CAA News Today
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — March 15, 2017
Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Can .art Domain Give the Art Business an Online Boost?
London’s Institute of Contemporary Art adopted the new .art suffix last week, a sign that the art and culture business may be coming to terms with its future in the digital realm. The ICA ditched its fusty ica.org.uk domain for the streamlined and descriptive ica.art, and the move may soon be followed at other prestigious art institutions around the world. (Read more from the Guardian.)
BHQFU on How to Run a Free Art School with the “Worst” Business Model
If there’s one thing that sets US education apart from education in other nations, it’s student debt. For art students with vague graduate degrees that don’t offer much job security, the cost of tuition has left many of them worse off after graduating than they were before becoming a student. What can be done? (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)
What Happens to Whitney Biennial Curators after the Show’s Over?
Inclusion in the Whitney Biennial—the influential and sometimes controversial snapshot of contemporary American art that takes place every two years—has launched or resuscitated many an artist’s career. But those tapped to do the selecting have experienced their own professional transformation, as this year’s organizers Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks may well discover. (Read more from Artsy Editorial.)
Trigger Warning: Academic Standards Apply
“I don’t like this whole idea of academic standards. Ever since I was in grade school, they’ve made me feel pressured and stressed out. I think academic standards are bullying. Whenever I deal with them, they bring back all these old bad memories. It’s like PTSD or something.” So declared a student from one of my courses at California State University, Fresno. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
New Travel Ban Still Sows Chaos and Confusion
A long-anticipated executive order restricting travelers from a half-dozen predominantly Muslim countries is likely to bring little certainty to American college campuses. The new order imposes a ninety-day ban on issuance of new visas, including student visas, to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Museums Chart a Response to Political Upheaval
As President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Inauguration Day approached, hundreds of artists, critics, and others asked American museums, galleries, and other institutions to close their doors in protest. They wanted museums to show that they are “places where resistant forms of thinking, seeing, feeling, and acting can be produced,” the organizers wrote in a petition for a J20 Art Strike. (Read more from the New York Times.)
When the Private Sector Funds the Arts
I recently wrote a piece defending the NEA, a grant-making organization that is somehow such a drag on the economy that it is now on the chopping block for the federal 2017 budget. This move makes perfect sense for Donald Trump the businessman, according to GOP enablers, because if the arts and so-called free expression are so worthy, the private sector will step in and fund them. (Read more from the Millions.)
US Embassy Art Scheme Should Survive Trump
The Trump administration is considering cutting federal funding for the arts, among other spending programs, to reduce domestic spending. However, one US cultural initiative appears to be secure—the State Department’s Art in Embassies program, which places works by US artists in embassies and ambassadorial homes around the world. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Thanks to 2017 Career Services Mentors and Workshop Leaders
posted by CAA — March 14, 2017
CAA extends a warm thank-you to all of the artists, scholars, curators, critics, educators, and other visual-arts professionals who served as Career Services mentors during the 2017 Annual Conference. Your knowledge and expertise helped to enrich the Artists’ Portfolio Review, Career Development Mentoring, and Mock Interviews. We also appreciate the efforts of the members who created and led Professional Development Workshops and Brown Bag Sessions based on members’ needs.
Artist’s Portfolio Review
Susan Canning, Sculpture; Jill Conner, Artists Studios; Carrie Ida Edinger, Independent Artist; Nancy Hart, Artist/263 Gallery; Richard Heipp, University of Florida; David Howarth, Zayed University; Paul Hunter, Artist/Painter; Jason Lahr, University of Notre Dame; Suzanne Lemakis, Citibank, retired; Sharon Lippman, Art Without Walls; Craig Lloyd, Mount St. Joseph University; Yelena McLane, Florida State University; Dinah Ryan, Principia College; Paul Bernard Ryan, Mary Baldwin University, Emeritus; and Greg Shelnutt, Clemson University.
Career Development Mentoring
Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University, Emeritus; Roann Barris, Radford University; Colin Blakely, University of Arizona; Leda Cempellin, South Dakota State University; Crista Cloutier, The Working Artist; Rebecca J. DeRoo, Rochester Institute of Technology; James Farmer, Virginia Commonwealth University; Reni Gower, Virginia Commonwealth University; Antoniette (Toni) Guglielmo, Getty Leadership Institute; Dennis Ichiyama, Purdue University; Zach Kaiser, Michigan State University; Ann B. Kim, University East; Carol Herselle Krinsky, New York University; Emmanuel Lemakis, CAA, retired; Jeffery Cote de Luna, Dominican University; Heather McPherson, University of Alabama, Birmingham; Liliana Milkova, Oberlin College; Mark O’Grady, Pratt Institute; Doralynn Pines, CAA; Thomas Post, Ferris State University; Heather Snyder Quinn, DePaul University; Jack Risley, University of Texas at Austin; Andrew Svedlow, University of Northern Colorado; Joe A. Thomas, Kennesaw State University; Ann Tsubota, Raritan Valley Community College; and Barbara Yontz, St. Thomas Aquinas College.
