CAA News Today
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for April 2013
posted by CAA — April 10, 2013
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.
April 2013
Hilma af Klint, Altarpiece, No. 1, Group X, Altarpiece Series, 1915 (artwork © Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk; photograph by Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet)
Hilma af Klint: A Pioneer of Abstraction
Moderna Museet
Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden
February 16–May 26, 2013
This major touring retrospective of Hilma af Klint’s work is a tribute to her unacknowledged contribution to abstract art. The exhibition traces its development and highlights the spiritual underpinnings of the symbolism and ornamentation that characterize her geometric idiom, in light of her interest in spiritism, theosophy, and anthroposophy. Also including Klint’s diaries and notebooks, A Pioneer of Abstraction proposes that she be considered a pioneer of abstract art, along with the genre’s main protagonists: Vasily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. Klint, who believed that when painting she was expressing a higher consciousness, exhibited just her early representational paintings during her lifetime, stipulating in her will that her abstract works, which today amount to more than one thousand paintings and studies, could be shown only twenty years after her death. Not coincidentally, this exhibition comprises largely previously unseen works.
Dorothy Iannone: Innocent and Aware
Camden Arts Centre
Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG England
March 8–May 5, 2013
Bringing together many works from the 1970s to the present, such as paintings, cut outs, illustrated books, and video installations, Dorothy Iannone: Innocent and Aware offers a great opportunity to study the radically combined celebration of sexual pleasure and quest for spirituality that underpin the work of this Berlin-based American artist, including the feminist politics of its pornographic aspects, its distinctive autobiographic mode, and its dialogue with both high and low culture, whether Western or non-Western.
Chantal Akerman: Maniac Shadows
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011
April 12–May 11, 2013
Curated by Tim Griffin and Lumi Tan, Maniac Shadows is a mesmerizing installation featuring recent work by the great feminist Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. Images from multiscreen projections of recent video, shot during her residencies in various countries, interweave interior and outdoor views of the urban and natural environments, populated by figures or shadows, immersing the viewer in a shifting scenery of presence and absence. The exhibition also includes still photographs derived from the projections and a haunting video apparition of the artist in profil perdu reading My Mother Laughs, an autobiographic text about her aging mother. Evoking her film News from Home (1976), which interweaves shots of New York, where the artist had recently moved, with the reading of the letters of her mother from Brussels, Maniac Shadows unfolds as a city-specific installation, an autobiographic postscript that brings full circle the signature themes that have preoccupied Akerman throughout her career.
The artist Cristina Iglesias at the opening of her exhibition at the Reina Sofía in 2013 (photograph by Joaquín Cortés/Román Lores)
Cristina Iglesias: Metonymy
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Calle de Santa Isabel, 52, 28012, Madrid, Spain
February 6–May 13, 2013
Curated by Lynne Cooke, this major retrospective of Cristina Iglesias’s work combines signature sculptural installations from the beginning of her career to the present, including videos and serigraphs, and sums up the major preoccupations of her polymaterial art practice while showcasing her multifarious expansion of sculpture, her exploration of its relation with space and architecture, and the centrality of the idea of the refuge.
Giosetta Fioroni: L’Argento
Drawing Center
35 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10013
April 5–June 2, 2013
Curated by Claire Gilman, this exhibition is a unique opportunity to marvel at the early work of Giosetta Fioroni, an important Italian painter whose signature combination of silver enamel paint and drawing on canvas makes her ideal subject for an institution devoted to drawing. The daughter of artists, Fioroni was born in Rome in 1932 and studied theater design with Toti Scialoja. She began as an abstract painter under his influence, as well as that of Cy Twombly, whom she befriended in Rome, but by the sixties had shifted toward an idiosyncratic figurative idiom firmly associated with Italian Pop’s history in Rome. Though the show brings together over eighty works in drawing, painting, film, theater design, and illustration, dating from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, it consists primarily of her signature figurative works of the 1960s, whose iconography (whether based on family or anonymous photos, iconic Italian paintings, news images from the Fascist Era, and above all glamour shots of women’s faces taken from women’s magazines) and chromatic reference to photography and cinema (by her use of silver as a “non-color”) manifest her distinct contribution to international Pop art. Along with two other current shows in New York that feature contemporaneous female artists—Idelle Weber: The Pop Years at Hollis Taggart Galleries and The Pop Object: The Still Life Tradition in Pop Art at Acquavella Gallery, which includes works by Vija Celmins, Marjorie Strider, Marisol, and Jann Haworth—the Drawing Center’s introduction of Fioroni to the United States belatedly acknowledges the female contributors to Pop, a pleasant aftereffect of the 2010 touring exhibition Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists.
