CAA News Today
Propose a Paper or Presentation for the 2014 Annual Conference
posted by Lauren Stark — March 26, 2013
The 2014 Call for Participation for the 102nd Annual Conference, taking place February 12–15, 2014, in Chicago, describes many of next year’s programs sessions. CAA and the session chairs invite your participation: please follow the instructions in the booklet to submit a proposal for a paper or presentation. This publication also includes a call for Poster Session proposals and describes the seven Open Forms sessions.
Listing more than 120 panels, the 2014 Call for Participation will soon mail to all individual and institutional members; you can also download a PDF of the twenty-seven-page document from the CAA website immediately.
The deadline for proposals of papers and presentations for the Chicago conference has been extended to Monday, May 13, 2013.
In addition to dozens of wide-ranging panels on art history, studio art, contemporary issues, and professional and educational practices, CAA conference attendees can expect participation from many area schools, museums, galleries, and other institutions. The Hilton Chicago on South Michigan Avenue (in the Loop) is the conference headquarters, holding most sessions, Career Services, the Book and Trade Fair, ARTspace, special events, and more. Deadline extended: May 13, 2013.
Contact
For more information about proposals of papers and presentations for the 2014 Annual Conference, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-392-4405.
Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Humanities
posted by CAA — March 26, 2013
The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) sent the following email on March 26, 2013.
Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Humanities
Dear Humanities Advocate,
With the sequester now in effect, the budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities is slated to be cut by approximately $60 million over the next ten years. Title VI potentially stands to lose an additional $36 million from its already decimated budget over the same span. Other federal funding for the humanities will be cut by similarly significant amounts. Now is the time to urge your elected officials to replace the sequester with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that will preserve crucial investments in humanities programs.
Act now to preserve humanities funding. Tell your Member of Congress to replace the sequester with a long-term, balanced approach to deficit reduction.
Click here to write to your representative and senators today!
Sincerely,
Stephen Kidd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
My Trip to New York (Thanks to CAA and the Getty Foundation)
posted by Karen von Veh — March 22, 2013
Early last year, in my role as president of the South African Visual Arts Historians (SAVAH), I was asked by Professor Federico Freschi (at the University of Johannesburg) to send out a call for participants to apply for a travel grant to attend the CAA Annual Conference in New York in February 2013. After mailing the request to SAVAH members, I read through the requirements and found that it was an extraordinarily generous grant for which one only needed to be a full-time practicing art historian residing in a country not well represented in CAA membership. The grant, which was funded by the Getty Foundation, was aimed at encouraging dialogue between art historians from around the globe and included a year’s membership to CAA.
As a lucky recipient I was one of twenty people heading for the icy snow-laden New York in February and arrived on the first morning that JFK airport was opened again after being closed for two days due to blizzards. My first activity in New York was to head for Central Park and enjoy the novelty of walking in the deep snow.
The day before the CAA conference, travel-grant recipients had a preconference gathering where we met the other grantees and gave five-minute presentations to introduce ourselves. This allowed us to get to know each other and identify like minds and areas of collaboration, so from the first meeting there was already a networking frenzy taking place. The grantees reminded me of the League of Nations, with people from various African countries, South American countries, India, Pakistan, China, Haiti, Korea, Iceland, and several Eastern European countries (and I have probably missed a few). There was a lot of lively discussion every time we met, and we got on very well with each other as a group. It was wonderful to meet so many diverse people who shared a passion for the development and teaching of art history.
The CAA conference was huge and frenetic with many parallel sessions, so one had to choose the papers very carefully. I heard some wonderful presentations by Amelia Jones, Griselda Pollock, and Whitney Chadwick (among others) in a feminist session that was packed to the hilt, with people sitting on the floor and lining the walls. As part of conference attendance, everyone had free access to many galleries and museums in New York for the duration of the conference, so there was much rushing to see exhibitions between listening to papers.
I was also lucky enough to be invited (with the other African delegates) to the opening of El Anatsui’s glorious exhibition, Gravity and Grace, at the Brooklyn Museum, where the artist made an appearance as well. For this and other wonderful visits (such as a private tour of the African collection at the Metropolitan Museum) I must thank Jean Borgatti, who was assigned as host to two of the African delegates but was kind enough to include all the visitors from Africa in her plans. At the end of the conference, we had a final “debriefing” session where we could state what worked and what didn’t. From my point of view, the entire event was splendidly arranged and I cannot fault anything, although on a purely personal note I would have enjoyed more time with the group as a whole.
