CAA News Today

American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works

The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) has recently published Ethics and Critical Thinking in Conservation, a collection of essays that brings into focus a moment in the evolution of the complex decision-making processes required when conservators consider the treatment of cultural-heritage materials. The papers presented are drawn from two consecutive years of presentations during general sessions at the AIC annual meeting. These were “Ethos Logos Pathos: Ethical Principles and Critical Thinking in Conservation” (2011) and “The Conservation Continuum: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future” (2010). The book is available in two formats: a full-color hardcover for $30 and a black-and-white paperback for $15. The hardcover features nearly fifty full-color figures and illustrations throughout the text. Copies can be ordered at www.conservation-us.org/shop.

Art Historians of Southern California

The Art Historians of Southern California (AHSC) will host a roundtable on “The Coalition of the Art Association: California Public Education and the Promise of the Humanities,” chaired by Jane Chin Davidson of California State University, San Bernardino, at CAA’s Annual Conference in Chicago. The event will take place on Thursday, February 13, 2014, 12:30–2:00 PM in Boulevard C, 2nd Floor, Hilton Chicago. The discussion will include professors of art history, visual studies, and the humanities who have represented the California system—California Community Colleges, the California State Universities (CSUs), and the Universities of California (UCs)—such as Amelia Jones, Catherine Cole, Jennifer Doyle, Jennifer Gonzalez, and Sandra Esslinger. This roundtable will address issues of legislation, labor, and class within the academy while finding ways to acknowledge the value of the humanities in university education. Through their membership in CAA, visual art and humanities professors have long been the organizing principle of our potential solidarity. The perpetual decline of art history and visual studies has recently led to public scrutiny of CAA’s centralized leadership (see “An Open Letter to Victoria H. F. Scott Regarding the CAA,” February 8, 2013). In light of the continuing need for political advocacy, the leadership of CAA could provide a means for organizing coalition and for affecting the status of the humanities by bringing greater representation and awareness to both academic and public spheres.

Art Libraries Society of North America

The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) is pleased to announce the election of new executive board members: Kristen Regina of the Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens is vice president and president elect; Mark Pompelia of the Rhode Island School of Design is treasurer; Sylvia Roberts of Simon Fraser University in Canadian member-at-large; and Holly Hatheway of Yale University is communications and publications liaison.

ARLIS/NA recently created the post of Multimedia and Technology Reviews. The first reviews will be posted on the ARLIS website in early 2014.

Save the date for the ARLIS/NA 2014 annual conference, which will be held May 1–5, 2014, in Washington, DC. For more information, please visit the conference website.

Community College Professors of Arts and Art History

The Community College Professors of Arts and Art History (CCPAAH) will hold two events at this year’s CAA Annual Conference: a business meeting on Friday, February 14, from 7:30 to 9:00 AM in the Williford C Room on the 3rd Floor of the Hilton Chicago; and the session “Starting the Conversation: Engaging Students in the Studio and Art History” at 12:30 PM in the same space. Interested in participating or any questions? Contact Susan Altman.

Historians of Islamic Art Association

The Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) is pleased to announce the election of two new members to its executive board. Sussan Babaie has been elected president-elect, and Abigail Balbale is secretary. Each will serve a three-year term beginning in January 2014; both will be officially welcomed to the board at its 2014 members and business meeting on February 14, 2014, in conjunction with the CAA Annual Conference in Chicago. At that time, Sheila Canby will succeed Marianna Shreve Simpson as president. Preparations also continue for HIAA’s fourth biennial symposium, which will be hosted by the new Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Ontario, in October 2014.

Historians of Netherlandish Art

The Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) will hold its quadrennial conference in Boston, Massachusetts, from June 5 to 7, 2014, in cooperation with the American Association for Netherlandic Studies. Please refer to the HNA website for further information. Additionally, HNA is pleased to announce the publication of the Summer 2013 issue of the open-access, refereed ejournal Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art (JHNA). This special issue of the journal is dedicated to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann. In addition to excerpts from an interview with Begemann discussing his life as a scholar, curator, and teacher, the issue includes essays by his former students. The next formal deadline for submissions to JHNA is March 1, 2014; please send correspondence to the editor in chief, Alison Kettering.

