CAA News Today
Join the Wyeth Publication Grant Jury
posted by CAA — April 03, 2014
CAA received a grant from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art to offer the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant for three additional years. The funding will allow CAA to award $40,000 in grants to publishers each year from 2014 to 2017. Wyeth grants support the publication of books on the history of American art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. For this program, “American art” is defined as art created in the United States, Canada, and Mexico through 1970. The program has supported thirty-nine books since 2005.
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations for two individuals with expertise in any branch of American art history, visual studies, or a related field to serve on the jury for the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant for a three-year term, July 1, 2014–June 30, 2017. Candidates must be actively publishing scholars with demonstrated seniority and achievement; institutional affiliation is not required.
Members review manuscripts and grant applications once a year and meet in New York in the fall to select awardees. CAA reimburses jury members for travel and lodging expenses in accordance with its travel policy.
Candidates must be current CAA members and should not 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 of interest describing your qualifications for appointment, a CV, and contact information to: Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or send all materials as email attachments to Alex Gershuny, CAA editorial manager. Deadline: May 10, 2014.
Image Caption
Yale University Press received a Wyeth grant in 2012 to help publish Katherine Bussard’s book Unfamiliar Streets (2014).
National Mobilization for Equity
posted by CAA — April 01, 2014
Summary
Significant progress has been made by United University Professions (UUP) and other unions, disciplinary societies, the media and lately the U.S. Congressional staff to draw attention to the plight of contingent academic labor. What is needed now is a visible project to activate the nearly one million contingent teachers themselves. Individuals and organizational leaders around the country are coming together to form a National Mobilization for Equity, whose initial effort will be to organize rallies and other public events, beginning on May Day (May 1, 2014).
Mayday $5K Campaign
Last spring, activists at SUNY New Paltz launched a Mayday $5K Campaign. This calls for a minimum starting salary of $5,000 for a three-credit course, halfway between the current average compensation and the $7K recommended by the Modern Language Association as a minimum starting salary. The Mayday $5K Campaign calls for a number of important measures:
1. Increase the starting salary for a three-credit semester course to a minimum of $5,000 for all instructors in higher education.
2. Ensure academic freedom by providing progressively longer contracts for all contingent instructors who have proven themselves during an initial probationary period.
3. Provide health insurance for all instructors, either through their college’s health insurance system or through the Affordable Care Act.
4. Support the quality education of our students by providing their instructors with necessary office space, individual development support, telephones, email accounts and mail boxes.
5. Guarantee fair and equitable access to unemployment benefits when college instructors are not working.
6. Guarantee eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to all college instructors who have taught for ten years, during which they were repaying their student loans.
7. With or without a time-in service requirement, allow all college teachers to vote and hold office in institutional governance, including faculty senates and academic departments.
This $5K Campaign has been endorsed by nearly a thousand individuals, by New Faculty Majority and by the statewide Executive Board and Delegate Assembly of the UUP, the nation’s largest higher education union. The $5K figure is not set in stone. Depending on the locale, it can be adjusted up or down, according to specific circumstances.
National Mobilization for Equity
The National Mobilization for Equity focuses on organizing May Day activities nationwide, either in support of the $5K Campaign or simply to highlight the plight of contingents and the need for change. On February 3, 2014, UUP’s full Delegate Assembly unanimously passed the following resolution:
Resolved, that the Contingent Employment Committee supports efforts by UUP members to form a National Mobilization for Equity that will, collectively with other unions and organizations, organize rallies and other events annually, beginning on May 1, 2014. These activities are intended to focus attention on the urgent plight of contingent academic labor and to publicly advocate for change. The Contingent Employment Committee asks the full Delegate Assembly for its endorsement of the National Mobilization for Equity and additionally requests UUP President Fred Kowal to reach out to NYSUT and AFT to secure their material support for this effort.
We need to create a MOVEMENT, to activate the one million contingents at the grass-roots’ level, which would greatly help those in organizational leadership positions working with state or federal agencies and legislatures. In addition to contingents, we need to activate tenure-track faculty, retirees, students and their parents, allied organizations, community groups and the general public. Organizing events around the country on May Day can help develop to organize a national grass-roots movement.
During the past decade, we have collectively spent thousands of hours and considerable financial resources working for equity. Our movement lacks any single MLK-like charismatic leader. Instead, there are many dedicated unionists and activists willing to work together to build an equity movement from the bottom up. Individuals or organizational leaders who want to work on this are invited to contact me. A Mobilization steering committee is being formed and will be announced shortly. Please join us!
In solidarity,
Peter D.G. Brown, Chapter President
Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
United University Professions
SUNY, Lecture Center 6a
New Paltz, NY 12561
Office: 845-257-2783
Mobile: 917-886-1925
peterdg.brown@gmail.com
http://www.newpaltz.edu/uup
Please sign the Mayday Declaration here
Act Now: Paul Ryan Calls for Elimination of Funding for NEH
posted by CAA — April 01, 2014
The National Humanities Alliance sent the following email on April 1, 2014.