Mock Interview Sessions
Megan Koza Mitchell (Student and Emerging Professionals Committee Chair), Prospect New Orleans; Amanda Wainwright (Student and Emerging Professionals Committee), University of South Carolina; Tamryn Mcdermott, Temple University; Annie Storr, Brandeis University; Lauren Puzier, Sotheby’s; Abbey Hepner, University of Colorado; Rachel Kreiter, Spelman College; Nathan Manuel (Student and Emerging Professionals Committee); Lauren O’Neal, Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy; DeWitt Godfrey, Colgate University; Dennis Ichiyama, Purdue University; Rachel Stephens, University of Alabama; Matt King, VCU School of the Arts; Carol Garmon, University of Mary, Washington; Craig Lloyd, Mount St. Joseph University; Maile S. Hutterer, University of Oregon; Mark O’Grady, Pratt Institute; Thomas Post, Kendall College of Art and Design; Greg Shelnutt, Clemson University; Maria Ann Conelli, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Rebekah Beaulieu, Bowdoin College Museum of Art ; David LaPalombara, Ohio University; Arthur Blake Pierce, Valdosta State University; Michael Lobel, Hunter College; Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; David Howarth, Zayed University; and Colin Blakely, University of Arizona.
Brown Bag Lunches and Sessions
Megan Koza Mitchell (Student and Emerging Professionals Committee Chair), Prospect New Orleans; Amanda Wainwright (Student and Emerging Professionals Committee), University of South Carolina; Tamryn Mcdermott, Temple University; Annie Storr, Brandeis University; Lauren Puzier, Sotheby’s; Abbey Hepner, University of Colorado; Rachel Kreiter, Spelman College; Nathan Manuel, SEPC; Andrea Kirsch, Rutgers University; and Mattie M. Schloetzer, National Gallery of Art.
Professional Development Workshops
Maria Michails, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Susana Sevilla Aho, Modern Language Association; Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University, Emeritus; Emily Pugh, Getty Research Institute; Elizabeth Buhe, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; Petra ten–Doesschate Chu, Seton Hall University; Kate Kramer, University of Pennsylvania; Shannon Connelly, Lebanese American University; Craig Dietrich, The Claremont Colleges; Jon Ippolito, University of Maine; John Bell, Dartmouth College; Molly Fox, Indiana University; Rebekah Beaulieu, Bowdoin College Museum of Art; Deborah Lutz, Pamela Lawton, Annie Leist, and Emilie Gossiaux, all from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Alexa Sand, Utah State University; Sara Orel, Truman State University; Jenn Karson, University of Vermont FabLab; Martha Schwendener, New York Times/New York University; Jack Henrie Fisher, University of Illinois, Chicago; and Alan Smart, University of Illinois, Chicago.
Learning from Experience: Fair Use in Practice
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — March 14, 2017
We are eager to learn how individual CAA members are relying on fair use. Please take the following survey to let us know if, how, and to what extent you rely on fair use! Link here.
At last month’s Annual Conference, CAA’s Committee on Intellectual Property (CIP) organized “Learning from Experience: Fair Use in Practice,” a panel addressing fair use and how reliance on this aspect of copyright law has increased since CAA published its Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts two years ago. The CIP session featured leading visual arts professionals in four areas: the academic art library, publishing, art-making, and artist-endowed foundations, each of whom described the importance of fair use in her work. The session, which was attended by more than ninety conference-goers, was led by CIP’s new chair, Anne Collins Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and CAA president emerita, during whose tenure CAA undertook its fair use project, which culminated in the publication of the Code.
The panel opened with a brief overview of CAA’s fair use initiative by Goodyear, and then offered compelling examples of the Code’s application. Carole Ann Fabian, the Director of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University reported that Columbia advances the principal of open access policy where possible, and that Avery librarians draw upon three fair use codes when advising library users about quoting from or reproducing copyrighted materials: that developed by the Association of Research Libraries (2012), CAA’s Code of Best Practices (2015), and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) Guidelines (2016). The shared norms of the CAA and AAMD codes, both of which champion a liberal assertion of fair use, provide particularly helpful guidance on fair use applications related to copyrighted images. Avery is often the first point of contact for students and faculty who have questions about these issues, and as a collecting organization, is also a provider of primary content (and their digital surrogates) to scholars worldwide. Fabian noted that the work librarians perform educating users about copyrights and the doctrine of fair use is ongoing with each year’s influx of new students and faculty. Having a concise resource like CAA’s Code, makes it infinitely easier to introduce library users to this essential feature of American copyright law.
