CAA News Today
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for December 2015
posted by CAA — December 10, 2015
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.
December 2015
Marks Made: Prints by American Women Artists from the 1960s to the Present
Museum of Fine Arts
255 Beach Drive N.E., St. Petersburg, FL
October 17, 2015–January 24, 2016
The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, presents Marks Made, examining women in printmaking. Featuring over 75 works, including those from the printmaking pioneers Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Anni Albers, the exhibition “conveys the breadth of innovation of both technique and conceptual approaches that have emerged in printmaking over the past 50 years.”
The exhibition draws on the private holdings and from the museum’s extensive collection of prints by American women, including Vija Celmins, Janet Fish, Ellen Gallagher, Yvonne Jacquette, Joyce Kozloff, Barbara Kruger, Hung Liu, Elizabeth Murray, Judy Pfaff, Susan Rothenberg, and Pat Steir. Limited-edition prints by the artists Elisabeth Condon and Jane Hammond were also created in collaboration with the University of South Florida and Bleu Acier Editions. Related programming events include film screenings, drawing workshops, and lectures.
“The printmaking process is an intensely collaborative one, between artist and printer. It is also a highly physical process, requiring strength, stamina, and technical prowess—Marks Made tells the story of what happens in the studio and the resulting artworks.” The themes of the exhibition vary from artist to artist and are loosely grouped, allowing interconnected exploration between themes of abstraction, realism, craft, appropriation strategies, and activism.
Linda Stein: The Fluidity of Gender
Noyes Museum of Art
Stockton University, 733 Lily Lake Road, Oceanville, NJ
September 21, 2015–January 3, 2016
The artist Linda Stein at the Noyes Museum of Art presents sculpture exploring “the continuum between the binaries of masculinity and femininity,” with her mixed-media figurative work. The leather and metal figures, along with use of pop0-cultural icons, embody both the essence of a warrior’s armor and comforting protection. Stein’s work concerns gender, oppression, bullying, strength, power, and justice in contemporary culture.
“My goal as an artist is to use my art to transform social consciousness and promote activism for gender justice,” Stein has said. “With my androgynous forms I invite the viewer to seek diversity in unpredictable ways, to ‘try on’ new personal avatars and self-definitions, knowing that every new experience changes the brain’s structure and inspires each of us toward a more authentic self.”
The tall, vertical sculptures of metal, wood, stones, leather, and images of Wonder Woman, among other materials, are wearable, body-swapping armor. “In my art,” Stein said in a June 2015 interview with A&U Magazine, “I place the female front and center for a social idealism that aims to transform violence, destruction, and fragility into strength for anyone who finds themselves bullied, harassed, or abused.” But while, the armor is distinctively female in many cases, with curves for hips and breasts, the body-swapping moment happens when a woman wears materials normally associated with male warrior attributes and a man wearing armor made to resemble a female form. Other creations by Stein, remain more androgynous, presenting what is normally associated as a male figure from behind, but female when viewed from the front.
what’s INSIDE HER never dies … a Black Woman’s Legacy
Yeelen Gallery
294 NW 54th Street, Miami, FL
December 1, 2015–February 28, 2016
Following Mariette Pathy Allen’s solo exhibition TransCuba, Yeelan Gallery continues its exhibition programming on gender with what’s INSIDE HER never dies … a Black Woman’s Legacy, in collaboration with Poets/Artists Magazine. The opening coincides with Art Basel Miami Beach. This group show features two images from Allen, as well as from twenty-four other artists and activists, including Sylvia Parker Maier, Tim Okamura, Joseph Adolphe, Jerome Siomaud, and Numa Perrier.
The exhibition showcases work in a variety of mediums—portraiture, drawing, photography, and installation—all seeking to “pay homage to the beauty and resiliency of the Black Woman,” said Karla Ferguson, the gallery owner and director. A reception for the artists will take place on Saturday, December 5, 2015, at 10:00 PM.
In her photographs, Allen gained access to photograph transgender peoples and friends in the privacy of their homes, as well as out in public during several visits to Cuba in 2012 and 2013. “The transgender people Allen depicts in TransCuba savor their new freedom to be able to be themselves publicly, while continuing to overcome challenges, such as health issues, and lack of steady work and money.”
In contrast, another artist in the exhibition, Judith Peck, often paints on broken plaster shards, “a world falling apart held together with the very same figure depicted within.” In her painting Pulled Over, a young woman sits in what appears to be the driver’s seat of a vehicle, her arm resting on the window and her head looking down, perhaps waiting. “The paintings are about the more universal message of meaning and preciousness of life healing a broken world.”
In addition to the exhibition, Yeelen Gallery will host a panel discussion at 1:00 PM on December 2, 2015, with Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, and Kadiatou Diallo, the mother of Amadou Diallo, who will share their stories and grief along with other activist women.
Ebony G. Patterson: Dead Treez
Museum of Art and Design
2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019
The Museum of Art and Design presents Dead Treez,the first solo New York museum show by the Jamaican-born artist Ebony G. Patterson. The exhibition, which spreads across the museum’s second floor, includes installations, floor tapestries, and a life-sized figural tableau of ten male mannequins dressed in a kaleidoscopic mix of floral fabrics.
Dead Treez is a meditation on dancehall fashion and culture, regarded as a celebration of the disenfranchised in postcolonial Jamaica. Borrowing from social media, her tapestries depict murder victims camouflaged in utterly adorned patterns to seduce viewers into witnessing the underreported brutality experienced by those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. Furthermore, the artist fusions her collage sensibility with a selection of jewelry from the museum’s permanent collection, transforming the Tiffany Jewelry Gallery’s vitrines into gardenlike environment of poisonous plants, in which bodies wrapped in patterned fabrics have succumbed to the violence often present in marginalized communities. Here, Patterson addresses how choices in jewelry, clothing, or other forms of personal adornment are means of visibility of populations rendered invisible by poverty and racism. Noting that the names of impoverished communities in Jamaica often include the word “garden” in them, Patterson’s …buried again to carry on going… exacerbates the contrast between places that are designed to be about beauty, growth, life, and the hardships that are daily obstacles in her native country’s inner city.
