CAA News Today
Juror Sought for the Millard Meiss Publication Fund
posted by CAA — June 30, 2014
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations from an architectural historian or an art historian with a specialization in Islamic, East Asian, or contemporary art to serve on the jury for the Millard Meiss Publication Fund for a four-year term, ending on June 30, 2018. Candidates must be actively publishing scholars with demonstrated seniority and achievement; institutional affiliation is not required.
The Meiss jury awards subsidies to support the publication of book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of art and related subjects. Members review manuscripts and grant applications twice a year and meet in New York in the spring and fall to select the awardees. CAA reimburses jury members for travel and lodging expenses in accordance with its travel policy.
Candidates must be current CAA members and should not be serving on another CAA editorial board or committee. Jury members may not themselves apply for a grant in this program during their term of service. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name; self-nominations are also welcome. Please send a letter describing your interest in and qualifications for appointment, a CV, and contact information to: Millard Meiss Publication Fund Jury, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or send all materials as email attachments to Alex Gershuny, CAA editorial manager. Deadline: July 22, 2014.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — June 25, 2014
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.
AAMD Sanctions Delaware Art Museum
AAMD is deeply troubled and saddened that the Delaware Art Museum has deaccessioned and sold a work of art from its collection to pay outstanding debt and build its operating endowment. Art museums collect works of art for the benefit of present and future generations. Responsible stewardship of a museum’s collection and the conservation, exhibition, and study of these works are the heart of a museum’s commitment to its community and to the public. (Read more from the Association of Art Museum Directors.)
Delaware Art Museum Painting Brings $4.25 Million
The Delaware Art Museum’s first painting up for auction, William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil, sold for $4.25 million last week, far short of Christie’s low estimate of $8.4 million. The 1868 work by the Pre-Raphaelite master sold within two minutes at Christie’s in London, with a starting bid of £1.9 million. (Read more from the Delaware News Journal.)
Humanities Funding Still in Recovery from Recession
Total funding for humanities research, education, and programs in the United States is still below prerecession levels, according to a new report released last week by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The report, The State of the Humanities: Funding 2014, gathers data on the array of funding sources, large and small, that underwrite the humanities, revealing that federal, state, and private support to the humanities are still recovering from the recession. (Read more from the National Endowment for the Humanities.)
Help Desk: To Apply Oneself
The annual application process for many residencies, fellowships, and publishing opportunities is tough. Should there be a limit on the number of times you apply for the same opportunity before you realize that they just aren’t interested in your practice? Or is it more valuable to demonstrate a little fortitude? (Read more from Daily Serving.)
No One Sits Here Anymore: How Spikes and Fences Erase Communal Life
Since the day it first opened, the windows of my neighborhood gym have been a gathering point for neighbors. They’re right at street level, and they’re big. Lots of us had sat on their deep windowsills for many years, most of all the Pakistanis who live in the surrounding area. Note that I wrote, “had sat,” because ever since Barcelona’s City Hall installed some giant metal plates, no one sits there anymore. The gatherings and chitchats are over. (Read more from Creative Time Reports.)
How Cities Use Design to Drive Homeless People Away
Earlier this month, someone tweeted a picture of a series of metal spikes built into the ground outside a London apartment building. The spikes were intended to discourage homeless people from sleeping in the area, and their presence sparked a public outcry. London’s mayor called the spikes “ugly, self defeating & stupid,” and the mayor of Montreal called similar spikes in his own city “unacceptable!!!!” Protesters poured concrete over a set of spikes outside a Tesco supermarket. Then, after a petition was signed by nearly 130,000 people, the spikes were removed from the London apartment building, the Tesco, and downtown Montreal. (Read more from the Atlantic.)
Should I Go to Art School?
You’ve sent me a tricky one, my dear. There are many personal factors that must be carefully considered by each individual, working in any artistic discipline, who is grappling with this question. While I have no way of knowing your personal capacities, I can certainly give you my general opinion … and you know I love doing that. (Read more from KCET.)