International Sculpture Center

Each year the International Sculpture Center (ISC) presents an award competition to its member colleges and universities as a means of supporting, encouraging, and recognizing the work of young sculptors and their supporting schools’ faculty and art program. The Student Award winners participate in an exhibition at Grounds for Sculpture, as well as a traveling exhibition hosted by arts organizations across the country. Winners’ work is also featured in Sculpture magazine. Each winner receives a one-year ISC membership; all winners are eligible to apply for a fully sponsored residency to study in Switzerland. To nominate students for this competition, the nominees’ university must first be an ISC university-level member. University membership costs $200 for universities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico ($220 for international universities) and includes a number of benefits. Students who are interested should talk to their professors about getting involved. To find out more about the program, please visit www.sculpture.org/StudentAwards/2014 or email studentawards@sculpture.org. Nominations open: January 1, 2014; University membership registration: March 17, 2014; online student nomination form: March 24, 2014; online student submission form: April 14, 2014.

Italian Art Society

The Italian Art Society (IAS) invites members attending the CAA Annual Conference in Chicago to its first session “Periodization Anxiety in Italian Art: Renaissance, Baroque, or Early Modern” at 9:30 AM on February 13, 2014; IAS’s business meeting at 7:30 AM on February 14; and its second session “‘Futuro Anteriore’: Cultural Self-Appropriation as Catalyst in the Art of Italy” at 12:30 PM on February 14.

The society’s website details the five IAS sessions at the Renaissance Society of America meeting (New York, March 27–29, 2014) and includes a call for submissions to IAS-sponsored sessions at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (New Orleans, October 2014; deadline to IAS: March 1, 2014).

Launched in July 2013, the IAS-initiated IASblog offers news and notes on Italian art and architecture as a complement to its main website. IASblog, edited by the IAS webmaster, Anne Leader, now has over nine hundred followers and two thousand unique visitors. IASblog welcomes submissions from members via the Submit button or by email.

National Art Education Association

Register now for the national convention of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), taking place March 29–31, 2014, in San Diego, California. We are visual arts educators. We are artists. We are creative leaders. Lead your professional learning experience at the 2014 NAEA national convention. Choose from more than one thousand sessions, workshops, tours, and events. Fuse creative thinking with art knowledge, skills, emerging technology, and new research to create powerful opportunities for your classroom, career, and beyond. Connect with thousands of colleagues from around the globe for the largest gathering of visual arts education in the world. Join a professional learning community and spend four art-filled days in Washington, DC, exploring permanent collections, current exhibitions, and the museum itself as a work of art.

NAEA SummerVision DC, now in its fifth year, is an annual NAEA event that partners with Washington, DC–area art museums to showcase best practices in critical response to art while enhancing creativity through visual journaling and by using a balanced, interdisciplinary “Form + Theme + Context (FTC) Palette for Museums and Works of Art” to enhance visual learning. Participating museums include 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 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. Choose from two sessions: July 8–11 or July 22–25, 2014.

New NAEA publications include Michelle Kraft and Karen Keifer-Boyd’s Including Difference: A Communitarian Approach to Art Education in the Least Restrictive Environment(no. 322); and The Learner-Directed Classroom: Developing Creative Thinking Skills through Art (no. 326), edited by Diane B. Jaquith and Nan E. Hathaway.