Patterson, (b. 1981, Kingston, Jamaica) splits her time between Kingston and Lexington, Kentucky. Through her extremely adorned mixed-media installations, the artist seduces viewers, with the intention to challenge them to look closer. Throughout Dead Treez the artist explores and reflects on the concept of “visibility,” raising questions about body politics, performance of gender, gender and beauty, beauty and stereotyping, race and beauty, and body and ritual. Throughout this exhibition, Patterson suggests that the popularity of skin alteration, such as skin bleaching and tattooing, may mean a form of “erasure” motivated by the desire of presence rather than a simple adornment.
The Rocca Family (RTF) is an ongoing project located in the everyday gestures of togetherness. A togetherness that could be much broader than just two people, proposing not to separate art/work from daily life, while dreaming of not being attached. Defying the traditional concept of traditional family as a terrible structure that imposes the pressure to be happy and the feeling of shame otherwise, TRF proposes a series of moving spaces that encourage art to take on new forms and identities. One of its ongoing research projects, Family, is an examination of different family structures, dynamics, demands, and expectations, and in that offers a reflection of the reasons behind the strict assumption of the family as a core unit to community.
Named after a cat and with a base in San Francisco, TRF challenges also the identity of art, proposing “events” that are simply moments in the timeline of relationships: conversation, meals, and phone calls. Furthermore, displacement, transit, and immigration help form the core of TRF discussions, with a particular attention on personal politics and an international awareness, as well as a sensitivity for domestic, mundane, flashy, sustainable, and unexpected things.
As Amanda Eicher describes the prohect in Who is TRF Series, #1-b: “Round is another way to describe it—leaving the scientific and transportative world of paths, flights, lines, and planes, we can say that it is a space in which many people come around a table, and they are all not necessarily leading not following either but learning—all parts of something which turns or presses outward from a center to meet a margin-frontier. Or it might be they are pressing together from the outside.”
Women Speaking to Power: An Evening of Conversation with Tania Bruguera and Shirin Neshat
School of Visual Arts Theatre
333 West 23rd Street, New York, NY
December 11, 2015
Organized by SVA’s MA Curatorial Practice program, “Women Speaking to Power” will open a conversation between two of the most significant and influential international contemporary practicing today: Tania Bruguera and Shirin Neshat. They will speak with each other about their experiences as citizens and artists, reflecting on how their works approach to gender and politics in their respective homelands, Cuba and Iran, and beyond. This event, which starts at 7:00 PM, is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
American Scholarly Societies Joint Statement on “Campus Carry” Legislation
posted by CAA — December 01, 2015
The undersigned learned societies are deeply concerned about the impact of Texas’s new Campus Carry law on freedom of expression in Texas universities. The law, which was passed earlier this year and takes effect in 2016, allows licensed handgun carriers to bring concealed handguns into buildings on Texas campuses. Our societies are concerned that the Campus Carry law and similar laws in other states introduce serious safety threats on college campuses with a resulting harmful effect on students and professors.
American Academy of Religion
American Anthropological Association
American Antiquarian Society
American Association for the History of Medicine
American Folklore Society
American Historical Association
American Musicological Society
American Philosophical Association
American Political Science Association
American Studies Association
American Society for Aesthetics
American Society for Environmental History
American Sociological Association
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Association of American Geographers
College Art Association
Latin American Studies Association
Law and Society Association
Medieval Academy of America
Middle East Studies Association
Modern Language Association
National Communication Association
National Council on Public History
Oral History Association
Society for American Music
Society of Architectural Historians
Society of Biblical Literature
Society for Ethnomusicology
World History Association
CAA President, DeWitt Godfrey, Releases Statement on Ashgate Acquisition
posted by CAA — December 01, 2015
CAA acknowledges the concern of many of its members regarding the acquisition of Ashgate by Informa, the parent company of Taylor & Francis. The Ashgate art and humanities publications series have been a critically important venue for art history and critical scholarship because of their high quality production. Ashgate’s art and humanities series have also increased in value as the opportunities for scholarly monograph publishing diminishes. CAA has conveyed the concerns to Taylor & Francis that the high quality of the editorial process at Ashgate be maintained by Taylor & Francis and the art and humanities series continue to publish as fully as in the past.
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for November 2015
posted by CAA — November 10, 2015
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.
November 2015
Jumana Manna
Chisenhale Gallery
64 Chisenhale Road, London E3 5QZ UK
September 18–December 13, 2015
Chisenhale Gallery presents the first UK solo exhibition by the Berlin and Jerusalem–based artist Jumana Manna. The exhibition includes A magical substance flows into me (2015), a newly commissioned, seventy-minute feature-length film presented alongside an installation of sculptures.
Manna (b. 1987) works primarily with film and sculpture, addressing the historical and political resonance of materials and the physical relationships between objects and bodies. For the Chisenhale exhibition, the film was installed alongside a series of hollow plaster sculptures that carry an anthropomorphic charge. Installed in combination with plastic chairs and waste bins, these sculptures articulate a set of contradictions also evident in the film, where the audience seated bodies and sculptures extend the concepts explored in screen into a physical and tangible atmosphere.
A magical substance flows into me explores the different musical traditions of myriad communities living in and around Jerusalem. Inspired by her research on the German-Jewish ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (who fled to Israel at the beginning of WWII), the artist revisits different diaspora groups—such as Kurds, Moroccans, Yemenite Jews, Samaritans, Palestinians, Bedouins, and Coptic Christians—whose traditional music Lachmann studied and recorded for the 1930s radio series Oriental Music. This recording was developed for the Palestine Broadcasting Service, established under the British Mandate (1920–1948).
Tracing links between physically, culturally, and linguistically separated communities, while allowing for ideas of the representation of authenticity and heritage to emerge through the possibilities of sound and listening, Manna creates a beautifully poignant film that explores how musical customs create identity and overcome cultural suppression. Waving together fragments Jerusalem’s story, the artist includes her parents as well as herself to reflect a personal connection to the subject within the historical narratives she portrays, a narrative in which the power of music truly transcends politics.
Firelei Báez: Patterns of Resistance
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
20 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
September 25, 2015–January 16, 2016
The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art presents Patterns of Resistance, the first solo exhibition of the Dominican artist Firelei Báez, on the occasion of the artist being awarded the prestigious Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting. This prize is given by the museum and the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation “to an emerging or mid-career painter whose work expresses a great range of talent and forward thinking within a contemporary idiom.”
