in September 2007. Before relocating to Los Angeles to work for Afterall, I spent the last five years in New York working at nonprofit exhibition spaces such as the Kitchen and apexart, writing and curating independently, and earning my MA in curatorial studies from Bard College. Prior to that, I commissioned public-art projects for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and, like Elizabeth, earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

CH: X-TRA was founded in 1997, and Afterall started a year later. What was happening in the mid-1990s in Los Angeles that led to the formation of both publications?

EP: In the mid-1990s, students were pouring out of exciting programs such as CalArts, Art Center College of Design, and UCLA and staying in Los Angeles. There was an abundance of intelligent, provocative art and many venues in which to see it, but not a lot of forums for critical dialogue outside of the classroom. Stephen Berens and Ellen Birrell started Project X as a collaborative curatorial venture. But they soon realized that the small publications they were producing in conjunction with the exhibitions were filling a more pressing need than the shows. So, X-TRA was born to address the dearth of quality art writing in LA’s vibrant art scene.

SA: Afterall was founded in London by a curator, Charles Esche, and an artist, Mark Lewis, as a research and publishing initiative started at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. I can imagine that the post-YBA years in London were not terribly different from the scenario in Los Angeles that Elizabeth describes, with an outpouring of MFA graduates and a boom in artistic production, as well as commercial growth that created a need for critical discourse and reflection. In their foreword to the pilot issue of the journal in 1998, Charles and Mark emphasized the wider social, political, and philosophical context in which artists can act as critical intellectuals. I think the journal was, in part, also an appeal to artists to consider and hold on to their role as such.

CH: Afterall is a joint publication between CalArts and University of the Arts London. What are the journal’s specific ties to Los Angeles, and also to London?

Elizabeth Pulsinelli, executive editor of X-TRA

SA: The Los Angeles office was formed when Thomas Lawson (artist, writer, and dean of the School of Art at CalArts) joined Charles and Mark as a coeditor in 2002. Though I think we’re still often thought of as a London-based publication, we’re invested in Los Angeles and in maintaining the dialogue between those two cities that is the publication’s strength. I’m a new arrival, having just moved here from New York, but Tom has been in Los Angeles for almost twenty years now and, as an educator, has been deeply involved in the arts community and the development of a generation of LA-based artists. So providing a critical voice that is rooted here, and doing so within the context of an “international” publication—not just international in terms of geographical coverage or distribution, but also as an editorial and academic collaboration that aims to put the two cities in dialogue—is really of key importance. We’re also actively trying to strengthen our ties to the city by using our website to publish more local exhibition reviews and interviews with LA-based artists.

CH: How does X-TRA balance the support of a regional art community while sustaining a national—even international—audience?

EP: The regional art community in Los Angeles is an international art community. Our mission, first and foremost, is to promote and provoke critical dialogue about contemporary art. In addition, we also strive to be a publication of record for the artwork produced and exhibited in and around Los Angeles, which is recognized around the world as a major center for the production of contemporary art.

CH: How has X-TRA grown during the present decade, when other art magazines, such as Art issues and the New Art Examiner, folded?

EP: X-TRA is sustainable, in large part, because it is collectively edited by a group of about eight artists and writers. We have a powerful group dynamic with lively, contentious discussions. The writing in the publication reflects our sense that the arena of art criticism encompasses a broad and contested territory. At the same time, the collaborative process shields individual editors from burnout.

On a pragmatic level, the publishers have steered our growth along a slow but steady course. We also accomplish a great deal with the generous volunteer efforts of the editorial board and a tiny, efficient paid staff.

Cover of the TK issue of Afterall, with artist information TK.

CH: Afterall is structured like an academic journal, yet its contributors come less from the academic world and more from the amorphous contemporary art scene. By contrast, X-TRA is a newsstand art magazine but often publishes the same kinds of texts as Afterall by the same kind of diverse group of curators, artists, critics, and hybrids of all three. What are the freedoms and constraints of the two formats?

EP: The publishers’ decision to put X-TRA on the newsstand was motivated by a desire to reach a broader audience and increase our subscription base. The editorial board doesn’t tailor the contents to a newsstand context but rather strives to print the most interesting writing on art that we can generate. We don’t consider ourselves to be an academic journal because the readership of X-TRA is not predominantly composed of academics. Our readership is diverse—including artists, writers, curators, and people who look at and buy contemporary art. This broad audience gives us freedom. The expansive structure of the magazine and the breadth of our readership accommodate a wide range of subjects and writing styles.