Hemingway: A Simple Online Tool for Better Short-Form Writing (Museum 2.0)
Exhibit labels. Promotional text. Grant proposals. For many arts and museum professionals, writing one-hundred-word chunks of text is a daily activity. Unfortunately, much of that writing is lousy. We have great references for better art writing but don’t always use them. Instead we pack sentences with highfalutin vocabulary, pepper them with clauses, and wrap them up in insider language. Recently, I discovered an online tool called Hemingway that can change that. Its intent is “to make your writing bold and clear.” (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)
Update on the CAA Fair-Use Initiative
posted by CAA — June 25, 2014
Professors Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi are now in the second phase of CAA’s Fair Use Initiative. The first phase, begun in January 2013, involved interviews with visual arts professionals regarding the use of third-party materials in their creative work and publications. The interviews were summarized by Aufderheide and Jaszi and published by CAA earlier this year: https://www.collegeart.org/news/2014/01/29/caa-publishes-fair-use-issues-report/
This week, Aufderheide and Jaszi completed the last of ten discussion group meetings held over the past few weeks in New York, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles, in which visual arts professionals explored various situations where fair use can be invoked when using third-party materials and images. Each discussion group consisted of ten to twelve artists, art historians, museum directors, curators, and editors, who were presented with hypothetical scenarios based on the Issues Report. The ensuing discussions have been intense and extremely valuable, providing insights into broadly shared standards for relying on fair use when using copyrighted material.
In the third phase of the project Aufderheide and Jaszi will use the results of the discussion groups to synthesize a code of best practices. A preliminary draft will be reviewed by the Task Force on Fair Use, the Committee on Intellectual Property, the project advisors, and a Legal Advisory Committee before a final version is presented to the CAA Board of Directors for approval.
CAA is pleased to announce the appointment of new advisors to the Fair Use Initiative. Chris Sundt, Editor, Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation and past chair of the CAA Committee on Intellectual Property; and Paul Catanese, Director of Interdisciplinary Arts & Media MFA Program, Columbia College Chicago and past chair of the CAA New Media Caucus have agreed to serve in this capacity. The advisors will contribute to the review of the draft code, propose possible candidates for the legal review committee and assist in the dissemination of the code once the CAA Board of Directors has approved it.
A report on the Fair Use Initiative will be presented at the Annual Conference in New York in February 2015.
New Appointments to CAA’s Editorial Boards
posted by Christopher Howard — June 24, 2014
The president of CAA’s Board of Directors, DeWitt Godfrey, has made appointments to the editorial boards of CAA’s three scholarly journals, in consultation with the editorial boards and the vice president for publications, Suzanne Preston Blier. The appointments take effect on July 1, 2014.
Art Journal
Two new members-at-large have joined the Art Journal Editorial Board. Tirza True Latimer is an associate professor at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and chair of its graduate program in visual and critical studies. Janet Kraynak is an associate professor of contemporary art history at the New School in New York, with joint appointment at Parsons the New School for Design and Eugene Lang College. The terms for Latimer and Kraynak extend until June 30, 2018.
The Art Bulletin
The Art Bulletin has announced its next reviews editor: Nancy Um, associate professor in the Department of Art History at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and a scholar of Islamic art and visual culture. For the past year, Um has been a scholar in residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. From 2011 to 2014, she served as the inaugural reviews editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture. Um is the author of The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port (University of Washington Press, 2009), as well as many essays and book chapters. Um will succeed Rachael DeLue of Princeton University, beginning a three-year-term as reviews editor on July 1, 2015, with the preceding year as reviews editor designate.
caa.reviews
The caa.reviews Editorial Board welcomes two new members-at-large: Meredith Cohen and Suzanne Hudson. Cohen is a historian of the art, architecture, and urbanism of medieval Europe and an assistant professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Hudson is an assistant professor of art history and fine arts at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and currently serves as the caa.reviews field editor for exhibitions of modern and contemporary art on the West Coast. Both Cohen and Hudson will serve four-year terms on the editorial board, from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2018.