Act Now: Paul Ryan Calls for Elimination of Funding for NEH
Dear Humanities Advocate,
This morning, Paul Ryan called for the complete elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities in his FY 2015 budget resolution.
Help defeat the Ryan Proposal today by urging your elected officials to join a bipartisan effort to support NEH. By signing on to the Senate Dear Colleague letter, your Senators can demonstrate support for NEH funding to the appropriations committee members that hold the agency’s future in their hands.
Click here to send our message to your Senators today. They are waiting to hear from you.
If you sent a message last week, thank you. If you haven’t sent one yet, it is critical that you act now. The deadline for Senators to sign on to the letter is Friday, April 4.
Thanks for your help!
Stephen Kidd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
(202) 296-4994 x149
Millard Meiss Publication Fund Seeks Two Jury Members
posted by CAA — March 27, 2014
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations from two individuals with specializations in medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque art to serve on the jury for the Millard Meiss Publication Fund for a four-year term, July 1, 2014–June 30, 2018. Candidates must be actively publishing scholars with demonstrated seniority and achievement; institutional affiliation is not required.
The Meiss jury awards grants twice a year to support the publication of book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. CAA reimburses jury members for travel and lodging expenses in accordance with its travel policy.
Candidates must be current CAA members and should not be serving on another CAA editorial board or committee. Jury members may not themselves apply for a grant in this program during their term of service. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name; self-nominations are also welcome. Please send a letter describing your interest in and qualifications for appointment, a CV, and contact information to: Millard Meiss Publication Fund Jury, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or send all materials as email attachments to Alex Gershuny, CAA editorial manager. Deadline: May 10, 2014.
Office of Museum Services Funding Letters–Deadlines Extended to Friday, March 28
posted by CAA — March 26, 2014
The American Alliance of Museums sent the following email on March 25, 2014.
Office of Museum Services Funding Letters–Deadlines Extended to Friday, March 28
Important Update: The deadlines for legislators to sign the Tonko/Lance/Slaughter/Grimm and Gillibrand/Blunt Office of Museum Services appropriations letters have been extended until THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 28. We need to redouble our efforts in the next few days to make sure every Representative and Senator hears from the museums they represent, asking them to sign on to these important funding letters.
As we have shared in recent Alliance Advocacy Alerts, these six champions are circulating letters among their colleagues in the House and Senate in support of funding for museums nationwide through the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Current HOUSE Letter Signers: Tonko (NY), Lance (NJ), Slaughter (NY), Grimm (NY), Titus (NV), Yarmuth (KY), Pocan (WI), Sablan (MP), McGovern (MA), Ruppersberger (MD), Levin (MI), Tsongas (MA), Clarke (NY), Danny Davis (IL), Hastings (FL), Schneider (IL), Neal (MA), Lofgren (CA), Blumenauer (OR), Pingree (ME), Michaud (ME), Tierney (MA), Braley (IA), McNerney (CA), Norton (DC), Rangel (NY), Cicilline (RI), Christensen (VI), Langevin (RI), Swalwell (CA), Shea-Porter (NH), McCollum (MN), Holt (NJ), Deutch (FL), Moran (VA), Grijalva (AZ), Wilson (FL), Luján (NM), Bonamici (OR), Gutierrez (IL), Higgins (NY), Lipinski (IL), Matsui (CA), Loretta Sanchez (CA), McKinley (WV), Courtney (CT), Cummings (MD), Carson (IN), McDermott (WA), Beatty (OH), Schakowsky (IL), Doggett (TX), Hinojosa (AZ), Gabbard (HI), Clay (MO), Bishop (NY), Connolly (VA), Nadler (NY), Castor (FL), Ellison (MN), Pascrell (NJ), Johnson (GA), Kuster (NH), Capps (CA), Dingell (MI), Linda Sanchez (CA) and Payne (NJ)
Current SENATE Letter Signers: Gillibrand (NY), Blunt (MO), Hirono (HI), Coons (DE), Leahy (VT), Blumenthal (CT), Stabenow (MI), Schumer (NY), Johnson (SD), King (ME), Cardin (MD), Sanders (VT) and Heinrich (NM)
If any of your legislators are NOT yet on these lists, please contact your Representative and Senators TODAY and ask them to please sign the letter supporting museum funding through the Office of Museum Services. You can use our Legislator Look-Up to identify your Representative and Senators.
If they have already signed on, please say THANK YOU.
You can call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected to your legislators’ offices.
You can also thank them on Facebook and Twitter, and find your legislators’ Facebook pages and Twitter handles in their profiles in our online Directory.
Thank you for taking action on this important, and time-sensitive, issue!
Act Now to Support Humanities Funding
posted by CAA — March 25, 2014
The National Humanities Alliance sent the following email on March 25, 2014.
Act Now to Support Humanities Funding
Dear Humanities Advocate,
Last year, the House Budget Committee called for the complete elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities in its budget resolution. By sending messages to elected officials, advocates like you helped to defeat the proposal and preserve critical funding for the humanities.