SA: Like X-TRA, Afterall is distributed on newsstands and seeks that diverse readership. Our formats are actually quite different, though, because we don’t publish reviews or commission artists’ projects. We focus on four to five artists per issue and commission two in-depth essays on each. We also publish broader contextual texts written by art historians, critics, curators, artists, or whoever we feel can contribute an interesting take—our writers often hold academic positions, but I suppose, as you’ve mentioned, they just as often don’t. It may be that the focus and the longer format of the writing, in addition to our sponsorship, make us more like an academic journal than an art magazine.

In terms of freedoms and constraints, I think they primarily have to do with our publishing schedule—because Afterall comes out only three times per year, it is a little more difficult to stay ahead of the curve. At the same time there is great freedom in that, too.

CH: How does X-TRA’s nonprofit status compare to the academic sponsorship of Afterall? And both magazines lack the ad count of larger art glossies. How does an independence from advertisers help (or hurt) your publications?

EP: As far as we can tell, there is no clear economic model for art publishing. We are funded by a combination of grants and donations from private and public institutions and individuals, by advertising, and by subscriptions. A smaller proportion of our budget comes from advertising than some other art magazines, but we aren’t entirely independent of advertisers. We strive to have as diverse a funding base as possible so that we aren’t dependent upon, or beholden to, any single source.

Stacey Allan, associate editor of Afterall

SA: We are also nonprofit. We do receive significant support from two academic institutions and also from a relatively new partnership with the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA, the contemporary art museum in Antwerp, Belgium). Foundation grants help out too, most notably the one we received from the Warhol Foundation. But we also rely on the support of our advertisers, and they advertise with us, I believe, specifically to show support.

CH: Speaking of the Warhol Foundation, how have your recent grants from the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation program for writing on art had an impact on your publications?

SA: The Warhol grant is particularly great because in addition to fiscal support, the foundation brought Afterall together with the other Warhol-funded nonprofit publications—including X-TRA, Cabinet, Art Papers, Bomb Magazine, Esopus, Art Lies, the Brooklyn Rail, and Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art—for peer-learning sessions in New York. That has been especially valuable because we’ve all been able to share information and see where we are working through some of the same issues, what solutions different magazines have come up with, and so on.

Much of our focus has actually been going into technology and establishing better systems for data management, which isn’t exactly glamorous but relates directly to how we can better reach out to and serve our readers. This allows us to use staff time on more interesting projects like planning a summer film series or researching new artists and writers for the journal.

EP: The grant that we received from the Warhol Foundation has had a tremendous impact on X-TRA. The funds significantly improved our production values. As a result, the physical appearance of the magazine is now on par with the high quality of the writing. We also have been grateful for the opportunity to network with other publications.

CH: Let’s take a step back from the magazines and talk about the LA scene. What galleries, artists, and programs are exciting to you? Feel free to be totally opinionated here.

EP: In the last ten years or so, it feels as if Los Angeles has settled into its role as a major center for art production. For example, a sizable number of artists in the 2008 Whitney Biennial—twenty-six by my count—live in the Los Angeles area; several more were educated here. LA’s position on the art-world map no longer seems like a contestable, fleeting phenomenon. My colleague Shana Lutker was commenting that Los Angeles seems to have taken the momentum of the last few years to establish some institutional support for its burgeoning art scene. Local nonprofits such as LA><ART, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), and Telic Arts Exchange seem to have stepped up their programming and are putting a lot of energy in the community that is not market-based. Recent MFA graduates are fueling investment in all kinds of communal activities.

In my opinion, the major museums such as MoCA and the Hammer consistently offer engaging programming. The commercial galleries that cover swathes of Culver City, Chinatown, and Santa Monica, plus many more scattered in between, make for a lively “scene.” I like to keep an eye on organizations and venues such as Smockshop, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the Institute for Figuring, Materials & Applications, Machine Project, and Outpost for Contemporary Art. Every month brings far more to do and see than I could possibly manage. It’s not such a bad problem to have!

SA: I completely agree with Elizabeth and have a similar list of favorites. I’ve been in Los Angeles for a little less than a year, so I’m still excited by the geography of LA and the way the art scene rests within it. There is so much happening here, but you have to keep your ear to the ground—things are spread far and wide and tend to bubble up quietly, at least compared to the rolling boil of New York where things rise quickly and pop. You have these fantastically odd places with big reputations, such as the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, and Machine Project, that are able to remain vital and interesting and not burn out. I feel LA nurtures that. Studio and living space is less prohibitively expensive and the market doesn’t dominate, so MFA programs are really central. It seems to allow for a lot of experimentation without a high level of fear about financial or professional risks.