The caa.reviews Council of Field Editors has four new members. Phillip Bloom, an assistant professor of art history at the University of Indiana in Bloomington and a visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo for 2013–14, will commission reviews of books on Chinese art. Edward A. Vazquez, assistant professor of history of art and architecture at Middlebury College in Vermont, will be the field editor for exhibitions of modern and contemporary art in the northeastern United States. Megan Cifarelli, an associate professor at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, and chair of her school’s program in art history, will assign reviews of books on ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern art for the journal. Finally, Pamela M. Fletcher, a professor of art history and codirector of the Digital and Computational Studies Initiative at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, joins caa.reviews to oversee reviews of digital projects in the visual arts.
Solo Exhibitions by Artist Members
posted by CAA — June 22, 2014
See when and where CAA members are exhibiting their art, and view images of their work.
Solo Exhibitions by Artist Members is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
Mid-Atlantic
Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern. Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg Gallery, Summit, New Jersey, May 9–June 29, 2014. #BaroqueTechStyle: Portraits by Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern. Oil painting and digital printmaking.
Michelle Handelman. Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 9–November 16, 2014. Beware the Lily Law. Installation.
Midwest
Victoria Fu. Document, Chicago, Illinois, January 31–March 8, 2014. Crossbar Radical-Tick Scoop Star. Installation, video, projection, and photography.
Northeast
Victoria Fu. Simon Preston Gallery, New York, May 4–June 7, 2014. Belle Captive. Installation, video, projection, and photography.
Sue Karnet. BBLA Gallery, Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, New York, April 2–29, 2014. Perceptions. Painting.
Lorna Ritz. French Cultural Center, Boston, Massachusetts, March 1–31, 2014. A Travelogue in Color. Painting.
Jo Sandman. Gallery Kayafas, Boston, Massachusetts, April 18–May 24, 2014. Transmissions. Transparent images.
Leigh Tarentino. Mixed Greens Gallery, New York, March 20–May 23, 2014. The Night Hours. Window installation.
West
Wynne Greenwood. Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, April 5–June 15, 2014. Wynne Greenwood: Notes on Tracy + the Plastics. Video archive.
CAA Statement on Delaware Art Museum
posted by Linda Downs — June 19, 2014
CAA endorses the Association of Art Museum Directors sanction against the Delaware Art Museum for selling an object from their permanent collection to address financial challenges. The work in question is William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil (1868) sold at Christie’s this week for a final hammer price of $4.25 million, half the amount estimated.
The sanction will result in the Delaware Art Museum not receiving loans of works of art from the AAMD member museums: http://galleristny.com/2014/06/aamd-sanctions-delaware-art-museum/. This sale is unethical and a breach of fiduciary responsibility according to the collection policies of Association of American Museums, AAMD and CAA. Museum collections are held in the public trust, and proceeds of sales of works from permanent collections are to be used for future growth of collections.
Image: William Holman Hunt, Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1868, oil on canvas, 74 x 46 in. (artwork in the public domain)
Report on the May 4, 2014, CAA Board of Directors Meeting
posted by Linda Downs — June 18, 2014
The Strategic Plan 2015-2020 was approved by the directors and the following priorities were established by the new president, DeWitt Godfrey:
- Advocate for workforce issues particularly for part-time faculty;
- Review the Professional Interests, Practices and Standards committees to ensure addressing critical issues in the visual arts field;
- Increase membership nationally, internationally and in terms of diversity; increase communication with members, including social communication;
- Find ways of extending the annual conference to a larger group of members; and
- Enhance utilization of digital capabilities by journal authors and promote digital expertise.