Victoria Hindley, Associate Acquisitions Editor, MIT Press, reported that discussions about fair use at last year’s CAA Annual Conference motivated her to work with her colleagues at MIT Press to pursue a fair use initiative of their own. With support from Executive Editor Roger Conover, Press Director Amy Brand, legal counsel, and others, Hindley helped to define a progressive position in support of responsible fair use. “One of our primary goals,” she said, “was to figure out how to reduce the burden of clearing permissions placed on the author.” The resulting proposal, which is undergoing final Institute approval, is a robust document that most notably, as she explained: “would no longer require authors to indemnify the press when they have made a reasonable good faith determination of fair use.” MIT Press has developed proposed new contract language in support of this position; and, to further empower authors, the Press has crafted permissions guidelines that take advantage of the CAA Code and also refer authors to it. “The CAA Code of Best Practices has proven to be an invaluable guide for us as we’ve held these discussions and made decisions about our own guidelines,” noted Hindley. The new policy pending adoption at MIT Press would provide protections similar to those that CAA grants contributors to its publications.
The third speaker was the distinguished artist Martha Rosler, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award during the conference from the Women’s Caucus for Art. Rosler has for decades incorporated into her work images circulating in what she has called the public sphere of mass media, including newspapers, magazines, and television, without stopping to consider copyright. While showing examples of her work, Rosler described the importance of processes like hers, which, she said, for many artists “constitute an essential form of critique.” Although Rosler’s practice predates the publication of CAA’s Code of Best Practices, she acknowledged that the Code serves to clarify the principles on which such a practice is based. She also noted that the Code has the potential to offer support and encouragement to other artists who might otherwise shy away from the legitimate use of copyrighted material in their work, for fear of adverse consequences. She also observed, with regret, that many artists, particularly those working in video, have deliberately abandoned or failed to undertake projects involving appropriation precisely because the legal departments of broadcast entities bar the airing of such works, out of fear of reprisal for purported infringements.
Francine Snyder, Director of Archives and Scholarship at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, was the fourth speaker in the CIP session. She talked about the positive effect on the Foundation of a proactive fair use policy in the year since it was introduced. The main goal of the policy has been to foster scholarship about Rauschenberg, disseminate knowledge, and enhance educational initiatives. In this regard, Snyder reported, the policy has proven a great success, generating more scholarship and innovative projects. Among the outcomes to which she referred is an online gallery for children that includes images of Rauschenberg’s work. Snyder indicated that one of the most important values of the Foundation’s public turn to fair use has been to reduce anxiety on the part of those who want to reproduce the artist’s work for creative and scholarly purposes. Snyder mentioned that the fair use policy does not apply to commercial uses, for which the Foundation relies on licensing through VAGA. By way of conclusion, she explained that the Foundation is committed to an open dialogue as interpretations of fair use continue to evolve, as seen in the multiple applications of CAA’s Code of Best Practices.
Following the formal presentations, Jeffrey P. Cunard, CAA’s counsel, and Co-Chair of its Fair Use Task Force, moderated a discussion with the speakers and audience. Cunard noted the importance of the Rauschenberg Foundation’s turn to the doctrine of Fair Use in making work by Rauschenberg available for scholarly and creative purposes, and the relationship between fair use and an open approach to licensing images. He also clarified, in conversation with Rosler, that copyright holders had not objected to her pioneering work, which may not have been surprising, given the transformative nature of her use of appropriated material.
The talks by each of the speakers on this panel, along with the great interest expressed by the audience, point to increased awareness of the application of fair use since CAA published the Code of Best Practices two years ago. While detailing the many ways in which fair use is benefitting scholarship and creative practice, the session also makes clear the need for ongoing education about the Code, and the importance of publicizing and encouraging its use. We invite further examples of fair use in action, and any suggestions for the continued dissemination of the Code and the guidance it provides.
Meiss Call for Jurors 2017
posted by CAA — March 13, 2017
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations for one individual to serve on the Millard Meiss Publication Fund Jury for a four-year term, July 1, 2017–June 30, 2021. 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. Members volunteer their services to CAA without compensation.
Candidates must be CAA members and should not currently serve 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 Deidre Thompson, CAA publications assistant, dthompson@collgeart.org. Deadline: April 21, 2016.
Affiliated Society News for March 2017
posted by CAA — March 10, 2017
Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG)
Registration and program information for the 2017 AAMG Annual Conference in Eugene, OR is now available. Please click here to access the schedule of presentations, workshops, receptions, and much more.
Online registration, as well as hotel and travel information, is also now online. Please note: AAMG institutional and individual members will need to login with their username and password to be eligible for the $250 early bird rate. The special member rate is available through April 15. If you have difficulty with logging in to your account, click here to reset your password or contact membership@aamg-us.org.