CH: Afterall publishes a series of books distributed by MIT Press and schedules frequent symposia and events. And last year it “swallowed up” the journal AS (also known as Andere Sinema, which was found in 1978 and published by MuHKA). Is this the start of an art-media empire?

SA: I don’t know—do you think we should ask Rupert Murdoch to join our board?  No, actually you’re just describing partnerships, and no other journals have been consumed. In the same way that Afterall partnered with CalArts six years ago and brought on Tom as an editor, we were able to partner with MuHKA and bring on a new editor, Dieter Roelstraete, who had been editor of AS since 2000. Afterall is now published three times per year instead of two, and MuHKA continues the work it was doing with AS.

CH: X-TRA runs a program that provides free issues of the magazines for students if their schools or departments pay for shipping—what is this program about? And does Afterall offer something similar?

EP: The Academic Distribution Program provides copies of X-TRA to students in art programs around the country at the significantly reduced group rate of $1.50 per issue (including shipping). Making X-TRA’s thoughtful, provocative writing available to students has been a key component of our mission since 1997. We see it as a great way to contribute to the intellectual development of artists and art historians while building future readership for the magazine.

SA: Thanks for not ending us on that note of empire building! Yes, we do offer half-price subscriptions to students, as well as discounts on subscriptions and back issues to CalArts alumni. We also donate annually to the Distribution to Underserved Communities Library Program, which distributes books on contemporary art and culture to rural and inner-city libraries and schools nationwide.

Magazine Websites

Both art magazines operate thriving websites containing full articles, special online content, subscription information, and more. For more details on X-TRA, visit www.x-traonline.org. Afterall’s website can be found at www.afterall.org.

Elizabeth Pulsinelli would like to thank her colleague, Stephen Berens, for his help in responding.

FarmLab/Under Spring

The sun sets behind a water tower located inside the Farmlab Agbin Garden (F.L.A.G.) (photograph © Joshua White and provided by Farmlab)

The seed of Farmlab/Under Spring was planted in the summer of 2005 when the artist Lauren Bon began transforming a thirty-two acre industrial brownfield in the historic center of Los Angeles into a cornfield. Over the course of one agricultural cycle, Bon cleared the industrial debris, brought in 1,500 truckloads of earth, planted one million seeds, and programmed community events throughout the growing and harvesting phases. After handing back the keys to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Bon and the “Not a Cornfield” team moved into a warehouse across the street to continue their investigation of the nature of public space, urban ecology, civic engagement, contemporary visual art, and proactive philanthropy.

In their current location, just north of Chinatown, Farmlab/Under Spring functions as think tank, art-production studio, and cultural-performance venue, hosting weekly salons, lectures, and discussions, as well as periodic exhibitions and art actions around the downtown area and beyond.

Visit http://farmlab.org for activities and projects and to join the Farmlab cause of sustainable cultural practices and community mobilization.

Museum of Jurassic Technology

“The Museum of Jurassic Technology,” says this organization’s website, “is an educational institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic.” Rather than displaying dinosaur bones or leaf-imprinted fossils, this Culver City space showcases strange, diverse collections of objects that could be found in a cabinet of curiosities. Recent exhibitions have included incredibly tiny sculptures, called microminiatures, by the virtuoso musician Hagop Sandaldjian, and a collection of “Napoleana”—relics of the late French emperor (e.g., a piece of fabric, wood from a bookcase, rocks from the Invalides)—that the American civil engineer Charles Evans Fowler (1867–1937) amassed during his lifetime. Neither art nor cultural history, exhibitions at this space will make you rethink what museums are all about.

Lawrence Weschler profiled the Museum of Jurassic Technology in his book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995). Visit the museum’s quizzical website to learn more.

LAXART

Lauri Firstenberg is a former curator at Artists Space in New York and pulls off her Culver City space, LAXART (or LA><ART), with the same savoir-faire as any venerable “alt space” in New York and beyond. Firstenberg pushes a program focusing on emerging artists and large-scale projects that bring out the art set and the glitterati for festive openings and events. LAXART has truly led the pack in making Culver City a place for art. Neighboring galleries like Blum and Poe and Anna Helwing lend market gravitas, while the funky and strange Museum of Jurassic Technology also makes a cozy neighbor. Billboard projects—apt for a city of freeway stop and go—are often part of the exhibition, so keep an eye out if you’re in the area. See www.laxart.org for the current schedule.

