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CAA News Today

News from the Art and Academic Worlds

posted by Christopher Howard — Sep 25, 2013

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Curators Offer Show of Support for Detroit Institute of Arts in Light of Bankruptcy Case

The Association of Art Museum Curators plans to hold its 2014 Annual Conference in Detroit as a show of support for the Detroit Institute of Arts, which is having some items in its collection assessed following the city’s bankruptcy filing this summer. The May 4–6 conference is expected bring together about three hundred museum curators from around the world, the association said. At least one day of conference programming is to be devoted to the DIA and the importance of its collection.  (Read more in Detroit News.)

An Adjunct’s Death Becomes a Rallying Cry for Many in Academe

An op-ed column about the death of a former longtime adjunct faculty member at Duquesne University has drawn new attention to the working conditions of instructors off the tenure track. The column, published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, says that Margaret Mary Vojtko was underpaid and underappreciated during her twenty-five years of teaching French at the Roman Catholic university, and that she was nearly destitute when she died, on September 1, at the age of 83. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Open to All?

Does free admission guarantee accessibility to art? It’s now nearly twelve years since it became mandatory for publicly funded museums and galleries in the United Kingdom to offer free admission. While visitor numbers have rocketed, studies have shown that the demographics of visitors have barely shifted. In essence, those from low-income backgrounds are still massively underrepresented. (Read more in Frieze Blog.)

Refuting the Myths about the Armory Show

One hundred years ago, some 87,000 New Yorkers packed into the 69th Regiment Armory over the course of a month to see nearly 1,400 works of modern art by more than three hundred international artists. Research for exhibitions commemorating the centennial of the notorious Armory Show, however, reveals that it included more American, historical, and even female artists than many accounts include. (Read more in ARTnews.)

Using Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Proactive Approach for Online Learning

There are two main forms of assessment often used within the online classroom. Both formative and summative assessments evaluate student learning and assist instructors in guiding instructional planning and delivery. While the purpose of a summative assessment is to check for mastery following the instruction, formative assessment focuses on informing teachers in ways to improve student learning during lesson delivery. Each type of assessment has a specific place and role within education, both traditional and online. (Read more in Faculty Focus.)

Tracking Stolen Art, for Profit, and Blurring a Few Lines

Early in the morning of May 11, 1987, someone smashed through the glass doors of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, removed a Matisse from a wall, and fled. All it took was daring and a sledgehammer. The whereabouts of the painting, Le Jardin, remained a mystery until the work was found last year and made a celebratory trip home in January. But law enforcement played no role. The return was facilitated by the Art Loss Register, a London-based company that over the last two decades has evolved into a little-noticed but increasingly integral part of art investigation around the world. (Read more in the New York Times.)

Getty Lab Cleans Jackson Pollock’s 1943 Mural—What a Difference!

When does a Jackson Pollock painting look more like a Jackson Pollock painting? Simple: When it’s clean. That’s the not-altogether surprising thought that came to mind when I dropped by the J. Paul Getty Museum’s conservation lab the other day to check out progress on Pollock’s monumental 1943 Mural. Star of the collection at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, the epic painting had arrived in Los Angeles a year ago for extensive treatment. (Read more in the Los Angeles Times.)

The New Economy of Letters

Every day, more scholars are writing more words for less money than ever before: they are self-publishing and tweeting and blogging and MOOC-ing. Much of this is all to the good, especially insofar as it disseminates knowledge. The new economy of letters, however, hasn’t made academic writing better, but it has made it harder for certain kinds of intellectuals to be heard. All the noise has silenced the modest, the untenured, and the politically moderate. (Read more in the Chronicle Review.)

Filed under: CAA News