We hope to see you in Eugene this summer for what will be our biggest and best AAMG Annual Conference to date!
Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA)
The Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) was happy to see many members at CAA for its Annual Meeting and its sponsored session, “The Gustatory Turn in American Art.” February 2017 also marked a changing of the guard of sorts, as we welcome several new board members to our ranks. We wish to express our gratitude to outgoing Board members Anna Marley (Chair Emerita), Monica Jovanovich-Kelley (Treasurer), Jillian Russo (Secretary), Melissa Renn (Membership Coordinator), and Annelise Madsen (Web Coordinator). We are grateful for their years of service to the organization!
We welcome the following incoming board members: Miguel de Baca (Co-Chair), Diana Seave Greenwald (Treasurer), Naomi Slipp (Secretary), Jonathan Walz (Membership Coordinator), and Jeff Richmond-Moll and Andrea Truitt (Web Co-Coordinators). Additionally, the Executive Editors of our online journal Panorama will be joining the board, and so we are pleased to work even more closely with Betsy Boone, Sarah Burns, and Jennifer Jane Marshall.
AHAA is also delighted to announce the venue for our October 2018 Symposium: Minneapolis, Minnesota! We look forward to sharing more information in the coming months as our colleagues at the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art develop their plans.
As always, we welcome hearing your news and views. You can learn more about AHAA or share your news by visiting our website at ahaaonline.org or emailing info@ahaaonline.org. We also welcome submissions, pitches, and proposals for our online journal; please visit journalpanorama.org.
Community College Professors of Art and Art History
CCPAAH wants to thank all of the presenters and participants at our Affiliated Society session at the 2017 CAA Annual Conference in New York. The panel Reinventing the Familiar: Updated Approaches in Art History and the Studio, was chaired by Susan Altman, Middlesex County College and included the following presentations: Taking Art History Beyond the Classroom by Maya Jiménez, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY and Cheryl Hogue Smith, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY; Crowd-sourcing Global Art: Wikis and the Non-Western Canon by Jill Foltz, Collin College; Gaming the Critique: Providing Framework and Fun to the Group Critique by Tyrus Clutter, College of Central Florida; and Waging Art: When Fine Arts meets Workplace Development by Kathleen M. Dlugos, Westmoreland College. The successful Project Share at our early morning business meeting gave everyone lots of new ideas to bring back to our studio and art history classrooms.
CCPAAH will be sponsoring a session: Draw and Repeat: Reconsidering the Sketchbook at this year’s FATE Conference in Kansas City in April. Interested in presenting? The call for papers for next year’s CCPAAH Affiliated Session at the 2018 CAA Annual Conference will be posted is open through April 15, 2017. Submission site here.
Please follow us on Facebook: Community College Professors of Art and Art History and Instagram: @ccpaah. Interested in getting more involved? Contact Susan Altman at: ccpaah@gmail.com
FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory and Education)
Thank you to all who came to the FATE Affiliate Society session, “Using the F-word for Good, Not Evil: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better,” at CAA this year. We had an excellent turn out!
Coming up, KCAI’s Foundation Department will host To the Core and Beyond, FATE’s 16th Biennial Conference from April 6th – 8th, 2017 at the Intercontinental at the Plaza in Kansas City. There, FATE members will gather as leading voices in fundamental art and design instruction and examine place, geography, introspective and reflexive actions, pedagogical values, and the potency of origins across the world. Influences from inside and outside the studio drive the development of Foundation programs and their students. In response to the conference theme, a broad spectrum of artists and academics will examine our reach as educators, and question how we instill world values through Foundation instruction and diverse programmatic structures. Enrique Martínez Celaya will be the 2017 FATE Conference Keynote Speaker.
More information about FATE’s 2017 conference.
In other news, FATE’s Positive Space: Episode 6 podcast is now live. In Episode 6, Jessica Burke (JB), Georgia Southern University & Emily Sullivan Smith, University of Dayton thoughtfully discuss the role of a Foundations Coordinator, balancing administrative roles with teaching & the pros/cons of a unified foundations curriculum.
More info? Please contact: Naomi J. Falk, naomijfalk@gmail.com
International Sculpture Center
Call for Panels now open for 27th International Sculpture Conference: Intersections + Identities. The ISC is seeking a diverse and comprehensive program, covering topics relevant to sculpture today. Apply online now! The call is open through March 13, 2017.
2017 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards. Faculty, nominate your sculpture students today! Rules and details. Deadline: March 29, 2017. Email: studentawards@sculpture.org Phone: 609-689-1051 ext. 312
Japan Art History Forum (JAHF)
In recent elections, JAHF members elected: Julie Nelson Davis (University of Pennsylvania) to a 3-year term as President, Namiko Kunimoto (Ohio State University) to a 3-year term as Vice President, and Holly Rubalcava (University of Wisconsin-Madison) to a 2-year term as Graduate Representative.