Catalogue cover of Daring Methods: The Prints of Mary Cassatt
Daring Methods: The Prints of Mary Cassatt
New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Print and Stokes Galleries, Third Floor, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018
March 8–June 23, 2013
Drawn from the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs Collection, this exhibition documents Mary Cassatt’s first tentative steps in printmaking—begun a year before her first participation in the Impressionist group exhibitions in 1878—and culminates with her highly accomplished, technically dazzling color prints. Spanning twenty years of her career, the arrangement unfolds chronologically, allowing the viewer to follow how the artist dealt with subjects, compositions, and an array of printing methods. It is also meant to convey the artist’s audacious experimentation with printmaking media and techniques.
Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD, Scotland
March 2–May 26, 2013
Drawn largely from the photographer’s archive of negatives, donated to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2004, In the Shadow of Tyranny surveys the life and extraordinary political work of the Austrian photographer Edith Tudor-Hart. The exhibition is a long-overdue acknowledgment of the influential role of her socialist-realist aesthetics in transforming British photography of the interwar period. Born Edith Suschitzky in 1908, Tudor-Hart grew up in radical Jewish circles in Vienna after World War I. She studied photography at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, and pursued a career as a photojournalist, though trained as a Montessori teacher. In May 1933 she was arrested for working as an agent for the Communist Party of Austria. She escaped imprisonment by marrying an English doctor and was exiled to London. Tudor-Hart continued to combine her practice as a photographer with low-level espionage for the Soviet Union and was pursued by the security services until her death in 1973. Dealing with social issues throughout her career—beginning with a focus on poverty, unemployment, and slum housing that captures the sociopolitical turmoil of the interwar period in Vienna and Britain and turning to child-welfare issues after World War II—Tudor-Hart used her camera as a political weapon in the service of working-class struggles and the workers’ movement in a manner that has left an indelible imprint on British photography. The exhibition presents over eighty photographs, many of which have never been shown, and includes film footage, Tudor-Hart’s scrapbook, and a selection of her published stories in books and magazines.
National Humanities Alliance Annual Meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day
posted by CAA — March 26, 2013
Anne Collins Goodyear, curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, is the president of the CAA Board of Directors, and Hannah O’Reilly Malyn is CAA development associate.
Anne Collins Goodyear and Hannah O’Reilly Malyn attended a day of meetings and panel discussions presented by the National Humanities Alliance (NHA). This year’s annual event, held on March 18, 2013, in Washington, DC, addressed the practical need for continued support of humanities education and research and the importance of quantifying the benefits of such, as well as highlighting the Clemente Course in the Humanities program, an endeavor that illustrates the impact of humanities learning on people from all walks of life. These discussions helped prepare participants for Humanities Advocacy Day, taking place on Capitol Hill the following day.
CAA is a member of NHA, which advocates federal funding of the humanities. In addition to its annual meeting, NHA organizes Humanities Advocacy Day, which brings critical information to participants and prepares them for congressional visits to support the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Fulbright Program, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and numerous Department of Education programs in the humanities.
The day began with a keynote address by Christina Paxson, president of Brown University, whose talk centered around the question “Are the Humanities Worth It?” and touched on demonstrating the tangible benefits derived from studying the humanities. She discussed the significance of understanding other cultures as we progress toward globalization and a world society, especially the ways in which humanists can help people respond to the social changes brought on by technological advances. Paxson stressed that we must train people not just with the immediately necessary skills for employment, which devalue over time, but also with the creativity to work in a rapidly changing world. She also revealed that, contrary to popular belief, the average lifetime incomes of people with bachelor’s degrees in the humanities are not much lower than those of people with bachelor’s degrees in STEM subjects, and noted that people with humanities degrees are more likely to pursue higher education above the bachelor’s.