After the conference we were invited by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute to visit their museum and research center in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Most of the group were able to extend their visit for the extra three days required for this trip, and we were bussed off to Williamstown, where we stayed at the delightful Williams Inn. At the Clark we were given a tour of the library, the print archives, and the museum, and joined in discussions of possible future projects for the Clark’s Research and Academic Programs to pursue. We were also taken to one of the biggest art spaces I have ever seen: the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (or MASS MoCA), which had a room large enough (one football field long) to display Xu Bing’s enormous flying Phoenix.
After returning to New York, most travel-grant recipients returned to their countries, while I and a few others were able to stay another few days (in my case until the weekend—two more days) to make the most of the city. I spent this time literally running from one gallery to another to try and fit them all in before leaving. New York is amazingly rich in terms of what it has to offer culturally, and I feel this trip was altogether an enriching experience—from the intellectual stimulation and visual excitement to the wonderful people I met. This affords great networking opportunities such as reciprocal arrangements between institutions (student or staff exchanges) and invitations to conferences or ongoing discussions about the state of art history on a global scale (via email, of course). As a direct result of this trip I have already been invited to speak at a global conference in Slovakia this September, and am making arrangements for exchange programs with other institutions.
First image: Me (the “Michelin Man”) in Central Park.
Second image: The “African Contingent” admiring El Anatsui at the Met.
Third image: Our group at the final “debriefing” in New York.
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
posted by CAA — March 21, 2013
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) sent the following email on March 21, 2013. FAIC supports conservation education, research, and outreach activities that increase understanding of our global cultural heritage.
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) has completed work at the Cultural Recovery Center (CRC) in Brooklyn, NY after serving a community of artists and organizations in dire need of assistance. The CRC offered space and help at no cost to owners of artworks damaged as a result of Superstorm Sandy. Volunteer assistance and work space was provided to museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, galleries, collectors, and artists. While full conservation treatment was not covered, guidance and assistance in the cleaning and stabilization of art and cultural materials was.
23 members of the AIC Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) contributed 128 days of professional volunteer services in New York and New Jersey. At least 34 additional conservators from the region also volunteered. At the CRC, volunteers worked with nineteen artists on hundreds of items, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, textiles, and multi-media works. Many of the works were at risk because of toxic deposits and potential mold growth.
The Center for Cultural Recovery was operated by The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC), in cooperation with a consortium of organizations:
- Alliance for Response New York City
- Heritage Preservation
- New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
- New York Regional Association for Conservation
- Industry City at Bush Terminal
- Smithsonian Institution
Initial funding for the response and recovery efforts, including initial costs for the Center, was provided by a leadership gift to FAIC from Sotheby’s. A grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allowed the Center to remain open through March 8. Industry City at Bush Terminal provided the space rent-free. Rapid Refile set up containment tents and air scrubbers to prevent the spread of mold from incoming objects to cleaned objects. Collector Systems provided free use of its web-based collection management system. The Smithsonian Institution and a grant to Heritage Preservation from the New York Community Trust, as well as support from TALAS, enabled purchase of supplies. The Center was also outfitted with supplies from Materials for the Arts, a creative reuse program managed by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional donations to FAIC came from PINTA, The Modern & Contemporary Latin American Art Show; Tru Vue; Aon Huntington Block Insurance; Aon Foundation; members of AIC; and others. The American Museum of Natural History and MoMA also provided key in-kind support for recovery efforts and establishment of the CRC.
As the need for conservation continues, those with damaged pieces are encouraged to use AIC’s Find A Conservator tool available for free on the AIC website: www.conservation-us.org/findaconservator. The tool provides a systematic, consistent method of obtaining current information to identify and locate professional conservation services from all across the United States and abroad. It allows users to address a wide range of conservation problems, whether the needs are long-range or short-term and whether the collection consists of thousands of valuable historic artifacts, one priceless work of art, or items of great personal value.