Born in 1981 in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, Báez is best known for her large-scale intrincate works on paper. Her laborious studio practice draws together her interest in anthropology, science fiction, black female subjectivity, and women’s work. Throughout her work, Báez explores the humor and fantasy involved in self-making within diasporic societies, a process that implies an individual and creative capability to coexist with cultural ambiguities.
Inspired by lineages of black resistance, Báez’s work traces the history of social movements in the United States and the Caribbean. Throughout Patterns of Resistance, the artist interweaves the lives of eighteenth-century black women in Louisiana and the Cuban roots of the Latin American azabache with symbols used in the US during the tumultuous 1960s. Her paintings and drawings depict textiles, hair designs, and body ornaments linking traditionally loaded symbols with individual human gestures. Primarily focusing on female figures and their subjectivities, Báez has a labor-intensive process that reveals new emblems of power and invokes disparate patterns of resistance within the African diaspora while proposing the illumination of obscured narratives of identity.
Oliver Pickle and Ruth West: She Is Sitting in the Night: Re-visioning Thea’s Tarot
Book, available from Metonymy Press
Described as “a contemporary queer re-visioning of a beautiful feminist tarot deck,” She Is Sitting in the Night by the author and tarot reader Oliver Pickle, with the artist Ruth West, re-presents West’s original feminist drawings from Thea’s Tarot and rejects the “normative readings of the figures and imagery on the decks they discuss.”
The 192-page book features copies of the original seventy-eight drawings by West along with new interpretations celebrating both queer and feminist cultural production. Thea’s Tarot, originally released in 1984, features black and white cut-paper silhouettes, replacing the figures with all women, including child, daughter, mother, and amazon.
Pickle, through their interpretations of West’s work, challenges the heteronormative relationships to figure and body. This intergenerational conversation draws on the relationships between radical feminism of the 1970s and the evolving relationships to gender identity. Where West’s drawings replace male figures, such as the Emperor, with a woman, and the card for Lovers is a paper cut of two females, Pickle uses the absence of commentary by West to reframe the relationship between image/text and gender identity.
The book and drawings are designed to fit a specific need within the tarot community, but they also function as an example of artistic production shifting the binary representation of figure to a more fluid role. In an interview Pickle describes their interpretations of West’s drawings by not “imagining a sexual or gender identity for the person I am speaking to, so they can do interpretations of themselves.”
Nancy Cohen: Hackensack Dreaming
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education
8480 Hagy’s Mill Road, Philadelphia, PA
November 5–December 19, 2015
Nancy Cohen’s Hackensack Dreaming, at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, fuses the artistic process with environmental education. The large-scale installation of handmade paper, glass, and rubber is the culmination of more than two years of Cohen’s work and time spent in a section of the Mill Creek Marsh tucked behind strip malls and a wastewater treatment plant along the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Exploring Cohen’s installation is to enter a world constructed by the human hand through manipulation of raw materials, a parallel not unlike the reality of marsh. In a subtle self-referential manner, the organic ingredients that constitute the hand-made paper and glass are documents of the natural world.
The installation serves as a document to the soul of the marsh and its own constructed reality. Hackensack Dreaming is rife with referential essence: translucent glass objects hint at cedar forest poking up through the water on an icy New Jersey day, and liquid rubber poured on the paper suggests, interchangeably, a wet or toxic surface.
“I want the viewer to move through Hackensack Dreaming discovering and finding connections—compelled by the beauty and strangeness,” says Cohen, who lives and works in Jersey City, New Jersey. Discovering, likewise, the fragility and strength found in both the installation and natural world by means of physical experience. Through conscious levels of manipulation of materials, Cohen “makes literal the delicate, ephemeral balance” of the marsh. The audience is invited to walk among the work, either by the narrow path at the center of the installation or by delicately placing one’s feet among the glass sculptures and maneuvering one’s body through the realities of Hackensack Dreaming.
Patricia Johanson: Environmental Remedies: Restoring Soil and Water
Winter Visual and Performing Arts Center
60 West Cottage Avenue, Millersville, PA
October 22–December 11, 2015
Related programming:
Conrad Nelson Fellow: Patricia Johanson, Artist Lecture
Ware Center, Millersville University
42 North Prince Street, Lancaster, PA
November 3, 2015, 7:30 PM
Panel discussion:
Ecological Art: Reconstructing Humanity’s Relationship with the Environment
Betsy Damon, Patricia Johanson, and Sue Spaid
Ware Center, Millersville University
42 North Prince Street, Lancaster, PA
November 4, 2015, 7:00 PM
Gallery Talk:
November 4, 2015, 3:00 PM
The Winter Visual and Performing Arts Center at Millersville University will feature work by the artist Patricia Johanson. As the 2015–16 Conrad Nelson Fellow, Johanson has combined sculptural projects, art, ecology, landscaping, and functional infrastructure to remedy environmental degradation and restore ecosystems. Trained as an artist and architect, she has transformed landfills into parks, restored lagoons, conserved land polluted by acid mine drainage and built water gardens that function as treatment plants.
In her 1969 commission by House & Garden, Johanson produced 150 drawings with essays and explanatory notes departing from traditional garden design. “Her images, drawn from precise botanical and biological sources, loop, uncoil, and crawl elegantly across the land, evoking evolution, life, and movement.”
One of Johanson’s early ecological artworks, Fair Park Lagoon in Dallas (1981), transformed the eroding shoreline and water contaminated with algal blooms into a thriving ecosystem. The park was fitted with gigantic, terra-cotta-colored Gunite sculptures that doubled as pathways as well as perches for birds and turtles as the work snaked its way through the park land and water. Fair Park Lagoon in Dallas continues to serve as a place of education and recreation.
In conjunction with her exhibition and the Conrad fellowship, Johanson will present an artist lecture at the Ware Center on November 3, 2015. Additionally, Johanson, along with the ecoartist Betsy Damon and the curator Sue Spaid, will participate in a panel discussion, “Ecological Art: Reconstructiong Humanity’s Relationship with the Environment,” on November 4, 2015. The panelists will discuss their outdoor sculptural projects designed to remedy environmental degradation and strengthen the planet’s weakened defenses.
Our Mother’s House: a multi-component program dedicated to empowering female artists and safeguarding cultural heritage in southern Saudi Arabia
United Nations Headquarters
New York, NY
November 16–27, 2015
Art Jameel, Edge of Arabia, and the Permanent Mission of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations present Our Mother’s House, a program that aims to draw attention to the urgent need of cultural-heritage protection and the equal representation of women in the Middle East.
