CAA News Today
Jules Prown Is CAA Distinguished Scholar
posted by Christopher Howard — November 13, 2009
Jules David Prown, a devoted teacher of the history of American art and material culture and Paul Mellon Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Yale University, will be honored at the 2010 Distinguished Scholar Session. Held at the CAA Annual Conference in Chicago, this special event takes place on Thursday, February 11, 2010, 2:30–5:00 PM in Grand EF, East Tower, Gold Level, Hyatt Regency Chicago.
Bryan J. Wolf, a professor of American art and culture at Stanford University, writes this about Prown:
His remarkable career marks the coming of age of American art history. His two-volume study of the painter John Singleton Copley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966) overturned the usual concerns of positivistic biography. His growing focus during the next several decades on the formal properties of objects, together with what he termed the system of cultural “belief” embedded within them, led to a methodological revolution that still resonates loudly in classrooms wherever American art and material culture are taught.
Please read Wolf’s article on Prown and his accomplishments, which is also published in the November 2009 CAA News.
Prown is CAA’s tenth distinguished scholar. He joins a list of illustrious past honorees: Svetlana Alpers (2009), Robert L. Herbert (2008), Linda Nochlin (2007), John Szarkowski (2006), Richard Brilliant (2005), James Cahill (2004), Phyllis Pray Bober (2003), Leo Steinberg (2002), and James Ackerman (2001).
The 2010 Distinguished Scholar Session is generously funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Phyllis Bramson and Tony Tasset to Be Interviewed at the Chicago Conference
posted by Christopher Howard — November 10, 2009
Phyllis Bramson and Tony Tasset, two Chicago-based artists, will participate in CAA’s Annual Artists’ Interviews, hosted by ARTspace during the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago. This session will be the fourteenth installment of the popular series, which features two major practicing artists in back-to-back interviews. The talks will be held on Friday, February 12, from 2:30 to 5:00 PM at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Columbus GHIJ, Gold Level, East Tower.
The interviewers were selected by the artists: Lynne Warren, a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, will interview Bramson; and John Neff, a fellow Chicago-based artist, will speak with Tasset.
Phyllis Bramson
Phyllis Bramson is a painter whose works evoke a fairy-tale world of bright and engaging colors. Often burlesquelike and erotically charged, her images wander between a physical and mental existence that juxtaposes the nonsensical with the profoundly meaningful, mediating between the pleasure, trauma, and difficulty of being. She has recently taken a new direction with the creation of mixed-media scroll paintings.
Robert Berlind has written of her paintings in connection with a recent exhibition: “The combination of sensual allure and downright goofiness in [her] art conveys that slippage between the erotic sublime and the sometimes fumbling awkwardness of sexual desire. While her works are loaded with evocative pleasures for the eye and mind, they are also about beauty, which is to say not merely (however pleasurably) seductive.”1
Bramson received a BFA from the University of Illinois in Urbana and earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973. She is professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and has been advising graduate students in the MFA Drawing and Painting Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2007.
In 2010, a two-person exhibition is planned for Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago. The Anitdote (the continued relevance of painting), curated by Bramson and Claire Oliver, will appear at Claire Oliver Gallery in New York, from January 21 to February 20, 2010. (The artist is represented by both Secrist and Oliver, as well as by Philip Slein Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri.)
Tony Tasset
Tony Tasset’s conceptually based, visually engaging art is manifested in a variety of media, including sculpture (using bronze, steel, fiberglass, resin, and more), photography, film, video, and performance. With great humor and pathos, his work engages a wide range of topics, from the historical weight of modernism and postmodernism to the playful tensions of domestic life. Nature mediated through humanity is also expressed in recent sculptural works depicting mudpies, carved pumpkins, snowmen, and colorfully painted stones.
Trained as a painter and sculptor, Tasset received a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1983 and earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1985. Currently a professor of art and design at the University of Illinois, Chicago, he has lived and worked in the city for more than fifteen years.
Solo exhibitions of Tasset’s work have taken place at Kavi Gupta Gallery in Leipzig, Germany (Gupta also represents him in Chicago); Feigen Contemporary in New York; and Christopher Grimes in Los Angeles. His work has been included in several recent traveling group shows, such as Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll since 1967, Into Me/Out of Me, and Situation Comedy: Humor in Recent Art.
Tasset was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Award in 2006 and has received awards from the Illinois Art Council, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.
1. Robert Berlind, “Phyllis Bramson at Little John Contemporary,” Art in America 89, no. 5 (May 2001).
Above photos:
Phyllis Bramson, Heat Seekers, 2008, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 60 in. (artwork © Phyllis Bramson; photograph provided by the artist)
Tony Tasset, Snowman, 2008, bronze, resin, polystyrene foam, brass, epoxy, enamel, fiberglass, and galvanized steel, 85 x 48 x 30 in. (artwork © Tony Tasset; photograph provided by Kavi Gupta Gallery)
Projectionists and Room Monitors Needed for the Chicago Conference
posted by Lauren Stark — November 05, 2009
CAA seeks applications for projectionists at the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago. Successful applicants are paid $10 per hour and receive complimentary conference registration. Projectionists are required to work a minimum of four 2½-hour program sessions, from Thursday, February 11, to Saturday, February 13, and attend a training meeting Thursday morning at 7:30 AM. Projectionists must be familiar with digital projectors.
Room monitors are needed for CAA’s two Career Services mentoring programs, the Artists’ Portfolio Review and Career Development Mentoring, and for several offsite conference sessions. Successful candidates are paid $10 per hour and receive complimentary conference registration. Room monitors are required to work a minimum of eight hours, checking in participants and facilitating the work of the mentors.