Now, you can help ensure a brighter future for federal humanities funding by urging your elected officials to join a bipartisan effort to support NEH. By signing on to House and Senate Dear Colleague letters, your Members of Congress can demonstrate support for NEH funding to the appropriations committee members that hold the agency’s future in their hands.
Click here to send our message to your elected officials today. They are waiting to hear from you.
It is critical that you act now. The deadline for Representatives to sign on to the House letter is Monday, March 31, and the deadline for Senators to sign on to the Senate letter is Friday, April 4.
Best regards,
Stephen Kidd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
(202) 296-4994 x149
Senate Museum Funding Push Is Now Bipartisan; Tell Your Senators to Join the Effort
posted by CAA — March 20, 2014
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) sent the following email on March 19, 2014
Senate Museum Funding Push is Now Bipartisan; Tell Your Senators to Join the Effort
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) are now circulating a bipartisan letter urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide robust funding in FY 2015 for the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). This is the fifth year that Senator Gillibrand has led this effort, but the first time Senator Blunt will co-lead the letter.
The deadline for Senators to sign on to this letter is March 25, 2014.
The Office of Museum Services is receiving $30.1 million this year, well below its authorized level of $38.6 million. The Gillibrand/Blunt letter is your Senators’ chance to go on record in support of museum funding, so ask them to sign on today!
“Following visits from his constituents during Museums Advocacy Day, Senator Blunt decided to co-lead this letter with Senator Gillibrand, making it a bipartisan effort and demonstrating the value of our field-wide efforts in Washington, D.C.,” said Alliance President Ford W. Bell. “I applaud Senators Gillibrand and Blunt for their leadership in supporting museums nationwide. We are especially thrilled that Senator Blunt has joined the cause this year; museums in Missouri should be proud to have such a responsive museum champion in Congress.”
Last year, you contacted legislators in record numbers and you made a real difference: a record-breaking number of Senators signed the letter supporting funding for the IMLS Office of Museum Services. Keep that momentum going by contacting your Senators now.
Thank you for acting on this important issue!
Development of a Statement on Terminal-Degree Programs in the Visual Arts and Design
posted by CAA — March 12, 2014
While the College Art Association (CAA) continues to affirm that the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is the terminal degree in visual arts and design practice, a growing number of PhD and other doctoral degree programs in the arts are being offered by institutions within the United States and abroad. Consistent with its commitment to offer guidance to its members, their institutions, and other professional arts organizations, CAA recognizes the need to develop a statement regarding terminal degree programs in the visual arts and design. In February 2013 CAA’s Professional Practices Committee (PPC) outlined a twenty-month course of action to develop a Statement on Terminal Degree Programs in the Visual Arts and Design. This process began with the formation of an ad hoc committee to lead the project.
The committee worked over the past year on collecting and comparing information about terminal degree programs and developing draft statements. The most recent draft was presented to members at the CAA Annual Conference in Chicago in February 2014. The session was extremely well attended and included an open discussion period and a mechanism for collecting post-conference feedback. In addition, the committee presented an earlier draft at the September 2013 National Council of Arts Administrators Annual Conference and many committee members attended an open hearing on the same subject at the October 2013 National Association of Schools of Art and Design Annual Meeting.
The committee continues its work on a timetable to submit a final draft statement for PPC review by June 1, 2014; for CAA staff and legal counsel review by September 1, 2014; and for CAA Board of Directors review in October 2014.
Please review the current draft statement. Members can offer responses, comments, and suggestions at feedback@collegeart.org until April 22, 2014. All submissions will be reviewed and considered. Please be aware that the committee will be unable to respond directly to members.
Linda Downs
Executive Director
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for March 2014
posted by CAA — March 10, 2014
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 2014
Anna Maria Maiolino, still from Y, 1974, 8mm film transferred to DVD, black and white with sound, 2:28 mins. (artwork © Anna Maria Maiolino; photograph by Max Nauenberg)
Anna Maria Maiolino: MATRIX 252
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
University of California, Woo Hon Fai Hall, 2625 Durant Avenue, No. 2250, Berkeley, CA 94720
January 17–March 30, 2014
MATRIX 252 offers a selection of videos by the São Paulo–based artist Anna Maria Maiolino. For over five decades, Maiolino’s multidisciplinary practice comprised drawing, engraving, painting, sculpture, installation, and Super 8 films that led to the use of audio and video in her work. Through fragmentation and abstraction she has explored the “viscerality of embodied experience.” MATRIX 252 features a group of four videos, originally shot on Super 8 between 1973 and 1982.