The keynote address was followed by a panel on making the case for federal humanities funding, which consisted of six individuals: Stephen Kidd, executive director of NHA; Esther Mackintosh, president of the Federation of State Humanities Councils; Ben Kershaw, assistant director of congressional relations at the American Alliance of Museums; Lee White, executive director of the National Coalition for History; Miriam Kazanjian, consultant for the Coalition for International Education; and Mollie Benz Flounlacker, associate vice president for federal relations at the Association for American Universities. Continuing in the same line as Paxson’s talk, the panelists described the different government programs concerned with the humanities and what tactics are most effective in arguing for their continued funding—namely economic impact, the importance of creative thinking skills and well-rounded job candidates, and how the humanities relate to core American values such as citizenship and civic understanding and participation. The overarching message was that to remain competitive in the global economy, America must produce workers who are well rounded, creative, and able to interact effectively with stakeholders abroad. Panelists noted that bipartisan support for the humanities does exist in Congress so long as the emphasis is on the value created for communities and taxpayers.
Over lunch, Karl Eikenbarry, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, spoke about how the humanities were brought home for him in his work abroad. His anecdotes affirmed the advantages of learning foreign languages and cultures and endorsed the effective use of soft and hard power in diplomatic situations. Cultural diplomacy through touring symphonies, he said, is a reminder of US good will that can mitigate displays of military strength.
In the afternoon, a panel was held on advocacy infrastructure. John Churchill, secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, talked about a demand for new strategies in advocacy, particularly the year-round involvement of advocates at the state and local levels to truly involve elected officials in the humanities in their communities. Churchill introduced the new Phi Beta Kappa’s National Advocacy Initiative, which will pursue this goal through regional events and local member “emissaries” for the humanities. This was followed by presentations by Robert Townsend, deputy director of the American Historical Association, and Carolyn Fuqua, program associate for humanities at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on recent studies and data regarding the humanities. They discussed the Humanities Indicators project, which compiles data on the humanities as a whole, and noted interesting statistics such as the fact that humanities majors score better than business majors on management program entrance exams.
The day concluded with a presentation on the Clemente Course program. This program offers humanities classes to underserved demographics such as incarcerated adults, people in economically disadvantaged communities, and immigrants. Past participants testified to how these courses, which offer college credit upon completion, changed their lives and their worldviews. Star Perry, a program graduate, spoke about how the program increased her self-value, improved her job prospects, and inspired her children to attend college. Moise Koffi, another graduate, shared how he came to the US as a manual laborer and, because of the Clemente Courses, has completed his PhD and is now an engineer and a professor. Senators Richard Durbin and Elizabeth Warren also gave a few words about the program and the humanities as a whole.
The following day, Malyn represented CAA while visiting the offices of seven members of congress, traveling with a group of New York professionals that included advocates from the Modern Language Association, Cornell University, Columbia University, and Queensborough Community College, City University of New York. (As a federal employee, Goodyear is not eligible to participate in such visits.) Together, the group met with five congressional staffers to discuss the importance of continued humanities funding. Advocates also thanked longtime supporters for their ongoing efforts and encouraged newly elected officials to join the Congressional Humanities Caucus. Malyn also visited the offices of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) to update them on CAA’s work on fair use (i.e., its task force and conference session) and to distribute copies of CAA’s letter regarding the use of orphan works.
Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Humanities
posted by CAA — March 26, 2013
The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) sent the following email on March 26, 2013.
Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Humanities
Dear Humanities Advocate,
With the sequester now in effect, the budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities is slated to be cut by approximately $60 million over the next ten years. Title VI potentially stands to lose an additional $36 million from its already decimated budget over the same span. Other federal funding for the humanities will be cut by similarly significant amounts. Now is the time to urge your elected officials to replace the sequester with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that will preserve crucial investments in humanities programs.