The winner of the 2016 Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize for outstanding scholarship by a graduate student was Elizabeth Self, a PhD candidate in the Dept. of the History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, for her paper titled “A Mausoleum Fit for a Shogun’s Wife: The Two Seventeenth-Century Mausolea for Sūgen-In.” The Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Competition is generously supported by the Japanese Art Society of America (JASA) and by University of Hawai’i Press. More information on the Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize.
The 2016 Clark Center Graduate Travel Grant was awarded to Ja Won Lee of the University of California, Los Angeles, who will be visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to examine Japanese artworks from the collection in the context of her research on the collecting of Chinese antiques and its impact on visual and material culture in 19th and early twentieth-century Japan and Korea. More information on the Clark Center Graduate Travel Grant.
SECAC
SECAC was represented at CAA 2017 on the following session panels and with the following speakers: “In the Studio,” chaired by Elizabeth Heuer, University of North Florida; “Shared Space: The Home-Studio of Thomas Moran & Mary Nimmo Moran,” with Shannon Vittoria, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; “Dueling Studios: The Public and Private Images of Chaim Gross. Dueling Studios: The Public and Private Images of Chaim Gross,” with Sasha Davis, The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation; “Free Markets, Free People: Discourse and Behavior in Lynda Benglis’ Lost Studio Tapes,” with Katie Anania, The University of Texas at Austin; and “The Studio as Model: From André Breton’s Wall to Fischli & Weiss’s Polyurethane Object Installations and Piero Giolio’s Studio,” with Susan Power, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
SECAC 2017 Call for Papers deadline is April 20, 2017, midnight, EDT. Membership in SECAC is due at the time of paper acceptance, and registration fees are required of all. Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) looks forward to hosting “Microscopes and Megaphones,” the 73rd annual SECAC Conference, October 25-28, 2017. Eleanor Fuchs, Associate Provost at CCAD, will serve as conference director. Find more information here.
Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) will host its 70th Annual International Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, from June 7–11, 2017. This is the first time that SAH has met outside North America in over 40 years! Meeting in Scotland’s largest city, world renowned for its outstanding architectural heritage, reflects the increasingly international scope of the Society and its conference. Architectural historians, art historians, architects, museum professionals and preservationists from around the world will convene to share new research on the history of the built environment. The Glasgow conference will include 36 paper sessions, eight roundtables, an introductory address and plenary talk, architecture tours, the SAH Glasgow Seminar, and more. Early registration ends March 14, 2017. Tours-only registration opens to the public on March 15, 2017.
The call for papers for the SAH 2018 Annual International Conference in St. Paul, MN, will open on March 31, 2017.
SAH is seeking educators to produce K-12 lesson plans for SAH Archipedia, an authoritative online encyclopedia of the built world published jointly by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press. Interested educators should submit a proposal that includes a 500-word abstract outlining the topic of the lesson plan and include a preliminary list of the SAH Archipedia content the project would incorporate. Read the submission instructions here. Proposals are due by March 31, 2017.
SAH is accepting applications for the SAH/Mellon Author Awards through June 1, 2017. These awards are designed to provide financial relief to scholars who are publishing their first monograph on the history of the built environment, and who are responsible for paying for rights and permissions for images or for commissioning maps, charts or line drawings in their publications.
New in caa.reviews
posted by CAA — March 10, 2017
Dawn Odell discusses Asia in Amsterdam: The Culture of Luxury in the Golden Age, an exhibition catalogue produced by the Peabody Essex Museum and Rijksmuseum. “The marvel of this publication is its breadth,” as it “draws together a collection of stunning objects” and focuses “on the important role the Dutch played in facilitating and celebrating the material results of cross-cultural trade.” Read the full review at caa.reviews
Karen Blough reads The Bernward Gospels: Art, Memory, and the Episcopate in Medieval Germany by Jennifer P. Kingsley. “Focusing minutely on a single patron and the visual program of one commission,” the author “brilliantly addresses a multitude of issues in Ottonian theology, history, and art” and makes “a valuable contribution to English-language scholarship on Ottonian art history.” Read the full review at caa.reviews
Emily C. Burns reviews Melissa A. Dabakis’s A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome. The author puts “sculptural production in dialogue with literature, visual culture, and the political and social histories of Rome and the United States,” tracing the city “as a welcoming site for feminine creativity” and “a complex site for gender politics and constructions of American culture.” Read the full review at caa.reviews
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for March 2017
posted by CAA — March 10, 2017
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts selects the best in feminist art and scholarship. The following exhibitions and events should not be missed. Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
March 2017
From the Collection: Sister(s) In the Struggle: Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver
Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Photographs of Angela Davis on view: January 18–March 5, 2017
Photographs of Kathleen Cleaver on view: March 7–April 9, 2017
Curated by Julie Crooks, Sister(s) In the Struggle: Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver features photographs of two leading female figures of the Black Panther Party taken from the Black Star Collection at the Ryerson Image Centre. “They were photographed excessively,” Crooks said in an interview with Flare, “and their images were ubiquitous. They were in newspapers, they were in journals, they were on posters and their representations, or likenesses, were all over the place and that created this kind of cult presence…. At times the photographs could be detrimental to one’s image, especially someone like Angela Davis, but I think they also fed into this kind of iconic status.”