Born in Italy in 1942, Maiolino emigrated with her family to Venezuela in 1954 before moving to Brazil in 1960. Previous to settling in São Paulo, she lived in Rio de Janeiro, where she took part of the exhibition Nova Objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian Objectivity) alongside Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias, Rubens Gerchman, Hélio Oiticica, and Lygia Pape. The brutality of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–85) became a subject for Maiolino’s work. Based on Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropófago” (“Cannibal Manifesto”) of 1928, In-Out (Antropofagia) (1973) shows a close-up of a male and a female mouth attempting to communicate while obstructed by various objects, such as a tape, an egg, and a string. Further close-up shots of faces appear in two works, X and Y (both 1974): eyes are imperiled by snapping scissors in X, while in Y they are blindfolded while the mouth emits a cry. Through these videos, the artist exposes a human body that struggles to find a mode of expression as a metaphor for living under political repression and censorship.
Nicole Eisenman, Sloppy Bar Room Kiss, 2011, oil on canvas, 39 x 48 in. (artwork © Nicole Eisenman)
Dear Nemesis: Nicole Eisenman, 1993–2013
Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis
3750 Washington Boulevard, Saint Louis, MO 63108
January 24–April 13, 2014
Dear Nemesis, the largest midcareer survey of the work of the American artist Nicole Eisenman (b. France, 1965) to date, includes more than 120 paintings, prints, and drawings created between 1993 to 2013. The work of Eisenman bridges the absurd and abject with the introspective and irreverent, drawing on sources as varied as the iconography of classical myths and popular culture in general. Over the past two decades, she has developed a creative and versatile vision that combines high and low culture with virtuosic skill. Being her core concerns the depictions of community, identity, and sexuality, Eisenman demonstrates an uncanny capacity for capturing the joy, pain, embarrassment, and ecstasy of being human. Fusing images that fluctuate between the depiction of a world rooted in the visual language of art history and a critical and comedic meditation on contemporary life, she depicts settings and themes as varied as bar scenes, motherhood, and the dilemma of the artist. Through a recurrent representation of women, both as “butch” and “femme,” and female love, Eisenman infuses the practice of figurative painting with an audaciously queer bent that also re-presents art history in a feminist light. Through her wit and the uneasiness caused by her playful images, she is able to communicate with a critical—and yet visually breathtaking—absurdity the multifaceted depth of the human condition.
Alice Aycock, Hoodo (Laura) from the Series “How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts” Vertical & Horizontal Cross-section of the Ether Wind (1981), 1990/2012, watercolor and ink on paper, 27½ x 39¼ in. Collection of the artist (artwork © Alice Aycock)
Alice Aycock Drawings: Some Stories Are Worth Repeating
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
1130 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
January 26–April 20, 2014
Alice Aycock Drawings: Some Stories Are Worth Repeating
Art, Design, and Architecture Museum
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
January 26–April 20, 2014
Including over one hundred works, Some Stories Are Worth Repeating is the first comprehensive exploration of Alice Aycock’s creative process. For this major retrospective, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art partnered the Art, Design, and Architecture (AD&A) Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to present an exhibition that traces the artist’s career from 1971 to date. The display at the AD&A Museum focuses on Aycock’s work from 1971 to 1984 and includes detailed architectural drawings, sculptural maquettes, and photo documentation for both realized and imagined architectural projects. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art covers Aycock’s work from 1984 to present, a period in which she developed an increasingly elaborate visual vocabulary, drawing upon a multitude of sources that were partially informed by the use of computer programs.
This double-venue exhibition highlights the major themes that have governed Aycock’s artistic practice. While she is best known for her large-scale installations and outdoor sculptures, her drawings capture the full range of her ideas and sources, mirroring her conceptual clarity and formal depth. Her drawings and built projects achieved new complexity with the advent of computer-graphics programs in the 1990s. New technologies have enable Aycock to develop a digitally informed visual language that includes the generation of forms from multiple perspectives, mathematically perfect curve, and a precise construction drawings, while imagining points of view that are extraordinarily accurate.
A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue, published by the Parrish Art Museum and distributed by Yale University Press, features an interpretive essay by Jonathan Fineberg and an introduction by Terrie Sultan, director of the Parrish Art Museum. This book is the first scholarly exploration of the pivotal, enormously productive role that drawing has played in Aycock’s career over the course of her forty years as professional artist.
Kati Horna, Bottle, 1962, gelatin-silver print, 9 5/16 x 6½ in. (artwork © Kati Horna)
Kati Horna
Museo Amparo
2 Sur 708, Centro Histórico, Puebla, Pue., Mexico
December 7, 2013–April 28, 2014
Museo Amparo, in collaboration with Jeu de Paume in Paris (where the show will travel later this spring), presents the first major survey of the work of the photographer Kati Horna (Szilas-Balhas, Hungary, 1912–Mexico City, 2000). Horna turned to photography in the early 1930s in Hungary and, though still understudied, became one of the greatest documentary and surrealist photographers of Mexico. Seeking to define her contribution to photojournalism—and the photo-essay in particular—the exhibition brings together over 150 mostly unpublished or rarely seen works and contextualizes Horna’s career with personal photos and the European and Mexican journals with which she collaborated. It is chronologically organized along three axes that distinguish the changing geographic, cultural, and political contexts of her production.