CAA Seeks Award Jury Members
posted by Lauren Stark — March 20, 2013
CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for individuals to serve on nine of the twelve juries for the annual Awards for Distinction for three years (2013–16). Terms begin in May 2013; award years are 2014–16. CAA’s twelve awards honor artists, art historians, authors, curators, critics, and teachers whose accomplishments transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large.
Candidates must possess expertise appropriate to the jury’s work and be current CAA members. They should not be serving on another CAA committee or editorial board. CAA’s president and vice president for committees appoint jury members for service.
The following jury vacancies will be filled this spring:
- Charles Rufus Morey Book Award: 4 members
- Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award: 3 members
- Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize: 2 members
- Frank Jewett Mather Award: 1 member
- Art Journal Award: 2 members
- Distinguished Teaching of Art Award: 2 members
- Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement: 1 member
- Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art: 2 members
- CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation: 2 members
Nominations and self-nominations should include a brief statement (no more than 150 words) outlining the individual’s qualifications and experience and an abbreviated CV (no more than two pages). Please send all materials by email to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs; submissions must be sent as Microsoft Word attachments. Deadline: April 26, 2013.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — March 20, 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.
Biotechnology as Art Form
It’s natural that some artists spend as much time in the lab as they do in the studio. Over the last three decades, in fact, artists have cultivated human tissue, bred frogs, assembled DNA profiles, and used modified bacteria as electrical transmitters. Bio-art—as this type of work is called—has also begun to surface in museums and avant-garde art festivals, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth in Australia. (Read more in ARTnews.)
What Do University Presses Do?
A book published by the University of Minnesota Press, begun as the author’s dissertation, had been discussed in the New Yorker. This journey, from dissertation to published book and beyond, provides a counter narrative to the rhetoric about scholarly publishers these days, rhetoric which paints us as parasites sucking profit and capital out of the work of scholars, structured around a “conflict” between publishers, libraries, and scholars often oversimplified into a binary. Publishers are interested in profit. Libraries and scholars are not. (Read more in the University of Minnesota Press Blog.)
What Do Cats Have to Do with It? Welcome to LACMA’s New Collections Website
Two years ago, we launched an experiment: an online image library where we made 2,000 high-resolution images of artworks that the museum deemed to be in the public domain available for download without any restrictions. This week, we’ve exceeded ourselves with the launch of our new collections website, giving away ten times the number of images we offered in the initial image library. Nearly 20,000 high-quality images of art from our collection are available to download and use as you see fit (that’s about a quarter of all the art represented on the site). (Read more in Unframed.)
What to Do with Artist’s Work after Death Can Be Vexing
Since the Oakland artist Thomas “Glen” Whittaker died last month, his longtime companion, Marcy Pitts, has faced the daunting task of deciding what to do with about thirty-five paintings and other works he left behind. More specifically, she has wrestled with how to catalog, value, transport, store, and market the works, some of which are several feet wide. At the forefront of Pitts’s mind is a desire to earn Whittaker, who was 62, recognition for his work. (Read more in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
Pre-Tenure Leadership
As the dean of a college whose faculty includes many assistant professors, I am frequently asked for advice on how much service they should undertake. The twin horns of their dilemma? They know that service counts for less than teaching or research in annual and promotion evaluations … but they also know that demonstrating leadership potential through community engagement is important. (Read more in Inside Higher Ed.)
Things I Didn’t Learn in Graduate School
For more than thirty years now, I have benefited in my professional practice in student affairs from having attended some terrific graduate programs. It’s important to say that explicitly, upfront, as I’m about to focus on the things I didn’t learn in graduate school. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Help Desk: Lazy Art Critic
An art critic who writes for local newspaper recently approached me to review a recent show I installed at a local gallery. He is essentially asking me to provide him with my thoughts on my work and, after reading several of his articles, it seems as if he will just quote me at length rather than provide an actual review of my work. Should I indulge him in my eagerness to gain press attention or decline in hopes of a future proposal from a more attentive critic? (Read more in Daily Serving.)