Act now to preserve humanities funding. Tell your Member of Congress to replace the sequester with a long-term, balanced approach to deficit reduction.
Click here to write to your representative and senators today!
Sincerely,
Stephen Kidd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
posted by CAA — March 21, 2013
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) sent the following email on March 21, 2013. FAIC supports conservation education, research, and outreach activities that increase understanding of our global cultural heritage.
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) has completed work at the Cultural Recovery Center (CRC) in Brooklyn, NY after serving a community of artists and organizations in dire need of assistance. The CRC offered space and help at no cost to owners of artworks damaged as a result of Superstorm Sandy. Volunteer assistance and work space was provided to museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, galleries, collectors, and artists. While full conservation treatment was not covered, guidance and assistance in the cleaning and stabilization of art and cultural materials was.
23 members of the AIC Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) contributed 128 days of professional volunteer services in New York and New Jersey. At least 34 additional conservators from the region also volunteered. At the CRC, volunteers worked with nineteen artists on hundreds of items, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, textiles, and multi-media works. Many of the works were at risk because of toxic deposits and potential mold growth.
The Center for Cultural Recovery was operated by The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC), in cooperation with a consortium of organizations:
- Alliance for Response New York City
- Heritage Preservation
- New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
- New York Regional Association for Conservation
- Industry City at Bush Terminal
- Smithsonian Institution
Initial funding for the response and recovery efforts, including initial costs for the Center, was provided by a leadership gift to FAIC from Sotheby’s. A grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allowed the Center to remain open through March 8. Industry City at Bush Terminal provided the space rent-free. Rapid Refile set up containment tents and air scrubbers to prevent the spread of mold from incoming objects to cleaned objects. Collector Systems provided free use of its web-based collection management system. The Smithsonian Institution and a grant to Heritage Preservation from the New York Community Trust, as well as support from TALAS, enabled purchase of supplies. The Center was also outfitted with supplies from Materials for the Arts, a creative reuse program managed by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional donations to FAIC came from PINTA, The Modern & Contemporary Latin American Art Show; Tru Vue; Aon Huntington Block Insurance; Aon Foundation; members of AIC; and others. The American Museum of Natural History and MoMA also provided key in-kind support for recovery efforts and establishment of the CRC.
As the need for conservation continues, those with damaged pieces are encouraged to use AIC’s Find A Conservator tool available for free on the AIC website: www.conservation-us.org/findaconservator. The tool provides a systematic, consistent method of obtaining current information to identify and locate professional conservation services from all across the United States and abroad. It allows users to address a wide range of conservation problems, whether the needs are long-range or short-term and whether the collection consists of thousands of valuable historic artifacts, one priceless work of art, or items of great personal value.
Udo Kultermann: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — March 19, 2013
The following obituary was prepared by the family of the deceased and edited by CAA.
Udo Kultermann
Udo Kultermann, an internationally recognized scholar and Ruth and Norman Moore Professor Emeritus of Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in Saint Louis, died on February 9, 2013, in New York. He was 85 years old.
Born in Germany in 1927, Kultermann received his PhD from the University of Münster and served as the director of the City Art Museum in Leverkusen. He came to the United States in 1967, where he taught at Washington University for over thirty years. Kultermann wrote more than thirty-five books on a wide range of subjects—many of which have been translated into various languages—and published numerous articles in scholarly journals worldwide. His book The History of Art History (1993) is among his most original and cited works.
Kultermann’s specialty was twentieth-century architecture, with a groundbreaking focus on Africa and the Middle East. His interests also included European art and architecture as well as contemporary American art. Recognizing the importance of female performance artists, Kultermann was one of the first art historians to write about them. After retiring from Washington University, he and his wife, Judith Kultermann, moved to New York, where she still resides.
Read more about Kultermann in the Washington University Newsroom.
Carl N. Schmalz Jr.: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — March 19, 2013
The following obituary was submitted by the brother of the deceased, Robert F. Schmalz, and edited by CAA.
Carl N. Schmalz Jr.