Ooga Booga

Located in Chinatown in the midst of Los Angeles’ leading contemporary art galleries, Ooga Booga displays and sells limited-edition multiples, artist’s books, and more (photograph provided by Ooga Booga)

Located in Chinatown, close to a handful of hip contemporary-art galleries, is Ooga Booga. Opened in 2004 by Lucy Yao, the space is a uniquely curated commercial enterprise that sells books on art and by artists, as well as prints, posters, and ephemera. You can find zines by Raymond Pettibon and Laura Owen and limited-edition artworks such as Mike Kelley’s talking Little Friend plush toy, Tauba Auerbach’s 50/50 buttons, and postcard sets by Ryan McGinley. Clothing by the avant-garde fashion designers and artist-designed totes are also available, in addition to hard-to-find DVDs, CDs, and records by musicians and noisemakers both in and outside the art world.

Ooga Booga also hosts gallery exhibitions and special events, including a recent show on the Zurich-based zine publisher Nieves, which was reviewed in caa.reviews earlier this year.

Wende Museum

The Wende Museum acquires, preserves, and presents cultural and political objects, personal histories, and documentary materials of cold war–era Eastern Europe: household products, clothing, folk art, diaries and scrapbooks, political iconography, photograph albums, posters, films, textbooks, paintings, sports awards and certificates, and children’s toys. Items were salvaged after the end of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time when monuments were toppled, documents destroyed, and consumer products discontinued.

See a 2.6 ton piece of the Berlin Wall painted by the muralist Thierry Noir; the complete run of Neues Deutschland, the official East German daily newspaper; and artifacts from the recently demolished Palast der Republik in East Berlin. A recent donation from a former East German border guard includes official documentation that describes the construction and maintenance of the Berlin Wall, as well as the logbooks, stamps, and facial-recognition systems used on the eastern side of Checkpoint Charlie.

The Wende is host two events during the conference. An open house and tour take place on Friday, February 27, 12:30–2:00 PM and 5:30–7:00 PM, where participants can get a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum’s extensive collections and see the exhibition Facing the Wall: Living with the Berlin Wall. On Saturday night, attend Wende Flicks, a film screening and reception at the Los Angeles Museum of Art, where The Tango Player (1991) will be shown. For full details, visit the CAA conference website.

Institute for Figuring

The Institute for Figuring is the brainchild of Margaret and Christine Wertheim. Twin sisters hailing from Australia, the two offer staggeringly cerebral and stimulating programs and projects that meld their areas of expertise in science and art. Recent lecture series have included “On Seeing and Being: A discussion series about neuroscience and the perception of space” and presentations with Shea Zellweger, a former hotel switchboard operator who developed a “Logic Alphabet” that maps the underlying geometry of formal logic.

The Wertheim sisters and the IFF have gained attention with their traveling Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, a project that explores the intersection of higher geometry, feminine handicraft, and the effects of climate change on the marine world. As itinerant programmers, the IFF organizes collaborations with museums, galleries and spaces all over the world.

Since the mid-1950s, Los Angeles has been a hotbed of new art and groundbreaking galleries, museums, and other art spaces and institutions. Throughout the greater LA area are many pockets of art-world panache, from Malibu to Culver City to Chinatown. With the 2009 conference headquartered at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown LA, we thought we would start with a focus on the robust gallery culture there and in its subdistricts.

CHINATOWN

Claudia Parducci, Shatter-5, 2007, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 in. (artwork © Claudia Parducci)

A short walk or cab ride from the conference, Chinatown has a long history of culture and commerce dating back to the late nineteenth century. In the 1930s, Chinatown’s central plaza saw development as a tourist attraction with the creative help of Hollywood set designers. The cinematic simulacrum of Chung King Road is now the high street of the area’s gallery scene. While the art that is shown is cutting-edge contemporary, the galleries still pay tribute to the culture and history of Chinatown, often repurposing the original storefront names to give us spaces called China Art Objects, Black Dragon Society, and the Happy Lion.

Recommended Galleries

A nonprofit organization since 2003, Telic Arts Exchange serves as a platform for exhibitions, performances, screenings, lectures, and discussions on art, architecture, and media, with an emphasis on social exchange, interactivity, and public participation. From its basement location, Betalevel similarly operates as a studio, club, stage, and screening space. Its members are artists, programmers, writers, designers, agitprop specialists, filmmakers, and reverse engineers.