In choosing to pull photographs from the Black Star Collection from the civil rights area, Crooks explained that she wanted to humanize the representation of Davis and Cleaver, selecting images that offered a previously unexplored way of looking at them. The exhibition creates comparisons to many other women behind the scenes—those who are not remembered. “I wanted to highlight these photographs because the Black Power statement was, ‘black is beautiful’ and that was kind of a relentless message: that we are beautiful, despite hundreds of years of representation that told us otherwise, Crooks told Flare.
This exhibition is part of a collaboration between the Ryerson Image Centre and Black Artists’ Networks Dialogue, called Power to the People: Photography and Video of Repression and Black Protest, which will run until April 9.
Amy Jorgensen: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Elizabeth Houston Gallery
190 Orchard Street, New York, NY
February 8–March 12, 2017
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue by Amy Jorgensen is a series of delicate handkerchiefs emblazoned with historic images of suffragettes. In fact, displayed on each piece of linen is the surveillance images of eighteen women taken from the 1913 Criminal Records Office of Scotland Yard.
“Recognizing in this episode a peculiar confluence of gazes, Jorgensen re-contextualizes and re-situates these images into the wider question of how women’s identities are constructed, and how they are obstructed…. The gift of the handkerchief is a matrimonial tradition passed from mother to daughter, woman to woman. This work investigates the search for, or the making of, identity that draws upon the plurality and fraction of the self, and the span of influence that is made from generation to generation.”
These discrete portraits of women suffragettes were taken and cataloged by Scotland Yard after a series of acts of civil disobedience, including arson, window breaking, and other public disturbances, which in turn created a national scandal. Jorgensen, who transferred the photographs to the handkerchief using cyanotype, an early-nineteenth-century photographic process pioneered by a woman, first discovered the images while researching Edna Berg, her great aunt and an impassioned suffragette from New York.
“The juxtaposition of these two histories—that of the matrimonial ceremony and that of the women of the suffragette movement—provides a jarring collision point for the examination of patriarchal structures both in history and contemporary culture.”
Jennifer Brea: Unrest
Film
SXSW, Austin, Texas
March 10–19, 2017
After making its debut at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Unrest by the director Jennifer Brea travels to SXSW in Austin, Texas, this March. The film focuses on the life of Brea, who was diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, commonly referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome. Brea, a PhD student at Harvard University, found that she could not sign a check at a restaurant, becoming progressively worse in the months before her wedding. When doctors told her it was “all in her head,” Brea turned her camera on herself, filming from the confines of her bed.
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a systemic neuroimmune condition characterized by post-exertional malaise—a severe worsening of symptoms after even minimal exertion. The root causes and physical effects are not fully understood, especially in women. As Brea described in a TED Talk, her neurologist diagnosed her with conversion disorder and said her physical symptoms were the result of some distance emotional trauma. “It is a perfect custom prison,” Brea observed. “How can a disease this devastating be forgotten by medicine?”
“As I got sick, I found myself as part of cohort of women in their late 20s whose bodies were falling apart,” Brea explained, “and how hard it was to be taken seriously.” Her film explores her own diagnosis but also seeks to address the millions of others with the same condition.
As SXSW nears, screening days and times for Unrest will be posted on the schedule page. The full TED Talk with Brea can be found online.
Suor Plautilla Nelli, Lamentation with Saints (1550)
The Art of Suor Plautilla Nelli
Uffizi Gallery
Piazzale degli Uffizi, 6, Florence, Italy
March 8–April 30, 2017
In the first of an open-ended, annual series of exhibitions dedicated to women artists—what the Italian press is calling “pink exhibitions”—the Uffizi Gallery will showcase the work of Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1587), an artist nun who was Florence’s first known female Renaissance artist. Works culled from her Domenican convent, as well as from churches and museums across central Italy, will go on display on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day; they will remain on view until April 30. The Florence-based organization Advancing Women Artists Foundation, which has been instrumental in facilitating the restoration of Nelli’s works, published the exhibition catalogue. Eike Schmidt, the Uffizi’s current director, was motivated to pursue this initiative after a conversation with the Guerrilla Girls.