Carl N. Schmalz Jr., an artist and art historian who taught for many decades at Bowdoin College and Amherst College and a CAA member since 1951, died February 22, 2013. He was 86 years old.
Born in 1926 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Schmalz was the son of the late Carl N. Schmalz and Esther (Fowler) Schmalz of Belmont, Massachusetts. he earned AB, AM, and PhD degrees in fine arts from Harvard University and was later awarded an honorary degree by Amherst College. He studied watercolor painting with Eliot O’Hara in 1943–44 and began a long teaching career while instructing at the O’Hara School at Goose Rocks Beach in 1946–47. As assistant professor at Bowdoin College from 1952 to 1962, he taught both the history and practice of art, while serving simultaneously as curator and ultimately as associate director of the Walker Art Museum (now the Bowdoin College Museum of Art). He moved to Amherst in 1962 and was made full professor seven years later.
In 1969 Schmalz inaugurated the popular summer Watercolor Workshops in Kennebunkport, Maine, which he ran for twenty years. He retired from Amherst at the end of 1994 but enjoyed teaching watercolor painting at Rock Gardens Inn in Sebasco Estates, Maine, since the early 1990s. He also taught at the Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk until his recent hospitalization.
Schmalz was the author of several books on watercolor painting and of articles in professional journals. He taught classes, juried many exhibitions, and lectured on the subject of watercolor throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and Bermuda. His work won him election as a charter member of the Watercolor USA Honor Society and national and regional prizes. His artwork was handled by galleries in Maine, Florida, Bermuda, and Boston, and his paintings hang in numerous public collections and in hundreds of private homes. He painted landscapes in Britain and Europe—and loved Italy especially. Apart from the Indian subcontinent, he painted on every continent on the globe. In recent years his particular focus was still life.
Schmalz held a wide range of public-service positions in the communities in which he lived: vice president of the board of directors of the Portland Museum of Art; member of the executive board of Interfaith Housing Corporation in Amherst; president of the board of trustees of Amherst Day School; art consultant for the O’Hara Picture Trust; chairman of the board of assessors in Pelham, Massachusetts; member of the Pelham Arts Lottery Council; and consultant on undergraduate science education for the National Academy of Sciences.
Schmalz leaves his wife Dolores T. Schmalz; his son Mathew N. Schmalz and his wife Kristin; and his daughter Julia I. Schmalz and her partner Janice. He is also survived by two grandchildren, Anna Teresa and Katherine Dolores Schmalz; and two brothers, Robert F. Schmalz of State College, Pennsylvania, and David H. Schmalz of Amsterdam, Holland. His first son, Stephen Theodore Schmalz, predeceased him.
CAA Committee on Intellectual Property 2013 Annual Conference Session: Developing a Fair Use Code for the Visual Arts
posted by CAA — March 11, 2013
The CAA Committee on Intellectual Property sponsored a well-attended session at the 2013 Annual Conference, “Developing a Fair Use Code for the Visual Arts,” in support of CAA’s recently inaugurated fair-use project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional funding from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Chaired by Christine Sundt (also the Committee’s chair), this panel included the two principal investigators engaged by CAA to research, write, and disseminate a code of best practices in the use of third-party copyrighted material by practitioners across the arts. Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic at the American University Washington College of Law, and Patricia Aufderheide, university professor in the School of Communication and co-director of its Center for Social Media, American University, were joined on the panel by Jeffrey Cunard, CAA Counsel and Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.
The discussion among panel members focused on the history of fair use and the background and schedule of CAA’s fair use project. The forthcoming code of best practices will assist individual scholars, artists, teachers, museum professionals, and other creators in analyzing what constitutes fair use of copyrighted works that they wish to employ. Answers to questions from the audience further delineated the scope of the project, which will address two types of users: scholars and museum professionals and those who use third party material in the making of art. The completed code will not constitute legal guidelines, but will document practice as it exists and will help the arts community understand the law regarding fair use. The code will provide a definition of a work of art as far-reaching and as including time-based and other multimedia forms.