The bad-boy scenesters of contemporary art, including Dash Snow, Dan Colen, Bruce Labruce, and Terence Koh, are represented by Peres Projects. Here you’ll find edgy, trendy, abrasive, and provocative art, often collaged from detritus and other nonart materials—the stuff recent biennials are made of.

Installation view of Christopher Michlig’s exhibition Negations at Jail in 2008 (artworks © Christopher Michlig; photograph by Peter Lograsso and provided by Jail)

Black Dragon Society is another uber-hip gallery that focuses largely on painting, such as the faux-naïve, Mad magazine–inspired work of Steve Canaday and the informal portraiture of Raffi Kalenderian. China Art Objects features artists such as Walead Beshty, Pae White, and Bjorn Copeland, who also performs in the noise band Black Dice.

Presenting installation, video, new media, and technology-minded work, Fringe Exhibitions opened in 2006 with work by Survival Research Laboratories. The gallery’s website features a Net art project each month.

Kontainer has a painting-heavy roster, and Acuna-Hansen Gallery presents a number of drawing specialists, such as Eric Beltz and Tracy Nakayama, in addition to artists who work in photography and sculpture. The Fifth Floor Gallery and David Salow Gallery were two of nine Chinatown venues that hosted CalArts’ MFA exhibition, We Want a New Object, in May 2008. Both feature artists working in diverse mediums.

Mesler and Hug Gallery is big on multimedia installation, and Bonelli Contemporary maintains an Italian presence in Chinatown, showing mostly painting and drawing. High Energy Constructs is an exhibition and performance venue, and the Mountain Bar, a nightclub and gallery space, is a central hangout spot for artists and anchors the area.

Other recommended spaces include Farmlab/Under Spring Gallery; Mandarin; Happy Lion Gallery; LMAN Gallery; and Sister. Cottage Home is a unique venue run by Sister, China Art Objects, and Tom Solomon Gallery, with monthly solo and group shows alternately staged by each gallery.

GALLERY ROW

Another area downtown, located just a short walk or bus ride from the convention-center complex, is Gallery Row. A seven-block concentration of galleries in the very center of downtown, Gallery Row was designated by city council in 2003 as a thriving, pedestrian-friendly, culturally abundant, urban locus of art and nightlife. In a few short years, this experiment in urban planning has changed these blocks into a spontaneous laboratory of street art and creative culture, with fashion shows, live music, spoken word, and traditional art exhibitions. The following galleries are located in or near this area.

Recommended Galleries

Pharmaka is a nonprofit gallery in downtown Los Angeles

Located in the main lobby of the Banco Popular Building, *BANK has developed a distinctive curatorial platform showcasing emerging and midcareer artists, such as the work of Paul Butler, known not only for his own work but also for his Collage Parties. MATERIAL, a critical arts journal, is a creation of the *BANK artist Kim Schoen and Ginny Cook. Similarly, a new nonprofit organization called Phantom Galleries LA places temporary art installations in vacant storefront windows throughout Los Angeles County; its call for proposals is open ended.

Established in spring 2007, Morono Kiang Gallery promotes contemporary art by both recognized and emerging artists, focusing on Chinese art from the last decade. Recently shown artists include Xu Bing, Ai Weiwei, Li Jin, and Liu Qinghe.

Jail presents solid curated group shows, including Hef, dedicated to the founder of Playboy magazine, as well as solo exhibitions by emerging artists such as Christopher Michlig. Bert Green Fine Art focuses on contemporary painting and work on paper. Recently shown were works by the underground fanzine legend Dame Darcy and the horror novelist Clive Barker.

Founded in 1979, LA Artcore is an established nonprofit with two gallery spaces for solo, two-person, and thematic group shows. The space also hosts international and regional exchange shows. The newer Pharmaka, another nonprofit space, stages curated exhibitions while also programming lectures, panel discussions, podcasts, and accessible community events.

Other neighborhood highlights include Compact Space, which recently moved to the area, and De Soto, which is strong on photography. The work of gallery artist Connie Samaras appeared on the cover of the Summer 2008 issue of X-TRA, a Los Angeles–based quarterly art magazine.

Rounding out the recommended downtown galleries is the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, which in addition to staging group exhibitions offers large-format printing from artists’ and photographers’ digital files with an Epson 9800 archival printer.

MORE TO COME

There’s lots more to downtown Los Angeles, with the Museum of Contemporary Art, the REDCAT Galleries and Theater, and the Frank Gehry–designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. Keep an eye out in upcoming issues of CAA News and at www.collegeart.org to see the growing list of galleries, previews, and highlights of the Los Angeles scene, a West Coast bastion of culture and cool.