The directors are grateful to the Strategic Planning Task Force chaired by president emerita Anne Collins Goodyear and all the members who contributed to the development of this new plan.
The directors gratefully approved the endowment gift by Mary Douglas Edwards of $50,000 to support travel and registration to attend the CAA annual conference by women who are emerging scholars pursuing a doctoral degree or who have received their Ph.D. within two years prior to the submission of the application for the award of the grant and who will present research papers at an art history session at the conference with strong preference for papers on any topic pertaining to the art of ancient Greece or Rome, Medieval Europe from 400 – 1400, or Europe and North American from 1400 – 1950.
The directors approved the IRS Form 990 for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2013.
The directors approved CAA joining the Partner Program of the Society of Architectural Historians.
The directors also approved the Resolution to commend the Women’s Art Journal requested by the Committee on Women in the Arts for the maintenance of high quality scholarship that serves as a forum for re-examining feminist concerns of the women’s art movement. A letter of commendation was sent to Joan Marter, Professor of Art History, Rutgers University and Editor, Women’s Art Journal.
The directors established a Task Force on Design, chaired by Debra Riley Parr, , to investigate and make recommendations to the directors on 1) tenure and promotion standards for designers; 2) CV guidelines for designers; 3) representation of design fields in all the professional committees; and 4) scheduling sessions at the annual conference on design issues.
The directors decided to evaluate the Professional- Development Fellowships in Art History and Visual Arts in light of the current job market and in the context of the Strategic Plan 2015-2020 and to temporarily suspend the program.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — June 18, 2014
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.
The World’s Most Influential MFA Programs, Part 2
You may have noticed that our recent survey of ten of the world’s most influential MFA programs was heavily focused on the United States. That’s because we’re patriots. But numerous other art schools around the world have also made enormous impacts on the history of art, yielding generations of exalted alumni, boasting world-class faculty, and operating on a totally different scale and historical timeframe than schools of the US model. (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)
Foundations Add $13 Million to Grand Bargain Pot for DIA, Pensions
Two more leading national charitable foundations have pledged a combined $13 million to help the Detroit Institute of Arts reach its $100-million commitment to the grand bargain, which would protect the city-owned museum from having to sell its treasures while easing cuts to city pensioners in Detroit’s bankruptcy. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)
Detroit, DIA, in Preparation for Court Battle, Hire Art Advising Firm
As legal jockeying continues in Detroit’s bankruptcy, the city and the Detroit Institute of Arts have jointly hired a New York art investment firm whose personnel could be called as expert witnesses to push back against creditors trying to force a sale of art in court. Artvest Partners, a company that advises attorneys, dealers, insurers, and collectors, has been engaged to provide a price range for the entire 66,000-piece collection at the city-owned museum and assess the viability and practicality of selling art or otherwise monetizing the collection. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)
Shopkeepers of the World Unite
One evening last summer, far from New York City, I was cornered by a senior curator from a prestigious arts institution. The woman, who was urbane, stylish, and in her late thirties, had a pressing question. “You live in Los Angeles,” she noted. “Can you tell me, is Petra Cortright a feminist?” I squirmed as I considered how to avoid falling into this trap. (Read more from Artforum.)
Applying Rules of All Markets to Art
There’s a sentiment afloat in this frothy art market that rampant flipping and other practices among the creators, buyers, and sellers of art that were perhaps previously considered questionable are in fact entirely ethically neutral. This fairly widespread sentiment, that ethics don’t come into this matter, relies heavily on the assertion that such practices are entirely in line with the well-established rules of any market, and that art is no different from any other commodity and never has been. (Read more from Edward Winkleman.)
A Dereliction of Duty
In London, on June 17, Christie’s, the international auction house, will be offering for sale a painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt. Entitled Isabella and the Pot of Basil, it carries a presale estimate of $8.4 million to $13.4 million. Such sales—and such prices—are commonplace in today’s overheated art market. This one, however, is different because the seller, the Delaware Art Museum, is an institution that holds one of the finest collections of Pre-Raphaelite art outside Britain. Why would it choose to part with a work of such quality? (Read more from the Wall Street Journal.)