Leila Alaoui: No Pasara
Musée des Beaux-Arts
1380, rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal, Canada
Through April 30, 2017
On January 18, 2016, a young French-Moroccan photographer named Leila Alaoui was killed in an attack in Burkina Faso. Alaoui, who had been in the West African nation on assignment for a report on women’s rights for Amnesty International, used her photography to highlight issues related to migration, displacement, and cultural identity. The twenty-four images of No Pasara, which means “no entry,” depict young Moroccans who dream of a better life on the other side of the Mediterranean. The series was commissioned by the European Union in 2008.
In a review of her work last year, a critic for the Economist wrote: “Alaoui’s photojournalism drove the reasons for the movement of humans—before and beyond today’s crises—home, by turning a lens on those who have been and continue to remain unseen between world crises. Economic migrants in the regions she captured, including young Moroccans, Lebanese and Sub-Saharan Africans willing to make perilous crossings for a life in Europe were the consistent thread through her projects.” Alaoui’s hauntingly beautiful images offer a trenchant and poignant vantage point from which to consider the global immigration crisis.
Walled Garden in an Insane Eden
Sara Zanin Gallery
Via della Vetrina, 2, Rome, Italy
February 9–March 25, 2017
“Is it only the external landscape which is altering? How often recently most of us have had the feeling of déjà vu, of having seen all this before, in fact of remembering these swamps and lagoons all too well. However selective the conscious mind may be, most biological memories are unpleasant ones, echoes of danger and terror. Nothing endures for so long as fear.”
—J. G. Ballard from The Drowned World (1962)
Borrowing its title from J. G. Ballard’s science-fiction novel and one of its dystopic tales, this exhibition brings together a contingency of London-based artists whose work engages with the political uncertainties introduced into the European landscape in 2016. Their responses, which include drawings, paintings, sculptures, textiles, and performance, range from skeptical to hopeful. Organized by Marcelle Joseph, the exhibition features mostly women artists, including Rebecca Ackroyd, Gabriella Boyd, Kira Freije, Marie Jacotey, Florence Peake, and Zadie Xa.
CAA Seeks Ad Sales Rep
posted by admin — March 08, 2017
Part-time and commission based
The College Art Association (CAA), a membership and advocacy organization for those working in the visual arts, seeks a part-time advertising sales rep with media sales experience in both print and digital platforms. The ideal candidate should have established contacts in the arts and culture publishing landscape and in the wider culture field. She/he will have the mindset to strategically target prospective clients to build relationships that support CAA’s prestigious publications and events with a strong ad sales program.
The advertising sales rep would work primarily on CAA’s two flagship print journals, The Art Bulletin and Art Journal, with some work on CAA’s digital reviews platform, caa.reviews. Additional work would include selling ads for the graduate program directories and the CAA Annual Conference. Candidates for the position should have experience in billing clients, advertising proposal creation, and proper tracking of invoices and payments.
This is a part-time, commissioned-based position. The position reports to the Director of Communications and Marketing.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Manage relationships with current advertising clients and develop strategy for new client growth
- Work closely with staff across all departments to create client strategy aligned with journals, website content, and programs
- Produce client contracts for ad sales
- Oversee invoicing and record keeping for ad sales on journals and relevant websites
- Report and present on ad sales program and results to staff members and constituents
- Work with publications department staff and in-house graphic designer on ad placement and design as needed
- Other duties as assigned or requested
QUALIFICATIONS
- At least 2 years of ad sales or comparable experience
- A warm and welcoming personality that encourages relationship building
- Established relationships with advertisers and companies in the arts and culture field
- Proven track record of closing new business and maintaining current business
- Exceptional written/verbal communication skills
- Ability to work independently, organize multiple concurrent tasks, work efficiently, and follow through on details
- Experience with spreadsheets, systems, and database management and generally accepted programs and office equipment required
- BS/BA degree or equivalent preferred
Send resume and cover letter to nobourn@collegeart.org with the subject line “CAA Ad Sales Rep.”
This job description is intended as a summary of the primary responsibilities of and qualifications for this position. The job description is not intended as inclusive of all duties an individual in this position might be asked to perform or of all qualifications that may be required either now or in the future.
The College Art Association is an equal opportunity employer and considers all candidates for employment regardless of race, color, sex, age, national origin, creed, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender expression, or political affiliation.
CAA Seeks Ad Sales Rep
posted by CAA — March 08, 2017
Part-time and commission based
The College Art Association (CAA), a membership and advocacy organization for those working in the visual arts, seeks a part-time advertising sales rep with media sales experience in both print and digital platforms. The ideal candidate should have established contacts in the arts and culture publishing landscape and in the wider culture field. She/he will have the mindset to strategically target prospective clients to build relationships that support CAA’s prestigious publications and events with a strong ad sales program.