National Council of Arts Administrators

The National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA), a community of current and future arts administrators in higher education, announces two events for CAA’s 2014 Annual Conference in Chicago: NCAA MIXER—You’re all invited, administrators or not, grab a friend and bring ‘em along; Thursday, February 13, 5:00–8:00 PM, Hilton Chicago (room TBA); and the session “Hot Problems/Cool Solutions in Arts Leadership,” which is a fast-paced series of five-minute presentations on leadership occurring on Friday, February 14, 5:30–7:00 PM in Williford C, 3rd Floor, Hilton Chicago. NCAA members hope to see you at both events in which attendees will share conviviality and ideas.

Public Art Dialogue

Jack Becker, the 2014 recipient of Public Art Dialogue’s annual award, will make a presentation at the CAA Annual Conference in Chicago on Friday, February 14, 5:30–7:00 PM. A conference on “Monument/Anti-Monument” will be held in St. Louis in April. Stay tuned for details. There have been several changes in PAD personnel. Sarah Schrank has stepped down as cochair, and Kelly Pajek will complete her term. Sierra Rooney is now both PAD secretary and treasurer. The Fall 2013 issue of Public Art Dialogue, edited by Eli Robb, considers “Perspectives on Relational Art.” Six articles explore practices based on human interactions: Caroline Peters and Ben Bloch, “To the Quick with Paul Crik: The World’s First E-Motivator Kills It with Public Art Dialogue; Cara Jordan, “The Evolution of Social Sculpture in the United States: Joseph Beuys and the Work of Suzanne Lacy and Rick Lowe”; John Tain, “Peace Tower as Commonplace: Relational Aesthetics’ Lieux de mémoire”; Lauren Rotenberg, “The Prospects of “Freed” Time: Pierre Huyghe and L’Association des Temps Libérés”; Gediminas Gasparavičius, “How the East Saw East in 1992: NSK Embassy Moscow and Relationality in Eastern Europe”; and Dee Hibbert-Jones, “A New Band-Aid for Social Ailments? Raising Questions on Social Practice and Social Responsibilities.”

Society for Photographic Education

Registration is open for the fifty-first annual national conference of the Society for Photographic Education (SPE), titled “Collaborative Exchanges: Photography in Dialogue.” In an age of interconnectedness, photographers are no longer solitary practitioners peering at the world through the singular eye of the viewfinder. Rather, photography is positioned at the heart of the discourse on contemporary art, establishing relationships with a broad array of ideas and media. This conference illuminates this new paradigm and celebrates the spirit of cooperation and social linkages. Join 1,600 artists, educators, and photographic professionals from March 6 to 9, 2014, for programming and dialogue in Baltimore, Maryland, that will fuel your creativity. The event will be a celebration of the power of community and social exchange to propel new thinking in photographic practice. Explore SPE’s exhibits fair showing the latest equipment, processes, publications, and schools with photo-related programs. Participate in one-on-one portfolio critiques and informal portfolio sharing and take advantage of student volunteer opportunities for reduced admission. Other conference highlights include a print raffle, silent auction, photo scavenger hunt, film screenings, exhibitions, tours, receptions, a dance party and more! Keynote Speakers: Joan Fontcuberta, Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick, Taryn Simon, and Catherine Lord. Preview the conference schedule and register online.

Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture

The Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) will sponsor a session at the 2014 CAA annual conference in Chicago titled “Decentering Art of the Former East,” chaired by Kristen Romberg and Masha Chlenova. SHERA will also hold a business meeting that is open to both current and prospective members. In addition, the organization is pleased to welcome CAA International Travel Grant recipients from Eastern Europe and Russia to its events at the conference. Please visit the News section of the SHERA website for details as the conference approaches.

The annual conference of the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), held in Boston, Massachusetts, in November 2013, showed a surge in activity from SHERA members, who presented their work on fourteen panels and in roundtable discussions ranging from the imperial era to the present day. The SHERA business meeting attracted over forty people, including many new members. Ballot proposals for electronic voting in January 2014 would amend SHERA’s bylaws to include the listserv administrator on the list of officers and would also replace the position of webmaster with a web news editor. Balloting will also elect a new slate of members-at-large. SHERA members will receive voting information by email in early January.