The first part focuses on early work, conducted in Hungary, Berlin (where she relocated at age eighteen), and Paris, her early collages and photomontages illuminating the formation of her aesthetics in the context of the European avant-gardes of the 1930s (Bauhaus, Surrealism, and Neue Sachlichkeit). The second part focuses on Horna’s documentation of the Spanish Civil War, characterized by her compassionate look at civilians, an approach that radically complemented the perspective of her then partner, the war photographer Robert Capa, whom she followed to Spain. The last part of the exhibition examines her work as a chronicler of life in Mexico. Horna moved there on the eve of the Second World War with her husband Jose Jorna, joining various circles of the local intelligentsia, such as the movimiento pánico (Alejandro Jodorowsky) and the artistic, literary, and architectural avant-garde in Mexico (Mathias Goeritz, Germán Cueto, Pedro Friedeberg, Salvador Elizondo, Alfonso Reyes, and Ricardo Legorreta), while forming a close relationship with Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. The last twenty years of Horna’s life were dedicated—in addition to her creative work—to teaching photography at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Academia de San Carlos (Univesidad Nacional Autónoma de México), where she influenced a new generation of contemporary photographers.
Posters (ca. 1991–present) from Riot Grrrl–related shows, conventions, and meetings internationally, solicited from institutional and personal archives through open calls, word of mouth, and invitations
Alien She
Vox Populi
319 North 11th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
March 7–April 27, 2014
Organized by two former Riot Grrrls, Astria Suparak and Ceci Moss, Alien She is the first exhibition to examine the lasting impact of the highly influential feminist punk movement from the 1990s on contemporary artists and cultural producers. Formed in reaction to the pervasive and violent sexism, racism, and homophobia in the punk-music scene and in culture at large, Riot Grrrl fomented a new generation of active feminists, inspiring them to create their own culture and communities in defiance of mainstream conventions. The movement also popularized the academic discourse of identity politics. Emphasizing female and youth empowerment, collaborative organization, creative resistance, and DIY ethics, Riot Grrrl had a pivotal influence, inspiring many around the world to pursue socially and politically progressive careers as artists, activists, authors, and educators.
Alien She focuses on seven artists—Ginger Brooks Takahashi (Pittsburgh), Tammy Rae Carland (Oakland), Miranda July (Los Angeles), Faythe Levine (Milwaukee), Allyson Mitchell (Toronto), L. J. Roberts (Brooklyn), and Stephanie Syjuco (San Francisco)—working in different media whose practices reflect the impact of Riot Grrrl; the exhibition also includes an open-ended historical section that reflects the multiplicity that was integral part of the original movement and its continuity, in the spirit of the Riot Grrrl’s principles. Each artist is represented by several projects from the last twenty years, including new and rarely seen works, providing an insight into the development of their creative practices and individual trajectories. The movement’s vast creative output is captured by hundreds of self-published zines and hand-designed posters (solicited from institutional and personal archives through open calls, word-of-mouth, and invitations, similar to the way Riot Grrrl expanded), different music playlists from Riot Grrrl scenes across the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe, while interviews and an ongoing, online Riot Grrrl Census provide an expanded oral history.
The exhibition’s title, Alien She, refers to a Bikini Kill song of the same name. The lyrics are about the negotiation of normalized gender roles, the uneasy line between feminist critique and collectivity, and the process of coming to a feminist consciousness, with the repeated refrain, “She is me, I am her.”
Installation view of Leonor Fini: Pourquoi pas? (artworks © Leonor Fini; photograph by Polly Yassin/Bildmuseet)
Leonor Fini: Pourquoi pas?
Bildmuseet
Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
January 31–May 11, 2014
Leonor Fini: Pourquoi pas? is the first survey of the work of the Buenos Aires–born, Italian-French artist Leonor Fini (1907–1996) in the Nordic countries. Fini’s work challenged conventional ideas through questioning the frontiers between female and male, myth, and reality, the conscious and unconscious; it also expressed female desire, interfering in Surrealism from a transgressive female point of view. Though posthumously reduced to a footnote of art history, including feminist art history, Fini became a “queen of the Paris art world,” where she moved circa 1931 to become an artist, constantly featured in the news and celebrated for her paintings, illustrations, and theater designs, and above all for her flamboyant bohemian lifestyle, marked by her masquerades and ménages à trois. Fini was largely self-taught, having nurtured her prodigious talent and passion for portraiture by studying Flemish masters and Italian Mannerists; she also claimed dreams as the source of the irrational of her imagery. She was featured in major Surrealist exhibitions, including the 1936 International Exhibition of Surrealism in London, where she scandalized the critics with her erotic females. She also participated in Parisian Surrealist circles yet distanced herself from André Breton’s misogynistic circle.
The exhibition, which includes paintings, drawings, book illustrations, objects, text, film, and costume sketches for theater and opera, is accompanied by a richly illustrated bilingual catalogue (in English and Swedish) with previously unpublished texts by the artist alongside new essays by the poet and author Lasse Söderberg, the art historian Anna Rådström, and the curators Cecilia Andersson and Brita Täljedal.