A Study Shows How Audiences Are Changing, but Should Data Guide Artistic Decisions?
No facet of society—not even the arts—is immune to the conversation about metrics, measurement, and big data. Last week in downtown Los Angeles, museum administrators, marketers, and cultural leaders gathered at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for the presentation of “Culture Track 14,” hosted by the Music Center. Billed as revealing a “dramatically changed cultural landscape,” the 2014 study—and the conversations around it—drove home many particulars that audience members already assumed and other dynamics long at play. (Read more from the LA Weekly.)
Starbucks College Achievement Plan
Starbucks believes in the promise and pursuit of the American Dream. This fall, the company will make it possible for thousands of part- and full-time US partners to complete a college degree. In a first of its kind collaboration with Arizona State University, Starbucks will offer partners the opportunity to finish their bachelor’s degree with full tuition reimbursement. Partners may choose from forty undergraduate degree programs through Arizona State’s research driven and top-ranked program, delivered online. (Read more from Starbucks.)
caa.reviews Publishes Dissertations Completed and In Progress for 2013
posted by Alyssa Pavley — June 17, 2014
caa.reviews recently published the authors and titles of doctoral dissertations in art history and visual studies—both completed and in progress—from American and Canadian institutions for calendar year 2013. You may browse by listing date or by subject matter. Each entry identifies the student’s name, dissertation title, school, and advisor.
Each institution granting the PhD in art history and/or visual studies submits dissertation titles once a year to CAA for publication. The caa.reviews list also includes dissertations completed and in progress between 2002 and 2012, making basic information about their topics available through web searches.
People in the News
posted by CAA — June 17, 2014
People in the News lists new hires, positions, and promotions in three sections: Academe, Museums and Galleries, and Organizations and Publications.
The section is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
Academe
Shiben Banerji has joined the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois as assistant professor of history of architecture.
Emine Fetvaci, an associate professor of Islamic art, has earned tenure in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Boston University in Massachusetts.
Patrick Hajovsky, an assistant professor of art history who specializes in Precolumbian and colonial Latin American art, has earned tenure in the Art and Art History Department at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.
Seth Kim-Cohen has been appointed assistant professor of contemporary art history in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois.
Elena FitzPatrick Sifford has accepted the position of assistant professor of Renaissance and Baroque art at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Mechtild Widrich has joined the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois as assistant professor of contemporary art history.
Gregory Williams, associate professor of contemporary art at Boston University in Massachusetts, has received tenure in his school’s Department of History of Art and Architecture.
Museums and Galleries
Paul R. Davis, previously Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Creative Arts of Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been appointed curator of collections at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.
Douglas Dreishpoon has become the first chief curator emeritus at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, where he has worked since 1998.
Christine NeilsenChristine Neilsen, formerly assistant curator of late antique and Byzantine art for the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has been named William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection and Director of Program Planning at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
David Odo has left his position as Bradley Assistant Curator of Academic Affairsat the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. He is now director of student programs and research curator of university collections initiatives at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Brandon RuudBrandon Ruud, previously curator of American art for the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, has been named the new Constance and Dudley J. Godfrey Jr. Curator of American Art and Decorative Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin.
Jill ShawJill Shaw, a research associate at the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has accepted the position of senior curator of collections at Colgate University’s Picker Art Gallery in Hamilton, New York.
Organizations and Publications
Parme Giuntini, professor of art history and assistant chair of liberal arts and sciences at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California, has become a contributing editor to the website Art History Teaching Resources.
Kimberly James Overdevest, assistant professor of visual arts at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, has joined the website Art History Teaching Resources as a contributing editor.
Virginia Spivey, an independent art historian based in Washington, DC, has become a contributing editor to the website Art History Teaching Resources.