Panelists for the session are also members of a Task Force on Fair Use, which oversees the project and is co-chaired by Cunard with Gretchen Wagner, former general counsel of ARTstor. Advisors on this project include Virginia Rutledge, art historian, and lawyer, and Maureen Whalen, associate general counsel for the J. Paul Getty Trust. The Committee on Intellectual Property will continue to support the project by hosting a session at the 2014 CAA Annual Conference on Jaszi and Aufderheide’s Issues Report, developed through interviews and focus groups, and a session to discuss the completed code at the 2015 Annual Conference in New York.
Additional work by the Committee on Intellectual Property included a restructuring of the Intellectual Property section of the CAA website, and presentation to and endorsement by the CAA Board of Directors of fair use guidelines written by the Association of Research Libraries and by the Visual Resources Association.
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for March 2013
posted by CAA — March 10, 2013
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 2013
Jay DeFeo working on what was then titled Deathrose, 1960 (photograph by Burt Glinn and © Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos)
Jay Defeo: A Retrospective
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021
February 28–June 2, 2013
Organized by Dana Miller, this exhibition is the first major retrospective of the work of an important yet overlooked figure of American postwar art. Best known for her monumental painting The Rose, on which she labored from 1958 to 1966, Jay DeFeo (1929–1989) experimented wildly with collage, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and jewelry. Bringing together more than 130 objects, the presentation illuminates the idiosyncratic production of another neglected female artist of American art while shedding further light on her relationship with San Francisco’s beat scene. The exhibition was previously on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2012–13.
Lenore Tawney: Wholly Unlooked For
Maryland Institute College of Art
Decker Gallery, Fox Building, 1303 West Mount Royal Avenue; and Leidy Atrium, Brown Center, 1301 West Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
January 17, 2013–March 2, 2013
Lenore Tawney: Wholly Unlooked For
University of the Arts
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, 333 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
December 7, 2012–March 17, 2013
Wholly Unlooked For is a multivenue survey of the work of Lenore Tawney (1907–2007), illuminating her pioneering exploration of fiber art and her working methods. At the artist’s alma mater, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), an exhibition organized by Piper Shepard and Susie Brandt focuses on line-based objects that exemplify the artist’s loom production through nine weavings. At University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery focuses on paper work, curated by Sid Sachs. Together, the two shows contextualize Tawney’s work with studio materials and personal belongings, shown in public for the first time.
The Leidy Atrium of MICA’s Brown Center showcases Tawney’s monumental Scripture in Stone, a fourteen-foot-square piece made of black canvas and white linen threads, and the Cloud Sculpture series of hanging works, each comprising of thousands of individually knotted threads. Distinguished for its circle-in-the-square design—a favorite motif of the artist—Scripture in Stone is exhibited for the first time in over two decades.
Joan Semmel: A Lucid Eye
Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York 10456
January 24–June 9, 2013
The camera has been an integral part of Joan Semmel’s artistic process since the 1970s. For the oil paintings in this exhibition, she turns the device on herself. Several large canvases show the artist nude, photographing herself through a mirror, the bold yet intimate works depicting not just her own image, but also how the image for the painting is constructed. In a series of smaller self-portraits, she focuses on her face. Beautifully rendered and hauntingly real, these paintings reveal Semmel’s strong character as well as the passage of time. The works in this exhibition—all made after 2001—are being shown publicly for the first time.
Affiliated Society News for March 2013
posted by CAA — March 09, 2013
American Council for Southern Asian Art
The American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) invites proposals for papers for its sixteenth biennial meeting, to be held November 7–10, 2013, at the University of California, Los Angeles. In keeping with the organizing committee’s new format, proposals that correspond to the themes outlined by three panel chairs, as well as proposals for individual papers, are welcome.
Relevant paper proposals should be submitted directly to the panel chairs for the following sessions: “Beyond Painting: Other Histories of the Book in South Asia,” chaired by Yael Rice of Amherst College; “South and Southeast Asian Artists in the Western Scene: A Critical Look at Reception,” chaired by Sunanda K. Sanyaya from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University); and “The Built Environment of Death and Cremation in South and Southeast Asia,” chaired by Cathleen Cummings of the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
Individual paper proposals and other queries should be sent electronically to: Alka Patel in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Proposals for papers must be sent to the appropriate panel chairs or to Patel by March 31, 2013. For additional information about these panels and the symposium, please visit ACSAA’s website.