In October 1998, CAA launched its first online journal, caa.reviews. Founded by Larry Silver of the University of Pennsylvania and Robert Nelson of Yale University, the journal has since reviewed more than 1,100 books, exhibitions, and more.

Ten years ago, art and scholarly publishers were struggling. Few magazines or newspapers were giving serious attention to reviewing art books. The Art Bulletin and Art Journal were nearly alone, and they could review at most about several dozen books per year each. Meanwhile in academia, art scholarship was flourishing, but new publications couldn’t get the peer assessment they needed. CAA’s print journals are quarterlies; as a website that could regularly publish texts as they are written and edited, caa.reviews could be a means of reviewing new books more quickly.

Beginnings

In the early 1990s, Larry Silver, who was then CAA president, conceived of a reviews journal. He recalled, “I hoped that CAA could sponsor an inexpensive bimonthly reviews journal, on the model of the German Kunstchronik, to fill this gap.” A few years later, Robert Nelson had the idea to go from a print to online publication. At that time, he and Silver regularly read two scholarly reviews distributed electronically. Founded in 1993, the Medieval Review sent its reviews via an email listserv. The second review, the Bryn Mawr Classical Review also published its reviews via a listserv. Perhaps, they thought, CAA could do something similar.

In the mid-1990s, CAA had limited IT—no full-time staff, no website—so it was a steep learning curve all around. “In some ways caa.reviews was the tail that wagged the dog,” Silver said, “and got CAA to think about electronic communications, a homepage, and related services.” And as it turned out, CAA was ahead of most other scholarly societies in the arts and humanities in making this investment in electronic publishing. It had been common in the sciences for several years, but not in our world. Leila Kinney of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology joined Silver and Nelson to advocate for not only a reviews journal but also a homepage for the organization.

The board was enthusiastic, but CAA didn’t have the money to simply launch an entirely new publication. Funding was sought, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded CAA a $79,000 grant to get the project started. The grant terms required that the journal eventually become financially self-sustaining, which was attractive to the board. CAA was able to offer the journal freely on the internet, with open access, for several years to non-CAA members, which built a readership and in turn helped to attract more reviewers. But in 2003 caa.reviews became a benefit of CAA membership, like The Art Bulletin and Art Journal are, and is now also available to institutions through a subscriber agreement.

Work began on both building the journal’s website and commissioning reviews. Nelson, Silver, and Kinney enlisted the library and computer expertise of Katherine Haskins, then at the University of Chicago libraries, for technical issues and assembled a small editorial board for leadership; Nelson served as editor-in-chief for the first year. Together they collected a group of about ten to fifteen field editors to commission reviews. This is still the working structure of the journal: editors specializing in one area of art or art history, and located anywhere in the world, commission reviews within that field or specialty.

The first handful of texts, posted in October 1998, reflected the diversity of scholarship in art history: reviewed were books on old masters such as Hans Holbein, Nicolas Poussin, and Édouard Manet, as well as on subjects like Byzantine ivories, women artists in the Renaissance, Islamic inscriptions, the art of late imperial and early modern China, aesthetic theory, and much more.

Silver, who took the editorial reins from Nelson in 1999 and served until 2005, said, “It didn’t take long for readers to find us and to send compliments on the quality of the reviews. I particularly remember getting a response to a review on a book on Dutch art from the author in Holland, who was delighted to have his book reviewed well and quickly, while there was still a chance to discuss ideas freshly.”

The New Medium

At first caa.reviews felt resistance about scholarly writing on the internet. Online publication was certainly seen as less prestigious at the beginning, so the editorial board had to work hard to make it clear that the standards for reviewing were the same as those at The Art Bulletin and Art Journal. Sheryl Reiss, currently teaching art history at the University of Southern California, was field editor for early modern Italian art from 1998 to 2003: “I generally didn’t have problems finding reviewers in a field rich in publications. Initially, though, some younger scholars were justifiably concerned whether an electronic book review would carry the same weight in tenure decisions as a print review.” More and more readers and academics, however, came to embrace the new publishing medium.

“I wonder how early readers felt about the change from handwritten manuscripts to the printed page,” said Frederick Asher, who joined as field editor of South Asian art in 1999 and then served as editor-in-chief from 2005 to 2008. “Did they resist that new access to knowledge? With caa.reviews and other carefully refereed and edited journals, we are only speaking of the mode of presentation, not the content, which is impeccable, no different from any other CAA publication.”