The launch of this program will include an art exhibition of specially commissioned mural painting that celebrates the centuries-old tradition of (Majli) house-painting by skilled female artisans from the village of Rijal Alma, located in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia. Highlighting the crucial role that Asiri female artists have played in the composition and archiving of their local history, Our Mother’s House means a celebration the creativity and determination of women artists who play an extraordinary role in preserving the cultural identity of their communities.
Project advisors include the artist Arwa Alnaemi, whose work explores the relationship of women to larger Saudi Society, and Asiri house painter Fatimah Jaber, who is also founder of Fatimah Museum in Abha.
For more information or to request a private tour of the exhibition, please email Mohammed Shaker.
2015 SECAC Conference Report
posted by CAA — November 10, 2015
Vivian Woo is CAA marketing and development manager.
The Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) held its 2015 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—the first time ever in a city north of the Mason-Dixon line. This expansion may reflect “the continual growing membership of the organization beyond the traditional confines of the south,” as Kurt Pitluga, an art historian at Slippery Rock University and director of this year’s SECAC, put it in the conference program.
From October 21 to 24, 2015, the industrial city was descended upon by students, educators, and administrators from universities, colleges, community colleges, art schools, and museums, as well as by independent artists and scholars. The four-day event at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh offered a rich variety of sessions that encouraged conversation and facilitated cooperation about pertinent creative, scholarly, and educational issues among professionals in higher education.
Representing CAA at SECAC this year were Anna Cline, development and marketing assistant, and myself. CAA’s participation as an exhibitor at the conference—alongside the fine-art paper producer Canson, the publisher Thames and Hudson, and the book distributor Scholar’s Choice—was a great opportunity to connect face to face with current CAA members and to meet prospective members. Our table displayed the latest editions of the graduate-program directories, membership brochures, and free copies of the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts—a publication that was especially warmly received. Most important, our presence reminded SECAC attendees of CAA’s own Annual Conference next year in Washington, DC, taking place February 3–6, 2016.
SECAC’s 2015 theme—“confluence”—alluded to Pittsburgh’s geographic location on the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which form the Ohio River, and likened it to the conceptual convergence and fluidity of borders related to art, architecture, design, education, and pedagogy today. Highlights of the conference included sessions on various topics in art and design, including “Visual Art and the Aesthetics of Cuteness,” which examined Japanese culture and the power of cuteness in the arts, and “Is Graphic Design Fine Art? Does It Matter?,” where graphic designers and fine artists drew contrasts and comparisons to each other while also exploring the rise of the “meme” and the role of art and design in the internet age. The keynote address by Terry Smith, an art historian and theorist at the University of Pittsburgh, examined the two concepts in the title of his talk, “Defining Contemporaneity; Imagining Planetarity,” in an effort to finding productive connections between them.
Conference attendees were treated to perfect sunny fall weather in a city that offered plenty of art and culture outside the doors of the conference hotel. Gallery crawls were scheduled to visit the gallery Future Tenant, the Society for Contemporary Craft, and the Andy Warhol Museum. Paying tribute to the artist in his hometown, the Warhol Museum treated attendees to seven whole floors of gallery and exhibition space with an art collection that includes approximately nine hundred paintings, one hundred sculptures, and thousands of works on paper, prints, and photographs—a must see for any art lover visiting Pittsburgh. In addition, buses were arranged for attendees to visit the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, and the University Art Gallery at the University of Pittsburgh, among others.
Thank you, SECAC for allowing CAA to connect with familiar and new faces. We will see you again next year!
Affiliated Society News for November 2015
posted by CAA — November 09, 2015
Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH)
The Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH) is very pleased to announce the establishment of a new program that will strengthen intellectual connections among art history disciplines in different regions of the world. With generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art, ARIAH’s East Asia Fellowship program will enable twelve scholars from countries in East Asia to conduct research at ARIAH member institutes on any topic in the visual arts. The project is funded for a three-year period, beginning in 2016, with four fellowships offered each year.
The East Asia Fellowship program is open to art history scholars from Japan, Mongolia, the People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau), the Republic of China (Taiwan), and South Korea. Each East Asia Fellow will be hosted by an ARIAH member institute, and will also have the opportunity to travel to other research centers during the fellowship period, which will last three to four months. Fellowships will be awarded through an open, competitive application process. The deadline for the first of three rounds of fellowships is December 31, 2015. Candidates can find more information about the program, including application instructions, at www.ariah.info/east_asia_fellowship.html.
More information about ARIAH, including a complete list of member institutes, can be found at www.ariah.info.
Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) Annual Conference: Call for Proposals
Communities in Dialog: Models of Best Practices for Academic Museums, Galleries, and Collections
When: Tuesday and Wednesday, May 24-25, 2016
Where: Katzen Arts Center, American University, Washington DC
Deadline for Submissions: Monday, November 30th, 2015
The AAMG conference committee requests proposals on topics that address and can help establish guidelines, benchmarks, and best practices in all areas of academic museum and galleries, including, but not limited to: collections care and registration, governance, assessment, community engagement, teaching and museum education, exhibitions, public programming, fundraising, and professional development. Topics may address systemic challenges and present model programs that could become “templates” for the field.
AAMG seeks proposals that are representative of a cross-section of the academic field, including anthropology, art, history, science, and natural history museums, galleries, and collections. AAMG particularly encourages students and faculty to submit.
Submission Guidelines: A one-page outline of presentation proposal plus a contact list and CVs of each participant should be sent electronically to Vice President of Programs Leonie Bradbury, vp-programs@aamg-us.org If multiple presenters please add a one paragraph abstract for each paper or subtopic.
More details online at AAMG Annual Conferences.
The Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture (HGCEA)
The Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture (HGCEA) recently changed its name to Historians of German, Scandinavian, and Central European Art and Architecture (HGSCEA).
Northern California Art Historians
Call for Papers: “Zones of Representation: Photographing Contested Landscapes, Contemporary West Coast Perspectives on Photography and Photograph-Based Media,” symposium organized by Makeda Best (California College of the Arts), Bridget Gilman (Santa Clara University), and Kathy Zarur (California College of the Arts), at SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA, on Saturday, April 23, 2016.