Installation view of Were I made of matter, I would color (photograph by Stephan Wyckoff)
Ulrike Grossarth: Were I made of matter, I would color
Generali Foundation
Wiedner Hauptstrasse 15, 1040 Vienna, Austria
January 24–June 29, 2014
Ulrike Grossarth (b. 1952) is a Berlin-based multimedia conceptual artist and professor of expanded concepts of art and mixed media art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden since 1998. She is the founder of the Essen branch of Free International University initiated by Joseph Beuys and the recipient of the 2009 Kathe Kollwitz Prize. Though Grossarth began her career as a dancer, she became known since the late 1980s for sculptural milieus that variously manifest her interest in the corporeality of matter and create “radical and vivid spaces for thinking, spaces people can actually experience and use,” rather than artworks, as the artist puts it.
Curated by Sabine Folie and Ilse Lafer, Were I made of matter, I would color is a comprehensive retrospective that traces the evolution of Grossarth’s art, drawing connections from her early years as a dancer in the 1970s and 1980s, her sculptural settings and actions, and her most recent work, which interlaces an interest in history with the history of ideas.
The exhibition’s centerpiece, BAU I (1989–2000), is an experimental ensemble comprised of the “unmoved object-bodies” that Grossarth created over a decade and presented in a wide variety of constellations. Visualizing changed spaces of thought and action, the show bridges Grossarth’s early work, which is informed by Fluxus and punk and the attempt to come to terms with the postwar era, and her later art, with its focus on Eastern Europe. More recent works in the exhibition, such as the so-called Lublin projects (since 2006) and SYMBOL gotowe/Subject Aggregates, showcase the ways in which Grossarth seeks to reanimate lost cultural traditions, and her challenging of Occidental thought with her engagement with Jewish mysticism and the motif of the Shekhinah.
Affiliated Society News for March 2014
posted by CAA — March 09, 2014
American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (JAIC) is being celebrated by Maney Publications as its Journal of the Month. All access restrictions on three years’ worth of journal content are being lifted until February 15, 2014. Go to http://www.maneyonline.com/page/jotm/jac to learn more. You will find:
- Commentaries on the conservation of textiles, archaeological artifacts, and electronic media, as well as a commentary on sustainability and a review of the archive
- Video interviews with Michele Derrick (editor-in-chief) and Pamela Hatchfield (AIC board president)
- “Best of the Archive”: ten articles handpicked by the editor that are free to download
- 20 percent discount on institutional subscriptions
Foundations in Art: Theory and Education
The Herron School of Art and Design, part of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), will host “Tectonic Shifts,” the thirty-fifth biennial national conference of Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) in Indianapolis, Indiana, March 25–28, 2015. As the title of the conference, “Tectonic Shifts” suggests, participants will be examining how the forces of change are shaping the foundations landscape. FATE is interested in hearing from foundations faculty and programs that are breaking new ground with their teaching practices. The Herron School of Art and Design looks forward to being the conference host and introducing attendees to its great city.
Glass Art Society
The forty-third annual conference of the Glass Art Society (GAS), titled “Strengthening Community, Collaboration, Forging New Bonds,” will be held March 19–22, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City is second to none when it comes to a thriving, diverse cultural scene: it is home to renowned architecture, public art displays, galleries, museums, and colleges, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Millennium Park. GAS will hosts its conference at well-known venues such as the historic Palmer House Hotel and the Chicago Cultural Center, both centrally located in the heart of downtown. GAS will partner with a new addition to Chicago’s flourishing art scene, Ignite Glass Studios, located in the West Loop neighborhood. Hot glass, flame working, and cold working will be showcased in this state-of-the-art learning center. The second demo site is West Supply, a unique facility that joins glass production with a foundry, which casts concrete and metals for many notable collections in the high-end design, interiors, and gallery markets.
View the complete list of presentations. GAS will also be hosting special conference events such as the preconference reception, live and silent auction, Goblet Grab, gallery hop, an international student exhibition, and a closing night party. For additional information about the conference schedule and to register, visit the website.
Italian Art Society
The Italian Art Society (IAS) is delighted to announce the selection of the fifth annual IAS/Kress Lecturer in Italy: Jean Cadogan, professor of fine arts at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, who will speak on “‘Maravigliose istorie:’ The Mural Decoration of the Camposanto in Pisa.” Cadogan will share her intriguing work on the multiphase, comprehensive program of painting on the walls of the Camposanto in a presentation on May 27, 2014, in Pisa. IAS is happy to establish a link with a respected Italian university, as the lecture will take place in the Gipsoteca of the Università di Pisa. Mark your calendars to visit Pisa if you are in Italy in late May! More details to follow on the IAS website. In addition, please look at the organization’s website for details about the five IAS-sponsored sessions and a reception that IAS hopes to host at the upcoming Renaissance Society of America meeting in New York on March 27–29, 2014.