The resistance in some fields was problematic but understandable: both contemporary art and cinema were fields in which reviewers are accustomed to being paid and making a living as critics, and caa.reviews had difficulty for a while finding those who could write reviews for free. Contemporary art remains an underdeveloped area of coverage for this reason. Theory is a difficult field to encompass as well, though caa.reviews has always been sensitive to that topic and active in reviewing new works of importance since the journal began.

Despite these issues, the journal has flourished. “I think that the greatest strength of caa.reviews is its breadth of coverage,” said Silver, “particularly outside the traditional European strengths of the discipline. caa.reviews has vastly expanded the attention given to East Asian, Islamic, and other fields in art history, and the journal has striven to give more attention to exhibitions of importance in all fields. Certain publishers, such as the University of Hawai‘i Press, a leader in East Asian art books, have been particularly gratified to get coverage of their publications in caa.reviews.”

The art-publishing world took notice of the journal, and in the ensuing years blurbs from caa.reviews began appearing in print advertisements and on publishers’ websites, alongside quotes from reviews in more established publications. “I am pleased to see that our reviews are being cited by scholars and quoted by publishers just as much as print reviews,” Silver said. “After a decade of activity, we certainly do seem to be taken seriously and regarded as a peer institution of other academic journals.”

Exhibition Reviews

Reviews of exhibitions, while published regularly since the journal began, became a priority in 2004. A half-dozen field editors, representing geographic areas in the United States and internationally, began commissioning evaluations of shows in museums and university galleries. Lucy Oakley, the incoming editor-in-chief who is head of education and programs at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University, said, “caa.reviews aims to cover exhibitions at a wide spectrum of art institutions, from prominent museums such as the Metropolitan, National Gallery, Art Institute, and Getty to small university art galleries and alternative spaces. Indeed, it’s at university art museums where the quality of scholarship counts more than the admissions gate, where some of the most interesting, creative, and intellectually ambitious exhibitions are being presented. Typically such shows receive little notice in the commercial art and book review press. Here caa.reviews is poised to make a major contribution in helping to evaluate and spread the word about such exhibitions and their catalogues.”

With the new group of field editors in place, reviews of contemporary artists such as Robert Smithson, Rachel Harrison, and Louise Bourgeois soon appeared alongside considerations of monographic shows on Duccio, Peter Paul Rubens, and Georges Seurat; surveys on Minimal, Turkish, and American Indian art were also reviewed. Because of its immediacy, caa.reviews strives to publish an evaluation quickly, sometimes while an exhibition is still on the walls.

The author of many exhibition reviews himself, Silver said, “The crowds who attend museum exhibitions obviously love and care about art and are interested in how it’s shown. They deserve proper, thoughtful, informed reviews from people who know the material. So do the curators who put their scholarly efforts into a show. After all, these are the means by which generations of people learn about art. And I should think that living artists would particularly benefit from having shows reviewed by scholars, who are less interested in market issues than, perhaps, newspaper and magazine staff reviewers. That is one reason why I reviewed exhibitions in my hometown of Philadelphia for caa.reviews in the early days of the journal. American newspapers are afraid that scholars will write in obscurantist prose and speak only to their specialist peers. So caa.reviews has a wide-open field.”

Essays, Conferences, and More

Essays are still not a major part of the journal, nor are conference reviews, as originally envisioned, but these areas are growing and include many notable highlights. In celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of Meyer Schapiro’s birth in 2003, caa.reviews published a trio of essays on the renowned scholar’s writings, with authors looking at Schapiro’s books on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, his approaches to methodologies on the study of medieval art, and his ideas on style and semiotics. Review essays on such topics as the 2006 Rembrandt Year, contemporary Asian art in biennials and triennials, the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center expansion have appeared over the years.

Other projects soon developed. In 2006 caa.reviews published extensive reviews of general art-history survey textbooks—the first in CAA publications since the 1990s—and of survey books specific to nineteenth-century art and visual culture. And just last year, caa.reviews began realizing one of its original goals, reviewing academic conferences and symposia. Silver noted, “The dreams of the first year still provide a signpost for future editors of the journal to strive for.”

In a redesign and relaunch in 2007, caa.reviews added a new feature, Recent Books in the Arts. Replacing the traditional Books Received list, which accumulated only the titles of review copies of art publications sent to the CAA office, the new section collects titles published by university and commercial presses worldwide and divides them into disciplinary categories (e.g., Architectural History/Historic Preservation, Oceanic/Australian Art, and Critical Theory/Gender Studies/Visual Studies). Recent Books in the Arts is not only useful to the reviews editors of CAA’s three journals, but it’s also a great way to gauge the state of publishing in the arts.