Contemporary global events and phenomena continue to shape visual interpretations of economic, social, environmental, and political geographies, and to disrupt conceptions of region, nation, citizenship, and community. “Zones of Representation” will consider how photographers and time-based media artists have responded to transformations in the global landscape through new ideas about the function of photographic media, and the shifting roles of makers and audiences. We want to know: how can novel visual practices disrupt traditional narratives of spatial representation?; in what unique ways do artists in time-based media acknowledge and respond to the historical contribution of their medium in defining, producing, and perpetuating these same narratives?; what new connections do these practices demonstrate and reveal?; and, in what ways do contemporary technologies, modes of distribution, and access impact interactions with the land?
We invite papers that address the expanded role of photography and time-based media in global landscape discourses and social fabrics. Proposals on contemporary topics or new perspectives on historic materials are encouraged. Proposals from image makers are also welcome. Please send a 300-word proposal, a one-paragraph biographical statement, and full contact information to zonesofrepresentation@gmail.com by January 8, 2015.
“Zones of Representation” aims to connect artists, historians, curators and arts professionals, and students in Northern California, facilitating a regional network for the latest art historical scholarship. The symposium is presented in collaboration with SF Camerawork and is co-sponsored by the Northern California Art Historians (NCAH), a College Art Association affiliated society.
American Society of Appraisers
The American Society of Appraisers will offer Signs and Symbols in the Visual Arts, a 2-day course, on January 15-16, 2016, at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA.
Since the beginning of history, human beings have used visual images to signify concepts, beliefs, and ideas. This class will explore visual vocabularies and how they are used in material culture. We will look at images of the cosmos, the earth, geometric forms, animals, plants and the human body and how they are used in art, architecture and design. The focus will be on imagery of the European tradition, though examples from India, China, Japan and indigenous American cultures will also be considered. Because painting, sculpture, books, furniture, decorative arts, buildings, coins, and other objects will be used as sources, the course will be quite useful for those interested in visual studies and anyone wishing to deepen their appreciation of the rich vocabulary of art, architecture and design.
For more information, visit http://www.appraisers.org/Education/View-Course?CourseID=528
Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and Visual Resources Association (VRA)
Join the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association (VRA) March 8-12, 2016 in Seattle, Washington for the third joint conference of the two organizations. The beautiful and technology-driven city of Seattle was proposed by a coalition of members from the VRA Pacific Rim Chapter and the Northwest Chapter of ARLIS/NA. Both chapters have proposed a theme of “Natural Connections” to highlight both the shared values of ARLIS and VRA as well as the close relationship in the Puget Sound area between its people and nature.
In addition to inspirational speakers, information-packed sessions, a preconference THATcamp, marquis events at the city’s hallmark art and library institutions, and many terrific opportunities for making “Natural Connections” with colleagues and friends old and new, the conference schedule allows a free weekend at either end. Come early, stay late, and check out what Seattle has to offer: stunning natural landscapes, unique architecture, fabulous food & drink, and a huge variety of cultural activities. There is no other place like Seattle to visit in March when it offers cherry blossoms as a cure to your late-winter doldrums.
The Italian Art Society (IAS)
The Italian Art Society (IAS) is delighted to announce the success of its “Campaign for 500.” In early November we reached and surpassed our goal of 500 members, an historic high. Thanks to the generosity of one of our patron members, Mr. Peter Folgliano, next year we will be able to offer two new research and publication grants of up to $1000.00 each. One will be for graduate students, and the other for PhD holders, whose projects concern art and architecture in Italy between 1250 and 1600.
The next IAS/Kress lecture will take place at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 in Florence, Italy. The speaker will be a senior or established scholar working on a topic related to Florence or its environs (application deadline January 8, 2015, please see our website, www.italianartsociety.org, for more information).
The IAS is pleased to announce the recipients of the extra research and publication grants we offered this summer: Dr. Allison Levy (Independent Scholar), for her book, Misfits, Monstrosities, and Madness at the Villa Ambrogiana and Dr. Johanna Heinrichs (Dominican University) for her book, Mobile Lives, Stable Homes: The Palladian Villa between City and Country.
Mid America College Art Association (MACAA)
Building on the success of the 2014 conference, the 2016 MACAA conference will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio and hosted by the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), with School of Art Director Kate Bonansinga and Kris Holland serving as Conference Co-Chairs. Numerous regional institutions and their faculty have been taking part in planning the conference including Ball State University, Miami University, Thomas Moore College, University of Dayton, University of Toledo, Wayne State University, and Western Michigan University. DAAP is also collaborating with FotoFocus 2016 on inviting and sponsoring keynote speakers.
The title of the conference, Studio Shift: MACAA2016 @ DAAP, was selected to underscore the constantly evolving character of art and design. During the last several decades there has been an escalating interest in socially engaged art and design. In this post-studio context, creative practitioners release control to the audience. While this conference will focus on past, present, and future kinds of creative research space for artists, designers, historians, curators, and critics, other presentation topics are also welcome. We welcome student participation in MACAA 2016 as well. The deadline for session proposals is December 1, 2015. The conference hotel is the Kingsgate Marriott on the campus of the University of Cincinnati.
MACAA continues to contract Eastern Illinois University continuing education for conference and membership support services. In 2014, MACAA was established as a non-profit registered in the State of Michigan and retained the services of a CPA to streamline its accounting and business practices. Since the last conference, we have elected Christopher Olszewski (Savannah College of Art and Design) as President of the organization, Barbara Giorgio (Ball State University) as Secretary, and welcome nine new board members. In addition to Kate Bonansinga (DAAP) and Kris Holland (DAAP), we are happy to welcome Mary Eisendrath (Virginia Commonwealth University), Heather Hertel (Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania), Jennifer Murray (Loyola University Chicago), Rod Northcutt (Miami University), Elizabeth Olton (University of New Mexico), and Scott Thorp (Georgia Regents University). Our new representative to Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) is Guen Montgomery (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
The 2014 MACAA conference, “Mash-Up: Navigating Art and Academia in This Millennium,” was held October 22-25, 2014 in San Antonio, Texas. The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) was the conference host, with Dr. Scott A. Sherer serving as MACAA Conference Chair and Professor Greg Elliott serving as UTSA institutional coordinator. The city of San Antonio, with its well-known cultural history, provided a great foundation for camaraderie.