Art without Market, Art without Education: Political Economy of Art
Since the early days of modernism, artists have faced a peculiar dilemma with regard to the economy surrounding their work. By breaking from older artistic formations such as medieval artisan guilds, bohemian artists of the nineteenth century distanced themselves from the vulgar sphere of day-to-day commerce in favor of an idealized conception of art and authorship. While on the one hand this allowed for a certain rejection of normative bourgeois life, it also required that artists entrust their livelihoods to middlemen—to private agents or state organizations. While a concern with labor and fair compensation in the arts, exemplified by such recent initiatives as W.A.G.E. or earlier efforts such as the Art Workers Coalition, has been an important part of artistic discourse, so far it has focused primarily on public critique as a means to shame and reform institutions into developing a more fair system of compensation for “content providers.” It seems to me that we need to move beyond the critique of art institutions if we want to improve the relationship between artists and the economy surrounding their work. (Read more in e-flux Journal.)
Recent Deaths in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — March 20, 2013
In its regular roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, architects, photographers, and others whose work has significantly influenced the visual arts. The beginning of 2013 was marked by the loss of the artist Richard Artschwager and the critics Ada Louise Huxtable and Thomas McEvilley. Two longtime CAA members, Paul B. Arnold and Carl N. Schmalz Jr., also died recently.
- Paul B. Arnold, emeritus professor of fine arts at Oberlin College, died on July 2, 2012, at the age of 93. A CAA member since 1945 and president of the Board of Directors from 1986 to 1988, Arnold was an artist who began his career working in watercolor but later focused on printmaking
- Richard Artschwager, an American painter and sculptor who emerged during the Pop era but whose work embraced diverse media, passed away on February 9, 2013. He was 89 years old
- Bonni Benrubi, a photography dealer based in New York, died on November 29, 2012, at the age of 59. She was among the first gallery owners to specialize exclusively in modern and contemporary photography
- Daniel Blue, a Chicago-based sculptor who worked in metal, was found dead on January 2, 2013. He was 55 years old
- Simon Cerigo, an art dealer, curator, collector, and avid attendee of gallery openings in New York, died on January 20, 2013, at age 60. He operated an eponymous gallery in the East Village from 1985 to 1987
- Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, a Nigerian painter and illustrator based in the United Kingdom, passed away on December 17, 2012. She was 60 years old
- Thomas Cornell, an artist and longtime professor at Bowdoin College in Maine, died on December 7, 2012, at the age of 75. He helped to establish the Visual Arts Department at his school in 1962
- Burhan Doğançay, a Turkish artist who had lived in New York since the 1960s, died on January 16, 2013, at age 83. The Istanbul Modern Art Museum held a large survey of his abstract works of urban walls last year
- Tejas Englesmith, a former assistant director for Whitechapel Gallery in London during the 1960s who later settled in Houston, died on February 7, 2013. He was 71. Englesmith also served as a curator for the Jewish Museum and director of the Leo Castelli Gallery
- Leonard Flomenhaft, a lawyer and stockbroker who opened Flomenhaft Gallery in New York with his wife Eleanor, passed away on February 8, 2013. He was 90 years old
- Antonio Frasconi, a master woodcut artist from Uruguay who settled in Norwalk, Connecticut, died on January 8, 2013, at age 93
- Clarke Henderson Garnsey, professor emeritus of art history and former chair of the Department of Art at the University of Texas at El Paso, died on March 10, 2012. He was 98
- Raukura “Ralph” Hotere, a leading abstract artist from New Zealand who showed his work internationally, died on February 24, 2013, at the age of 81
- Ada Louise Huxtable, a celebrated architectural critic for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, died on January 7, 2013, at age 91. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for her writing
- George Kokines, an abstract artist based in Chicago, died on November 26, 2012. He was 82. Kokines had taught at several schools, including Northwestern University
- Balthazar Korab, a leading architectural photographer who captured buildings by Eero Saarinen on film, died on January 15, 2013. He was 86 years old
- Udo Kultermann, an internationally recognized scholar who taught for nearly thirty years at Washington University in Saint Louis, passed away on February 9, 2013. He was 85. CAA has published a special obituary on Kultermann
- Farideh Lashai, an Iranian artist known for her lyrical abstract painting and multimedia installations, died on February 24, 2013, at age 68. She helped found and was a member of the Neda Group, a collective of twelve female Iranian artists, in the late 1990s
- Alden Mason, a painter who lived and worked in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, died on February 6, 2013. He was 93 years old