Art Libraries Society of North America
The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS) is hold its forty-first annual conference in Pasadena, California, from April 25 to 29, 2013. The conference theme is “Crafting Our Future” and inspired by Pasadena’s renowned arts and crafts heritage. The event will emphasize the importance of building on organization’s past as it actively shapes the future of art librarianship. The program cochairs are Cathy Billings of the Brand Library and Art Center and Sarah Sherman of the Getty Research Institute.
Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey
The Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA) announces three new members of its executive board: Salwa Mikdadi, Alexandra Dika Seggerman, and Patrick Kane, who will respectively succeed Sarah Rogers, Dina Ramadan, and Anneka Lenssen in the roles of president-elect, secretary, and treasurer. AMCA officially welcomed these new officers and acknowledged the invaluable service of the outgoing board members at its annual business meeting at the Middle Eastern Studies Association conference in November 2012.
At the CAA conference, AMCA presented a session, called “A Revolution in Art? The Arab Uprisings and Artistic Production.” The four participants—Saleem Al-Bahloly, Dina Ramadan, Christiane Gruber, and Jennifer Pruitt—presented new perspectives on the role of art in the recent uprisings of the Arab Spring.
Historians of Netherlandish Art
The Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) announces several new appointments for 2013. Amy Golahny of Lycoming College has been elected president, and Paul Crenshaw of Providence College has been appointed vice president. Dawn Odell of Lewis and Clark College will be the new treasurer, and Yao-Fen You from the Detroit Institute of Arts will join the board of directors. Mark Trowbridge of Marymount University succeeds Molly Faries as associate editor of the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, the semiannual, open-access, refereed ejournal published by HNA. The journal welcomes submission of texts to its editor, Alison M. Kettering, at any time.
Italian Art Society
The Italian Art Society (IAS) has announced the speaker of the fourth annual Italian Art Society–Kress Foundation Lecture Series in Italy. Sarah Blake McHam of Rutgers University will speak on “Laocoön, or Pliny Vindicated” at the Fondazione Marco Besso in Rome in late May or early June. Felicia Else, an associate professor at Gettysburg College, has been awarded the first annual IAS Research and Publication Grant to help fund a trip to Florence this summer to complete research for her book, The Politics of Water in the Art and Festivals of Medici Florence: From Neptune Fountain to Naumachia.
The society would also like to congratulate the 2013 recipients of the IAS Travel Grants: Joanne Anderson, visiting lecturer at the University of Warwick, for her paper “Coloring the Magdalene in the Early Renaissance”; and Valentina Pugliano, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin, for her paper “‘Subjects which painting may serve’: How Botany Met Renaissance Art.” These talks will be presented at the Renaissance Society of America’sannual conference in San Diego in April 2013). IAS will sponsor four sessions at the RSA conference; see http://italianartsociety.org/?page_id=191 for details.
National Art Education Association
Spend four art-filled days in Washington, DC, with the National Art Education Association, exploring permanent collections, current exhibitions, and the museum itself as a work of art! Summer Vision DC, now in its fourth year, is a professional learning community for art and nonart educators, offered by NAEA in partnership with area art museums. The aim is to showcase best practices in critical response to art while enhancing creativity through visual journaling. Choose from two sessions: July 9–12, 2013, or July 23–26, 2013. Develop new leadership, pedagogical, and artistic skills for the classroom and beyond through this outstanding professional development opportunity. Go behind the scenes, explore sculpture gardens, examine artworks, and participate in studio and other hands-on learning as you connect with educators at these museums: the National Gallery of Art and Sculpture Garden; the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; the National Museum of African Art; the National Museum of the American Indian; the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Phillips Collection; the National Building Museum; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and the National Portrait Gallery. Registration is limited to twenty-five participants per session. Register and find details at www.arteducators.org/summervision.