The conference featured 41 panels and presentations regarding diverse topics in studio disciplines, art history, and museum practices. Conference participants enjoyed a cabaret-style Hometown Artist’s Rodeo, organized by Ken Little (UTSA) and hosted by the Southwest School of Art; a keynote performance by The Art Guys hosted by the McNay Art Museum; and a keynote talk by Joseph Seipel (Virginia Commonwealth University) hosted by the San Antonio Museum of Art. Participants enjoyed presentations and extended discussions regarding research and creative endeavors.
The Members Meeting featured door prizes supplied by the University of Texas Press and Routledge/Taylor and Francis. The Green Bag Lady — Teresa VanHatten-Granath (Denver, CO) — contributed beautiful eco-friendly hand-made bags for all participants. Paula Owen, President of the Southwest School of Art, juried the Members’ Exhibition, held at the UTSA Art Gallery. Ellen Mueller (West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, WV) won Best in Show and Rosemary Meza-DesPlas (El Centro College, Dallas, TX) was awarded Honorable Mention.
Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture, Inc. (SHERA)
The Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture, Inc. (SHERA) is actively participating in the yearly convention of the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), which took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 19-22, 2015. SHERA members organized multiple sessions and roundtables on a wide range of topics covering history of art, theory of aesthetics, architecture, textile design, film, photography, and fashion among others. A roundtable discussion devoted to the state of the discipline and new research in histories of art in Russia and the countries of East and Central Europe also took place at this convention.
SHERA has successfully launched its visiting scholar program to Russia by arranging visa invitations this summer for two British scholars, members of SHERA, as part of the visiting scholar program with the Russian State University of Humanities in Moscow (RGGU). The visiting scholar program enables scholars to conduct individual research while being involved in educational activities with a partner institution. Apart from RGGU, SHERA has established working relationship with the Department of Art History of the European University in St. Petersburg. Inquiries about the application process should be directed to: shera.artarchitecture@gmail.com.
Association of Textual Scholarship in Art History (ATSAH)
Association of Textual Scholarship in Art History (ATSAH) cosponsored with The Università of Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy an international conference on Arts and Politics, November 4-8, 2015.
Members of ATSAH who presented inlcude Profs. Maureen Pelta, Moore College of Arts and Design, PA; Tina Bizzarro, Rosemont College, PA; Sarah Lippert, University of Michigan-Flint; Emilie Passignat, University of Florence, Italy; Brian Steel, Texas Tech University; Debra Murphy, University of North Florida; Liesbeth Grotenhuis, Hanze University, Groningen, Netherlands; and Liana De Girolami Cheney, President of ATSAH.
Liana De Girolami Cheney, PhD, President of the Association for Textual Scholarship in Art History (ATSAH), recently published articles in the following publications:
“Lavinia Fontana’s Two Minervas,” Woman’s Art Journal (Fall/Winter 2015), 30-40.
“Sofonisba Anguissola’s Ponce Portrait of a Young Man,” SOURCE: Notes in the History of Art Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer 2015), 39-47.
“Giorgio Vasari’s Saint Michael: A Symbol of Neoplatonic Light,” Journal of Religious Studies, Davis Publishing Company, Vol. 3, No. 3 (May-June 2015), 152-66.
“Giorgio Vasari’s Saint Francis: Aretine Fervor,” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, David Publishing Company, Vol. 5, No. 8 (October 2015), 859-73.
“Giorgio Vasari’s “Sala degli Elementi” in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence: The Symbolism of Saturn as Heavenly Air,” in Heavenly Discourses, ed. Nicholas Campion (Bristol, UK: Sophia Centre Press, 2015), 14-24.
“Edward Burne-Jones’ Heavenly Conception: The Days of Creation,” in Brian Abbott, ed. City of Stars: New York: The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (2015), 75-86.
Committee on Diversity Practices highlights for November/December 2015
posted by CAA — November 09, 2015
The CAA Committee on Diversity Practices highlights exhibitions, events, and activities that support the development of global perspectives on art and visual culture and deepen our appreciation of political and cultural heterogeneity as educational and professional values. Current highlights are listed below; browse past highlights through links at the bottom of this page.
November/December 2015
Flawlessly Feminine: Women Who Graced the Cover of JET Magazine and Works by Willie Cole
Golden Lady: Works by Mario Moore
Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
July 9–December 2, 2015
“The pairing of two innovative exhibitions honoring women who graced the cover of JET Magazine, and drawings of young women with their favorite literature, is on display at Winston-Salem State University’s Diggs Gallery through December 2. The exhibits feature works by renowned artist Willie Cole and emerging artist Mario Moore.”
Deana Lawson: Ruttenberg Contemporary Photography Series
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
September 5, 2015–January 10, 2016
“The first installment of the biennial Ruttenberg Contemporary Photography Series features the work of New York–based photographer Deana Lawson. For nearly a decade, Lawson has been investigating the visual expression of global black culture and how individuals claim their identities within it. Her staged portraits, carefully composed scenes, and found images speak to the ways in which personal and social histories, familial legacies, sexuality, social status, and religious-spiritual ideas may be drawn upon the body.
Lawson began her work in and around her Brooklyn neighborhood but has recently branched out nationally and internationally to places such as Louisiana, Haiti, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While her themes have remained consistent, her landscapes have shifted and broadened—the global scope of the pictures, in her words, “concern and affirm the sacred black body” and speak to a collective psychic memory of shared experiences.
Lawson starts her process by researching communities she has chosen for their cultural histories. Once on site, strangers met through chance encounters become her subjects, selected for a particular expression, mannerism, style of dress, or cultural or religious affiliation. The resulting images are often inspired by multiple trips or planned well in advance. They draw upon Western and African diasporic conventions of self-presentation, popular culture, mythology, and religious rituals and beliefs—emphasizing dialogues among the past, present, and future of black culture.”
Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980
Museum of Modern Art
New York, New York
September 5, 2015–January 3, 2016
“Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980 focuses on the parallels and connections among an international scene of artists working in—and in reference to—Latin America and Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. The radical experimentation, expansion, and dissemination of ideas that marked the cultural production of these decades (which flanked the widespread student protests of 1968) challenge established art-historical narratives in the West. Artists from Prague to Mexico City developed alternative and ever-expanding networks of distribution and organization, via Paris, Vienna, and Venice, to circumvent the borders established after World War II, local forms of state and military repression, and Western accounts of artistic mastery and individualism. One major transformation across Latin American and Eastern European art scenes was the embrace of institutional critique and an emphasis on the creation of art outside a market context.