- Thomas McEvilley, a poet, scholar, and art critic based in New York, died on March 2, 2013. He was 73. Among his numerous books are Art and Otherness: Crisis in Cultural Identity (1992), Sculpture in the Age of Doubt (1999), and The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (2002)
- Melanie Michailidis, a postdoctoral fellow in art history and archaeology at Washington University in Saint Louis, died on February 1, 2013. She was 46 years old
- Carl N. Schmalz Jr., an artist and art historian who taught for decades at Bowdoin College and Amherst College, died on February 22, 2013, at age 86. CAA has published a special obituary on Schmalz, who had been a CAA member since 1951
- William F. Stern, a Houston architect who was a principal at Stern and Bucek Architects, died on March 1, 2013, at the age of 66. He also served as an adjunct associate professor of architectural history at the University of Houston
- Michelle Walker, a former dancer and a Californian arts administrator, was found dead on January 29, 2013, at age 53. She had served as director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission from 1992 to 2006
- Casey Williams, a Houston photographer known for his “found abstractions,” passed away on January 1, 2013. He was 65
- Bernard A. Zuckerman, an Atlanta businessman and philanthropist, died on February 22, 2013, at age 91. Kennesaw State University is scheduled to open the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art in September of this year
Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries, or your completed texts, to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the next list.
Udo Kultermann: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — March 19, 2013
The following obituary was prepared by the family of the deceased and edited by CAA.
Udo Kultermann
Udo Kultermann, an internationally recognized scholar and Ruth and Norman Moore Professor Emeritus of Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in Saint Louis, died on February 9, 2013, in New York. He was 85 years old.
Born in Germany in 1927, Kultermann received his PhD from the University of Münster and served as the director of the City Art Museum in Leverkusen. He came to the United States in 1967, where he taught at Washington University for over thirty years. Kultermann wrote more than thirty-five books on a wide range of subjects—many of which have been translated into various languages—and published numerous articles in scholarly journals worldwide. His book The History of Art History (1993) is among his most original and cited works.
Kultermann’s specialty was twentieth-century architecture, with a groundbreaking focus on Africa and the Middle East. His interests also included European art and architecture as well as contemporary American art. Recognizing the importance of female performance artists, Kultermann was one of the first art historians to write about them. After retiring from Washington University, he and his wife, Judith Kultermann, moved to New York, where she still resides.
Read more about Kultermann in the Washington University Newsroom.
Carl N. Schmalz Jr.: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — March 19, 2013
The following obituary was submitted by the brother of the deceased, Robert F. Schmalz, and edited by CAA.
Carl N. Schmalz Jr.
Carl N. Schmalz Jr., an artist and art historian who taught for many decades at Bowdoin College and Amherst College and a CAA member since 1951, died February 22, 2013. He was 86 years old.
Born in 1926 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Schmalz was the son of the late Carl N. Schmalz and Esther (Fowler) Schmalz of Belmont, Massachusetts. he earned AB, AM, and PhD degrees in fine arts from Harvard University and was later awarded an honorary degree by Amherst College. He studied watercolor painting with Eliot O’Hara in 1943–44 and began a long teaching career while instructing at the O’Hara School at Goose Rocks Beach in 1946–47. As assistant professor at Bowdoin College from 1952 to 1962, he taught both the history and practice of art, while serving simultaneously as curator and ultimately as associate director of the Walker Art Museum (now the Bowdoin College Museum of Art). He moved to Amherst in 1962 and was made full professor seven years later.
In 1969 Schmalz inaugurated the popular summer Watercolor Workshops in Kennebunkport, Maine, which he ran for twenty years. He retired from Amherst at the end of 1994 but enjoyed teaching watercolor painting at Rock Gardens Inn in Sebasco Estates, Maine, since the early 1990s. He also taught at the Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk until his recent hospitalization.
Schmalz was the author of several books on watercolor painting and of articles in professional journals. He taught classes, juried many exhibitions, and lectured on the subject of watercolor throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and Bermuda. His work won him election as a charter member of the Watercolor USA Honor Society and national and regional prizes. His artwork was handled by galleries in Maine, Florida, Bermuda, and Boston, and his paintings hang in numerous public collections and in hundreds of private homes. He painted landscapes in Britain and Europe—and loved Italy especially. Apart from the Indian subcontinent, he painted on every continent on the globe. In recent years his particular focus was still life.