Early concerns about the ephemeral nature of digital publishing and broader access to non-CAA readers will be met when the journal becomes available on JSTOR. The journal will initially be archived through Portico, an archiving service for scholarly electronic journals, and then be presented through the JSTOR platform, probably by early 2009. Broader access to caa.reviews is also available through institutional subscriptions, which authenticate users seamlessly through an institution’s website. And all reviews published since 1998 can still be accessed on the caa.reviews website by individual members using their CAA user ID and password.

A Digital Future

Many daily and weekly newspapers are cutting art and culture staff and decreasing column inches devoted to book reviews and arts features. The New York Times seldom reviews art books at all, even in its Christmas gift issue, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review just ceased publication. Though publications like caa.reviews, the Art Book, Bookforum, and the reviews section of Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, another born-digital journal, continue to carry the torch, this alarming shift indicates something about our current larger intellectual culture. The importance of the book and exhibition review is just as crucial in 2008 as it was in 1998.

Silver said: “When even the New York Times continues to call its Sunday section ‘Arts and Leisure,’ we know where review of exhibitions stand in terms of priority. And I have always lamented the absence of feuilleton sections, where scholars could communicate about exhibitions or books of wider interest to a larger public through serious newspapers, as they do in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. And why is it that museum reviews are done by John Updike in the New York Review of Books? Perhaps art scholars should review novels in exchange.”

“caa.reviews is much more than a review journal for art books,” Asher noted. “As we approach CAA’s centenary, all of us will be thinking about how the art disciplines have developed and matured. We can think historiographically by looking at the published work produced over the past century. And by ‘published’ I mean published in any venue, print or internet.”

At the time, Larry Silver was at Northwestern University and Robert Nelson was at the University of Chicago.

Katherine Haskins, now project development officer for Yale University’s library system, remains the journal’s technical advisor.

Liz Kotz Named Art Journal Reviews Editor

Liz Kotz has been appointed reviews editor of Art Journal; she began her term January 1, 2007. Kotz is an assistant professor in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and an affiliate member of the Graduate Faculty in Art History at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She succeeds Robin Adèle Greeley, associate professor of art history at the University of Connecticut, in the position.

Kotz received her PhD in comparative literature from Columbia University in 2002, with a dissertation on “Postwar Media Poetics from Cage to Warhol.” Her research investigates cross-disciplinary aesthetic practices that emerged in the post–WWII era, including visual art, film and video, sound art, and poetry. Her teaching and scholarship explore the relationship of these more contemporary practices to earlier twentieth-century avant-gardes and to cultural and aesthetic impacts of new technologies of recording, reproduction, and transmission.

Kotz writes, “Contemporary art has become a vast field of activity, one that is increasingly interdisciplinary and international in scope. Art Journal aims to review important and groundbreaking books that reflect this range—potentially covering not only work from university presses and other scholarly writing, but also the exhibition catalogues, small-press publications, and artist-produced books that animate our field. Perhaps because my background is cross-disciplinary, I would like to see Art Journal address artwork and scholarship in screen-based media, sound art, and the like, as well as the myriad philosophical and theoretical perspectives that inform recent art history and criticism. Because Art Journal reaches artists, art historians, curators, and other art professionals, it plays a vital role in articulating fresh critical perspectives and bringing coherence to this dynamic, constantly changing field.”

Her first book, Words to Be Looked At: Language in 1960s Art (forthcoming from MIT Press), is a critical study of uses of language in midcentury American art. It starts by examining scores and compositions by the experimental composer John Cage and tracing his impact on artists and poets in the sixties, including La Monte Young, George Brecht, Jackson Mac Low, Carl Andre, Vito Acconci, Lawrence Weiner, Douglas Huebler, and Andy Warhol. Her second book, Six Sound Problems, will address projects by Cage, Young, David Tudor, Bruce Nauman, Max Neuhaus, and James Tenney. She is also working on a collection of essays, Aesthetics of the Expanded Screen, that will explore film and video installations and the condition of the durational image.

Kotz’s writing has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, such as October, Cinematograph, Documents, Text zur Kunst, and Artforum, and in edited books and catalogues, including Jack Pierson, Desire/Despair (2006), The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945 (2006), and Dia’s Andy (2005). At the University of Minnesota, she has taught classes on visual culture and media history, documentary cinema, and film history, and seminars on Andy Warhol, film theory, and psychoanalysis.