The exhibition brings together landmark works from MoMA’s collection by Eastern European artists including Geta Brặtescu, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Dóra Maurer, and the anti-art collectives Gorgona, OHO, Aktual, and Fluxus East, as well as Latin American artists such as Beatriz González, Antonio Dias, Lea Lublin, and Ana Mendieta. Particular attention is paid to the group of Argentine artists clustered around the influential Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, including Oscar Bony, David Lamelas, and Marta Minujín, who confronted the aesthetic and political implications of mass media communication—including film, television, and the telex—during a vibrant, experimental period of technological innovation and political tension.
Featuring series of works and major installations, several of which are on view for the first time, Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980 highlights multiple points of contact, often initiated and sustained through collective actions and personal exchanges between artists. The exhibition suggests possible counter-geographies, realignments, alternative models of solidarity, and new ways of thinking about art produced internationally in relation to the frameworks dictated by the Cold War.”
Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms
The Asia Society
New York, New York
September 11, 2015–January 3, 2016
“This exhibition of more than 100 gold objects focuses on the wealth of the golden age of Butuan (pronounced boot’ wan), a polity on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao that rose to commercial prominence in the tenth century and declined in the thirteenth century. Works from ancient polities beyond Butuan, such as those on the islands of the Visayas and Luzon, bear witness to the early use of gold throughout the Philippines. A selection of the most extraordinary objects from a 1981 discovery—now in the collection of the Ayala Museum in Makati City and on view in the United States for the first time—forms the core of “Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms.” The exhibition also includes a few important loans from public and private collections including the Central Bank of the Philippines. Featuring spectacular gold necklaces, chains, waistbands, bangles, ritual bowls, implements, and ceremonial weapons, the exhibition showcases the rich artistry and material wealth of Butuan and related island polities.”
Gates of the Lord: The Tradition of Krishna Paintings
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
September 13, 2015–January 3, 2016
“This fall, the Art Institute of Chicago offers a glimpse into one of the world’s most intimate religious traditions. Bringing together over 100 artworks from private and public collections in India and the United States, Gates of the Lord: The Tradition of Krishna Paintings is the first major U.S. exhibition to explore the unique visual culture of the Pushtimarg, a Hindu denomination from Western India.
Founded in the 16th century by the saint and philosopher Shri Vallabhacharya (1479–1531), the Pushtimarg is a religious community dedicated to the devotion of Shrinathji, a divine image of the Hindu god Krishna as a seven-year-old child. The religious and artistic center of the sect is based in the temple town of Nathdwara (literally, “The Gates of the Lord”), near Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan, India. Scholars and artists have long been fascinated by the distinctive and highly aestheticized manner in which members of this group venerate Shrinathji, as well as by the legacy of miniature paintings created as a record of such worship. This exhibition showcases centuries of pichvais (textile hangings) and miniature paintings that have been created by and for the Pushtimarg in devotion of Shrinathji.
The exhibition takes visitors through a year in Nathdwara, where the daily worship of Shrinathji is characterized by the changing seasons and a bustling festival calendar. Gallery by gallery, visitors are introduced to the pichvais used as backdrops for Shrinathji in his shrine, each uniquely suited to a particular season or festival. The accompanying miniature paintings offer further insight into the Pushtimarg sect: its mode of veneration, history, and important priests and patron families. Enhancing the experience of the sect’s rich culture are festival and devotional music, a shrine reconstruction, and touchscreen kiosks that allow visitors to page through religious manuscripts, an artist’s sketchbook, and a historic photo album. The exhibition concludes with an exploration of the works, sketches, and observations of prominent 20th- and 21st-century Nathdwara artists who have kept the painting tradition flourishing through the present day.
Gates of the Lord comprises drawings, pichvais, paintings, and historic photographs borrowed chiefly from two major private collections in India, the Amit Ambalal Collection (Ahmedabad, India) and the TAPI Collection (Surat, India). These rare loans are augmented by important objects from a number of public and private collections within the United States, including the Art Institute’s own permanent collection, in order to present the richest possible story of Pushtimarg art and tradition.”
Kongo: Power and Majesty
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, New York
September 18, 2015–January 3, 2016
“Central Africa’s Kongo civilization is responsible for one of the world’s greatest artistic traditions. This international loan exhibition will explore the region’s history and culture through 134 of the most inspired creations of Kongo masters from the sixteenth through the early twentieth century.
The earliest of these creations were diplomatic missives sent by Kongo sovereigns to their European counterparts during the Age of Exploration; they took the form of delicately carved ivories and finely woven raffia cloths embellished with abstract geometric patterns. Admired as marvels of human ingenuity, such Kongo works were preserved in princely European Kunstkammer, or cabinets of curiosities, alongside other precious and exotic creations from across the globe.
Kongo luxury arts from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century—many of which have never been exhibited before—will give an unprecedented historical backdrop to the outstanding work produced by master sculptors active in the same region during the nineteenth century. The array of figurative representations they produced range from miniature ivory finials for the staffs of office of Kongo leaders to the carved-wood commemorative shrine figures positioned above their burial sites.
The presentation will culminate with a gathering of fifteen monumental Mangaaka power figures produced in the Chiloango River region during the second half of the nineteenth century; these will include the celebrated example acquired by the Met in 2008, the original catalyst for the exhibition. For the first time, this electrifying form of expression will be understood as a defensive measure conceived by Kongo leaders to deflect Western incursions into this region of Central Africa.
With works drawn from sixty institutional and private lenders across Europe and the United States, Kongo: Power and Majesty will relate the objects on view to specific historical developments and will challenge misconceptions of Africa’s relationship with the West. In doing so, it will offer a radical, new understanding of Kongo art over the last five hundred years.”
Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Brooklyn, New York
October 2, 2015–January 3, 2016
“The painter Francisco Oller contributed greatly to the development of modern art in both Europe and the Caribbean and revolutionized the school of painting in his native Puerto Rico.
Oller emerged from the small art world of San Juan in the 1840s, spending twenty years in Madrid and Paris, where he was inspired by the art of Gustave Courbet and joined the avant-garde circles of such artists as Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, and Claude Monet. While European Romanticism, Realism, and Impressionism formed a critical jumping-off point for Oller’s aesthetic, his most important source of inspiration was Puerto Rico, where he painted tropical landscapes, still lifes with indigenous fruits and vegetables, and portraits of distinguished artists and intellectuals.