Schmalz held a wide range of public-service positions in the communities in which he lived: vice president of the board of directors of the Portland Museum of Art; member of the executive board of Interfaith Housing Corporation in Amherst; president of the board of trustees of Amherst Day School; art consultant for the O’Hara Picture Trust; chairman of the board of assessors in Pelham, Massachusetts; member of the Pelham Arts Lottery Council; and consultant on undergraduate science education for the National Academy of Sciences.
Schmalz leaves his wife Dolores T. Schmalz; his son Mathew N. Schmalz and his wife Kristin; and his daughter Julia I. Schmalz and her partner Janice. He is also survived by two grandchildren, Anna Teresa and Katherine Dolores Schmalz; and two brothers, Robert F. Schmalz of State College, Pennsylvania, and David H. Schmalz of Amsterdam, Holland. His first son, Stephen Theodore Schmalz, predeceased him.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — March 13, 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.
NHA Annual Meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day
The National Humanities Alliance will hold its 2013 annual meeting on Monday, March 18, and Humanities Advocacy Day on Tuesday, March 19, both in Washington, DC. Premeeting sessions are tentatively scheduled to begin on Sunday afternoon, March 17. Events will take place on the George Washington University campus and Capitol Hill. (Read more from the National Humanities Alliance.)
Average Pay Increases for Professors on Tenure-Track Matched Inflation This Year
The median base salary for tenured and tenure-track faculty members increased this academic year by an average of 2.1 percent, matching the rate of inflation. That year-to-year increase was slightly higher than the growth last year, when the average increase was 1.9 percent, according to an annual report released by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
LACMA Moves to Take Over MOCA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has made a formal proposal to acquire the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which has been struggling with financial troubles and staff and board defections. LACMA Director Michael Govan and the two cochairs of his board made the offer in a February 24 letter to the MOCA board cochairs, laying out the rationale for an acquisition. (Read more in the Los Angeles Times.)
Art Emerges from DNA Left Behind
They are the faces of real people, portraitlike sculptures etched from an almost powdery substance. The eye colors are distinct, the facial contours sharp, even though the artist, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, has never met or seen her subjects. Instead of using photographs or an art model for her work, she scoops detritus from New York City’s streets—cigarette butts, hair follicles, gum wrappers—and analyzes the genetic material people leave behind. Dewey-Hagborg, a PhD student in electronic arts, makes the faces after studying clues found in DNA. (Read more in the Wall Street Journal.)
Can We Please Stop Drawing Trees on Top of Skyscrapers?
Just a couple of years ago, if you wanted to make something look trendier, you put a bird on it. Birds were everywhere. I’m not sure if Twitter was what started all the flutter, but it got so bad that Portlandia performed a skit named, you guessed it, “Put a Bird on It.” It turns out architects have been doing the same thing, just with trees. Want to make a skyscraper look trendy and sustainable? Put a tree on it. Or better yet, dozens. (Read more in Slate.)
Anthony Van Dyck Painting “Found Online”
A previously unknown painting by the seventeenth-century master Anthony Van Dyck has been identified after being spotted online. The portrait was previously thought to have been a copy and was in storage at the Bowes Museum in County Durham. But it was photographed for a project to put all of the United Kingdom’s oil paintings on the BBC Your Paintings website, where it was seen by an art historian. (Read more at BBC News.)
Can Art Forgers Be Artists Too?
Art forgeries are often decried for crime, but could they be considered art? Many young artists learn to copy the old masters before refining their own work, and contemporary artists often play with ideas of authorship. So can an art forger be considered a legitimate artist? Do they want to make a statement? What motivates art forgers to commit forgery? We spoke with Jonathon Keats, author of Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age. (Read more in the Oxford University Press Blog.)
The End of the Creative Classes in Sight
To put it bluntly, it seems that high-skill occupations can be mechanized and outsourced in much the same way as car manufacturing and personal finance. In recent decades, we have become accustomed to the notion that manual labor has been rendered obsolete, uncompetitive, or poorly paid. But are we now prepared for the same thing to happen to skilled labor, to white-collar workers, to the creative classes? (Read more in the Guardian.)