Leonardo Education and Art Forum
The chair of Leonardo Education and Art Forum (LEAF), Adrienne Klein of the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has announced the election of two new chairs-elect. Klein will be immediately succeeded by David Familian, who is artistic director of the Beall Center for Art and Technology at the University of California, Irvine. Familian will then be succeeded in 2015 by the newly elected Suzanne Anker and in 2016 by J. D. Talasek.
Anker is a visual artist and theorist working at the intersection of art and biology in a variety of media ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. She is chair of the Fine Arts Department in the School of Visual Arts in New York. Talasek is director of cultural programs of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, which explores the intersections of science, medicine, technology, and visual culture. For the past three years, Talasek has organized and moderated DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous events in Washington, DC, in collaboration with Leonardo/ISAST.
Midwest Art History Society
The Midwest Art History Society (MAHS) will hold its forty-first annual conference in Saint Louis, Missouri, from April 3 to 5, 2014. In addition to more than twenty scholarly sessions, conference activities will include a special viewing of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis and a curator-led tour of Impressionist France at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, will offer the keynote address. For more information about the conference and access to online registration forms, please visit the MAHS website.
National Council of Arts Administrators
The forty-second annual meeting of the National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA) convenes September 23–26, 2014, in Nashville, Tennessee, hosted by Vanderbilt University.
Yes is a world
and in this world of yes…e.e. Cummings
(creativity in the expanding field)
The world is the new studio. Artists are involved in an ever-expanding production involving constituents beyond the art world and marketplace. As educational institutions, how do we respond to this massive shift in artistic attitude? Is there a balance between standard nineteenth- and twentieth-century production and the new twenty-first-century practice centered on global and social interconnectedness? This conference will investigate art’s expanding field by exploring the influences of globalization, art education, and integrated practice. Participants will consider their role as educators of creativity, how they influence our institutions, and their effect on local and world communities. Speakers include: Richard Lloyd, author of Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post Industrial City; David Owens, author of Creative People Must Be Stopped! Six Ways We Stop Innovation (without Even Trying); and Steven Tepper, author of Not Here, Not Now, Not That! Protest over Art and Culture in America.Visit the NCAA website to learn more about this conference and to join the organization.
Public Art Dialogue
Established in 2009, the Public Art Dialogue (PAD) award for achievement in the field of public art is given annually to an individual whose contributions have greatly influenced public art practice. Awardees are chosen from nominations made by PAD members. Award winners receive a three-year PAD membership, which includes a subscription to the journal and all other membership benefits. Each year, the recipient accepts the award at a ceremony during the CAA Annual Conference, at which he or she makes a special presentation open to the public. Nominations for the 2015 award are due on May 1, 2014. Past winners have been Suzanne Lacy, Mary Jane Jacob, Anne Pasternak, Ben Rubin, and Penny Balkin Bach. Jack Becker is the 2014 recipient. For more information see http://publicartdialogue.org/award.
Society for Photographic Education
Each spring, Society for Photographic Education (SPE) hosts a conference for the presentation of artistic work and research to a community of peers. “Atmospheres: Climate, Equity and Community in Photography,” SPE’s fifty-second national conference, will be held from March 12–15, 2015, in New Orleans, Louisiana. SPE is accepting proposals for the 2015 conference from March 6 to June 1, 2014. Topics are not required to be theme based and may include (but are not limited to): imagemaking, history, contemporary theory and criticism, new technologies, effects of media and culture, educational issues, and funding. SPE membership is required to submit and proposals are peer reviewed. The presentation formats are:
- Graduate Student: short presentation of your own artistic work and a brief introduction to your graduate program
- Imagemaker: presentation of your own artistic work (photography, film, video, performance and installation, multidisciplinary approaches)
- Lecture: presentation of a historical topic, theory, or another artist’s work
- Panel: group led by a moderator to discuss a chosen topic
- Teaching: presentations, workshops, demos that address educational issues, including teaching resources and strategies; curricula to serve diverse artists and changing student populations; seeking promotion and tenure; avoiding burnout, and professional exchange
Visit the SPE website for information on SPE membership and full proposal guidelines
Society for the Study of Early Modern Women
The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (SSEMW) held its annual meeting at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 2013. The results of the election of new officers were announced. Megan Matchinske, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, stepped into the office of president, which was vacated by Jane Couchman, emerita of the Department of French and Women’s Studies at York University in Glendon, Canada. A full list of the new officers will be available shortly on the SSEMW website.
An excerpt from Jane Couchman’s letter to the society’s membership at the close of her term as president in 2013:
The highlights of this year were our meetings at SCSC in San Juan, and especially the talk given jointly by Susan Amussen and Allyson Poska, “Shifting the Frame: Trans-imperial approaches to Gender in the Atlantic World,” a topic chosen to mark our presence in Puerto Rico. The large and enthusiastic audience found their gendered, collaborative, transnational, transatlantic approach relevant and exciting. Susan and Allyson modeled the best of the kind of scholarship that SSEMW encourages, and that we hope to offer to early modern scholarship more generally. The Society’s principal work is very visible and we can all be proud of it: Co-sponsored Sessions (17 panels at 6 different conferences in 2013), the Annual Meeting, Reception and Plenary talk, Travel grants to graduate students (5 each year), the slate of Nominations, the Awards for scholarly work (http://ssemw.org/2013-award-winners/), the SSEMW website and Listserv, our support for Early Modern Women, an Interdisciplinary Journal, our collaboration with Attending to Early Modern Women.