This is the first U.S. exhibition to present Oller’s work within both its New and Old World contexts.”
Walid Raad
Museum of Modern Art
New York, New York
October 12, 2015–January 31, 2016
“MoMA presents the first comprehensive American survey of the leading contemporary artist Walid Raad (b. 1967, Lebanon), featuring his work in photography, video, sculpture, and performance from the last 25 years. Dedicated to exploring the veracity of photographic and video documents in the public realm, the role of memory and narrative within discourses of conflict, and the construction of histories of art in the Arab world, Raad’s work is informed by his upbringing in Lebanon during the civil war (1975–90), and by the socioeconomic and military policies that have shaped the Middle East in the past few decades.
The exhibition focuses on two of the artist’s long-term projects: The Atlas Group (1989–2004) and Scratching on things I could disavow (2007–ongoing). Under the rubric of The Atlas Group, a 15-year project exploring the contemporary history of Lebanon, Raad produced fictionalized photographs, videotapes, notebooks, and lectures that related to real events and authentic research in audio, film, and photographic archives in Lebanon and elsewhere. Raad’s recent work has expanded to address the Middle East region at large. His current ongoing project, Scratching on things I could disavow, examines the recent emergence in the Arab world of new infrastructure for the visual arts—art fairs, biennials, museums, and galleries—alongside the geopolitical, economic, and military conflicts that have consumed the region. The exhibition emphasizes the importance of performance, narrative, and storytelling in Raad’s oeuvre. The artist will give lecture-performances in MoMA’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium multiple times a week for the duration of the exhibition.”
Joaquín Torres-García: The Arcadian Modern
Museum of Modern Art
New York, New York
October 25, 2015–February 15, 2016
“This major retrospective of Joaquín Torres-García (Uruguayan, 1874–1949) features works ranging from the late 19th century to the 1940s, including drawings, paintings, objects, sculptures, and original artist notebooks and rare publications. The exhibition combines a chronological display with a thematic approach, structured in a series of major chapters in the artist’s career, with emphasis on two key moments: the period from 1923 to 1933, when Torres-García participated in various European early modern avant-garde movements while establishing his own signature pictographic/Constructivist style; and 1935 to 1943, when, having returned to Uruguay, he produced one of the most striking repertoires of synthetic abstraction.
Torres-García is one of the most complex and important artists of the first half of the 20th century, and his work opened up transformational paths for modern art on both sides of the Atlantic. His personal involvement with a significant number of early avant-garde movements—from Catalan Noucentismo to Cubism, Ultraism-Vibrationism, and Neo-Plasticism—makes him an unparalleled figure whose work is ripe for a fresh critical reappraisal in the U.S.”
Laurie Schneider Adams: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — October 23, 2015
Laurie Schneider Adams, a scholar of Italian Renaissance art and in the application of psychoanalytic theory to art history, died on June 19, 2015, at the age of 73.
Adams, who earned her PhD at Columbia University, joined the faculty of the newly established John Jay College, City University of New York, in 1966. She taught there and at the Graduate Center until 2011. Adams was the author of many books, including A History of Western Art, Art across Time, The Methodologies of Art, Art and Psychoanalysis, and Italian Renaissance Art. She was the editor-in-chief of the journal Source: Notes in the History of Art from 1984 until earlier this year.
The East Hampton Star has also published an obituary for Adams.
Pamela Z. Blum: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — October 23, 2015
Pamela Z. Blum, a historian of medieval art noted for her innovative iconographical and archeological work distinguishing original from restored sculpture at the Royal Abbey Church of Saint-Denis in Paris, and for her contributions to studies of the provenance of limestone used in medieval sculpture, died on August 6, 2015, in North Branford, Connecticut. She was 92. The cause of death was a sudden, undefined cardiovascular event.
Blum became an art historian relatively late in life. She was a homemaker for twenty-four years before she discovered her calling in the churches of East Anglia while spending a year in Cambridge. Her interest in medieval art grew from making rubbings of the commemorative brass plaques in the surrounding churches into a serious intellectual pursuit inspired by the medieval art-history lectures of Nikolaus Pevsner at Cambridge University. Blum enrolled in Yale University Graduate School in 1968 at the age of 45, obtained an MA and an MPhil, and was awarded a PhD in history of art in 1978.
Blum established her reputation at the Royal Abbey Church of Saint-Denis in France. Using a toothbrush and camera, she worked high up on scaffolding erected along the abbey’s façades to reveal, distinguish, and document the original from the restored elements of the sculpture there. She continued to study and publish her findings on the Royal Abby throughout her career, including codirected studies sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on the provenance of limestone used in medieval sculpture. These studies were noted for their intellectually stimulating collaborations among scientists, archeologists, and art historians.
She edited and contributed to the book The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis: From Its Beginning to the Death of Suger, 475–1151 and authored Early Gothic Saint-Denis: Restorations and Survivals. She wrote or cowrote articles such as “Fingerprinting the Stone at Saint-Denis: A Pilot Study” (Gesta) and“The Sculptures of the Salisbury Chapter-house” (Salisbury Cathedral Medieval Publications Art and Architecture),among many other articles that appeared in Gesta and CAA’s Art Journal, and in commemorative compendiums honoring her mentor, Sumner McKnight Crosby.
Blum taught at many institutions throughout her career, among them Columbia University, the International Center for Medieval Art at the Cloisters, Wesleyan University, and Yale University. Other positions included Miriam Sacher Visiting Fellow at St. Hilda’s College in Oxford, England.
Throughout her life Blum supported significant numbers of environmental and humanitarian causes. Kent Place School awarded her the Barbara Wright Biddison Distinguished Alumna Award in 2010. She was also an active alumna of Smith College and a vital member of New Haven’s intellectual community.
Blum was born in 1923 in Jersey City, New Jersery, to William A. Zink and the former Marjorie Powell. She attended Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersery, and graduated cum laude from Smith College in 1943, on an accelerated wartime program, with a BA in economics. She married John M. Blum in 1944. They were married for sixty-seven years when he died in 2011. She is survived by three children—Ann of Arlington, Massachusetts; Pamela of Kingston, New York; and Thomas of Dobbs Ferry, New York—and three grandchildren.
Published on October 23, 2015.