The advertising sales rep would work primarily on CAA’s two flagship print journals, The Art Bulletin and Art Journal, with some work on CAA’s digital reviews platform, caa.reviews. Additional work would include selling ads for the graduate program directories and the CAA Annual Conference. Candidates for the position should have experience in billing clients, advertising proposal creation, and proper tracking of invoices and payments.
This is a part-time, commissioned-based position. The position reports to the Director of Communications and Marketing.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Manage relationships with current advertising clients and develop strategy for new client growth
- Work closely with staff across all departments to create client strategy aligned with journals, website content, and programs
- Produce client contracts for ad sales
- Oversee invoicing and record keeping for ad sales on journals and relevant websites
- Report and present on ad sales program and results to staff members and constituents
- Work with publications department staff and in-house graphic designer on ad placement and design as needed
- Other duties as assigned or requested
QUALIFICATIONS
- At least 2 years of ad sales or comparable experience
- A warm and welcoming personality that encourages relationship building
- Established relationships with advertisers and companies in the arts and culture field
- Proven track record of closing new business and maintaining current business
- Exceptional written/verbal communication skills
- Ability to work independently, organize multiple concurrent tasks, work efficiently, and follow through on details
- Experience with spreadsheets, systems, and database management and generally accepted programs and office equipment required
- BS/BA degree or equivalent preferred
Send resume and cover letter to nobourn@collegeart.org with the subject line “CAA Ad Sales Rep.”
This job description is intended as a summary of the primary responsibilities of and qualifications for this position. The job description is not intended as inclusive of all duties an individual in this position might be asked to perform or of all qualifications that may be required either now or in the future.
The College Art Association is an equal opportunity employer and considers all candidates for employment regardless of race, color, sex, age, national origin, creed, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender expression, or political affiliation.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — March 08, 2017
Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
On Hiring and Diversity This Week
Many colleges and universities want to attract a more diverse workforce and foster greater inclusivity in their faculty and administrative ranks, but don’t know how. The Chronicle of Higher Education is helping by sharing stories, news, and data aimed at helping hiring managers and recruiters make better, more informed decisions about diversity hiring at their institutions and across higher education generally. (Read more from Vitae.)
How to Fix the Met: Connect Art to Life
With the precipitous decrease in art and history education in schools, much of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s encyclopedic collection now means little to younger viewers. It feels foreign and remote and unsociable in a way that contemporary art, with its familiar references, does not. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Russian and Syrian Forces Retake Palmyra from ISIL
Syrian government troops have retaken Palmyra from Islamic State forces, with help from Russian air support, the Syrian army said last week. Politicians in Russian welcomed the news as a triumph, as widely reported by the state’s media, but few details have emerged about the condition of the ancient site, where ISIL has previously wreaked large-scale destruction. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
The Earthquake in Amatrice, Norcia, and the Marche: A Cultural Emergency
This area of Italy—the Valnerina, the Appennine Marches, the Teramo region of the Abruzzo, and a segment of Lazio—has a distinguished cultural patrimony. There may be no large museums or significant art galleries, but in most cases the works of art are still in the buildings for which they were conceived, whether churches, convents, or tiny chapels in the mountains. (Read more from the Burlington Magazine.)
Very Serious Play: A Conversation with Jess Benjamin
The Nebraska-born sculptor Jess Benjamin creates work with an austere sensibility and eloquent narrative that is inextricably tied to the land—more specifically to the water—of her home state. The daughter of a rancher, she earned her BFA in ceramics from Hastings College before working as a studio assistant for Jun Kaneko, and then earning an MFA at Bowling Green State University. (Read more from Sculpture.)
SUPERFLEX’s Hospital Equipment: Context Is Everything
“Sometimes context is everything,” SUPERFLEX’s Jakob Fenger wrote, as he Instagrammed a photo of the latest installation of Hospital Equipment in a gallery in Switzerland. The Danish collaborative calls Hospital Equipment a “readymade upside down” because it pulls objects into an art context, only to send them on their way to a new context, as functional objects. (Read more from Greg.org.)
A Question of Resources
We hear regularly from arts funders and opinion formers about the need to diversify funding streams within the arts to protect future sustainability. And this is absolutely true. Any arts organization that finds itself over-reliant on government or statutory sources, or one single income stream that then dries up, can find itself in trouble. (Read more from Arts Professional.)
Identifying Quality in Scholarly Publishing: Not a Black-and-White Issue
Like every industry, publishing is open to scamming and deceptive behavior in many forms, and there are various influencing factors at play—including the pressure to publish that academics face. An abundance of unfamiliar new publications makes it difficult to know which can be trusted, and the merits of blacklisting or whitelisting publishers are being widely discussed. (Read more from the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.)