Society of Architectural Historians
Registration is open for the Society of Architectural Historians’ annual conference (#SAH2014), taking place April 9–13, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency Austin in Austin, Texas. The conference offers thirty-five paper sessions along with public programming that includes twenty-one guided architectural tours and the SAH Austin Seminar, “Austin and the Place of Historic Architecture in Rapidly Growing Cities.” Please visit sah.org/2014 for more information on the conference, including a complete schedule of events and how to register.
The call for papers for the 2015 conference in Chicago (April 15–19) opens on April 16, 2014. For abstract submission instructions, visit sah.org/2015.
Registration is open for the Croatia Study Tour, a land-and-cruise program tailored for architecture professionals and enthusiasts that will take place August 18–29, 2014. This customized tour from Sarajevo to Venice along the Adriatic Coast, developed by Boris Srdar, will include visits to UNESCO World Heritage sites, exclusive access to landmark buildings as well as those off the beaten path, and admission to the Venice Biennale on August 30. A fellowship is available for this program. To register, visit sah.org/study-tours.
Buildings of Vermont, the latest volume in the Buildings of the United States series, is now available.
Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture
Following elections in January, the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) has updated its by-laws and added two new officers: Tamara Jhashi is now SHERA’s listserv administrator, a role she has filled since 2004, and Ksenya Gurshtein is web news editor. Joining SHERA’s board as members-at-large are Anna Novakov, Andrea Rusnock, and Nicolas Iljine, as well as one returning member, Eva Forgacs.
At CAA’s Annual Conference in Chicago, Eva Forgacs served as host to visitors from Eastern Europe and Russia who were part of CAA’s International Travel Grant Program. Along with the visitors, Forgacs participated in a full-day preconference program organized by the CAA International Committee about international issues in art history, as well as other events throughout the conference itself.
SHERA is delighted to welcome three new institutional members: the Kolodzei Art Foundation, which promotes the contemporary art of Russia and the former Soviet Union through exhibitions and grants; the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, the largest private collection of Russian icons in North America; and the M. T. Abraham Foundation, a collection of Russian and European modern art.
Southeastern College Art Conference
The Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) will meet October 8–11, 2014, in Sarasota, Florida, hosted by the Ringling College of Art and Design. Submissions for the annual juried exhibition is April 1, 2014. The deadline for the call for papers is April 20, 2014. For more information, visit SECAC’s conference page.
Future conferences will be held: October 21–24, 2015 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); October 19–22, 2016 Virginia Tech (Roanoke, Virginia); 2017 (dates TBA) Columbus College of Art and Design (Columbus, Ohio).
SECAC has introduced a new award, the William R. Levin Award for Research in the History of Art. Thanks to the generosity of William R. Levin, professor emeritus at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, SECAC will offer an award of an annual total of $5000 to one or more art historians who are members of the organization. Levin has been a member of SECAC since 1987; served on the Board of Directors; published in the scholarly journal, Southeastern College Art Conference Review; received the SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication in 2004; and has been recognized with two of the organization’s highest honors, the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Exemplary Achievement Award. Deadline for applicants: March 1, 2014.
The deadline for a $5,000 SECAC Artist’s Fellowship is August 1, 2014.
Visual Resources Association
The Visual Resources Association’s thirty-second annual conference will be held March 12–15, 2014, at the historic Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Take a moment to view the full schedule. Selected highlights are:
- Sessions and case studies covering topics such as collaborative practices amongst traditional and nontraditional disciplines within archival and special collections, international copyright and resources, broadening professional roles, management of moving image collections, basic and advanced (RDF and LOD) cataloging procedures, DAM implementation, expanding VRA Core 4 capabilities, personal digital archiving
- Opening speaker, Philip Yenawine, cofounding director of Visual Thinking Strategies
- Tours of Harley-Davidson Museum and Design Archive and Lakefront Brewery
- Networking opportunities provided by Birds of a Feather Lunches throughout the conference and the Sponsors’ Meet and Greet and Poster Presentations
- Members and Awards Dinner
- Informative workshops (many free for conference registrants)
- Unwind with colleagues at the Drink ‘n’ Draw with Stephanie Barenz (Pfister Hotel’s artist in residence).
- Closing speaker Matthew Israel, director of the Art Genome Project at Artsy
The online conference schedule allows for sign up/log in via SCHED to connect with social-media sites, create custom schedules, and share interests with fellow attendees. Search for “vra32.sched.org“ on your mobile device to download the schedule.