New publications from NAEA include: The Heart of Art Education: Holistic Approaches to Creativity, Integration, and Transformation, edited by Laurel H. Campbell and Seymour Simmons III ($39 for members and $48 for nonmembers); and Conversations in Art: The Dialectics of Teaching and Learning, edited by Judith M. Burton and Mary Hafeli ($32 for members and $39 for nonmembers).
Public Art Dialogue
The eponymous journal of Public Art Dialogue (PAD) is now accepting submissions for its upcoming special issue on murals, guest edited by Sally Webster and Sarah Schrank. With this issue, Public Art Dialogue seeks to advance a twenty-first century understanding of wall art by soliciting papers on its history and status as it relates to the built environment, as an expression of community, or its function within the critical discourse of public art. Also welcome are studies on the documentation, conservation, and inventorying of mural painting, explorations of other kinds of wall art such as projections, and proposals for artist’s projects addressing related themes. Please see the journal website for guidelines and send inquiries to Public Art Dialogue’s editorial assistant at SamanthaEdenCataldo@gmail.com. The submission deadline is September 15, 2013.
Society for Photographic Education
The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) is accepting proposals for its 2014 conference, “Collaborative Exchanges: Photography in Dialogue,” through June 1, 2013. Topics are not required to be theme-based and may include, but are not limited to, image-making, history, contemporary theory and criticism, new technologies, effects of media and culture, educational issues, and funding. Membership in SPE is required to submit, and proposals are peer reviewed. There are five presentation formats: Graduate Student (short presentation of your own artistic work and a brief introduction to your graduate program); Imagemaker (presentation on your own artistic work, such as photography, film, video, performance and installation, multidisciplinary approaches); Lecture (presentation on a historical topic, theory or another artist’s work); Panel (a group led by a moderator to discuss a chosen topic); Teach (presentations, workshops, and 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 how to join and for full proposal guidelines.
Society of North American Goldsmiths
The Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) will hold its forty-second annual conference May 15–18, 2013, in Toronto, Ontario, at the downtown historic Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Titled “Meta-Mosaic,” the event will celebrate the multiple industries within jewelry and metalsmithing in the twenty-first century. Toronto is a mosaic of peoples and cultures as well as the center of Canada’s jewelry industry. This conference will examine a fluid identity within art, craft, and design and inspire attendees to embrace our collective mosaic. Join SNAG for presentations and panels featuring industry luminaries from across the globe, rapid-fire presentations by international designers and artists, over twenty exhibitions, the Third Annual Member Trunk Show Sale, social events, and so much more! Registration opened on January 16. Receive low early-bird rates by registering before March 13 and make your hotel reservations by February 15 for a special rate on top of our already reduced room block rates. Visit the SNAG website for all the details.
Sequestration: What It Means for Museums
posted by CAA — March 05, 2013
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) sent the following email on March 5, 2013.
Sequestration: What It Means for Museums
On Friday, March 1, $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts were triggered, a process commonly called “sequestration,” which is now affecting nearly every agency throughout the government. For most agencies that support museums, (including IMLS, NEA, NEH and NSF) this means a five percent cut in their annual funding, including a reduction in grant-making activities for the year ahead.
While Congress may still undo or restructure sequestration, federal agencies are now determining how to absorb these severe cuts. The National Endowment for the Humanities expects to make fewer new awards at lower award amounts. The National Science Foundation is expecting to award 1,000 fewer new research grants.
“The Alliance will continue to fight for federal museum funding in the days and weeks ahead, but we must be sure the current decrease in federal grants is not compounded by a reduction in charitable giving incentives,” said Alliance President Ford W. Bell. “I was pleased to submit testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee last month, but members of Congress also need to hear from their constituents about how charitable giving limitations would affect museums.”
While Congress’s inability to reach agreement on spending issues has complicated and slowed the federal budget process this year, interest is also picking up on comprehensive tax reform. The House committee with jurisdiction over the tax code held a hearing on February 14 on proposals to reform charitable contribution tax incentives, many of which could have a devastating impact on giving to museums and other nonprofits.
Do your legislators know how important charitable giving is to your museum? Tell them right now.
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