All projectionist and room-monitor candidates must be US citizens or permanent US residents. Please send a brief letter of interest to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs. Deadline: December 4, 2009.
Full Session Details for 2010 Annual Conference Posted
posted by Lauren Stark — November 03, 2009
Full session information for the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago is now online. Along with session titles and chairs, the conference website now lists the names and affiliations of all panelists, their paper titles, and the days, times, and locations of their sessions.
You may browse by session day; listings are chronological. Both regular program sessions (2½-hours) and lunchtime and dinner sessions (1½-hours) are posted. The presenters of twelve poster sessions, slated for two early-afternoon time slots, are also included.
The website for the Chicago conference, which takes place February 10–13, was launched last month. It expands on the 2010 Conference Information and Registration booklet that was mailed to members last month; new material and information will be added regularly between now and February.
Online registration is now open. You can also buy tickets for other events, such as the Gala Reception, professional-development workshops, and postconference tours. Alternatively, you may use the printed forms in Conference Information and Registration. The deadline for early registration is December 11, 2009.
Art Journal Conference Roundtable: “Times Taken, and Given, by Contemporary Art”
posted by Christopher Howard — October 28, 2009
The editorial board of Art Journal seeks interested CAA members to join us at the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago for a roundtable discussion on the sense of time in modern and contemporary art.
Critics, scholars, and particularly artists are invited to propose discussing specific artworks, projects, and texts that engage aspects of temporality and art. Artists working in all mediums seem increasingly interested in examining contemporary experiences of time—how subjectivity is being shaped by socially mediated time and how we as subjects might do some shaping of our own; in tracking the social and political implications of the interactions among the many temporalities currently operative across the globe; in understanding the presences of the past today; in treating history and the future as domains for time travel; in exploring time itself as a medium; and in providing opportunities to escape the present—or even history itself. Does modernity’s chronophilic–chronophobic dialectic still capture our sense of being simultaneously tied to our times yet unable to identify with them?
Led by Terence Smith, a member of the Art Journal editorial board, the discussion will be recorded and may provide material for publication in a future issue. The discussion will take place on Thursday, February 11, 2:00–4:00 PM, at a conference location to be announced.
Participation is by invitation. Please send a brief email describing your interest in the topic and how you foresee contributing to the discussion to tes2@pitt.edu. Invitations to participate will be sent in early January. Deadline: November 30, 2009.
Photographer Dawoud Bey Is the Keynote Speaker for the Chicago Conference
posted by Christopher Howard — October 22, 2009
The renowned photographer Dawoud Bey will deliver the keynote address during Convocation at the 2010 CAA Annual Conference in Chicago. A resident of the conference city, Bey is Distinguished College Artist and Associate Professor of Art at Columbia College Chicago. He is the second photographer in four years to speak at Convocation, with Duane Michals delivering the keynote address at the 2007 conference in New York.
Convocation, which also includes the presentation of the CAA Awards for Distinction, takes place at the Hyatt Regency Chicago on Wednesday evening, February 10, 2010, 5:30–7:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public.
Bey earned a BA at Empire State College and an MFA at the Yale University School of Art, and he has been teaching for more than thirty years. He began his artistic career in 1975 with a series of photographs, Harlem, USA, that was later exhibited in his first solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. He has since had numerous exhibitions worldwide, at such institutions as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Barbican Centre in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where his works were included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial.
Since 1992 he has completed several collaborative projects working with young people and museums together in a broad dialogue that seeks to create an engaging space for art making and institutional interrogation. These projects, such as photographs from the Character Project, have also been aimed at broadening the participation of various communities served by these institutions.
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis organized a midcareer survey of his work in 1995 that traveled to institutions throughout the United States and Europe. A major publication, Dawoud Bey: Portraits, 1975–1995, was published in conjunction with that show. Aperture published his latest project, Class Pictures, in 2007 and mounted an exhibition of this work that has been touring museums nationally.
Bey’s works are included in permanent collections of art museums worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among others. He has received numerous fellowships over the course of his career, including those from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
A writer as well as an artist, Bey has published critical writings on contemporary art in books and journals throughout the US and Europe. He is the author of several groundbreaking essays, including “The Black Artist as Invisible (Wo)Man” in the catalogue for High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting, 1967–1975 (2006), in which he places the work of African American artists Al Loving, Joe Overstreet, Howardena Pindell, and Jack Whitten within this important era in art history. Bey is also the author of “David Hammons: In the Spirit of Minkisi” (1994), which was one of the first texts to place this important African American artist within the tradition of Black Atlantic cosmological tradition. This essay appeared as the catalogue essay for Hammon’s survery exhibition at the Salzburger Kunstverein in Vienna. Closer to home, his text “Authoring the Black Image” was published in the Art Institute of Chicago’s book The VanDerZee Studio, accompanying the eponymous exhibition from 2004.
The above portrait photograph is © Bart Harris.
CAA Launches Conference Website and Opens Online Registration
posted by Emmanuel Lemakis — October 08, 2009
The CAA Annual Conference is the world’s largest international forum for professionals in the visual arts. More than four thousand artists, art historians, curators, educators, and students are expected to meet February 10–13, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
2010 Annual Conference Website
The conference website, which contains registration information, travel and hotel details, Career Services features, reception and meeting listings, special events, and more, was launched yesterday.
The conference website expands on the 2010 Conference Information and Registration booklet that will arrive in members’ mailboxes later this month; new material and information will be added regularly between now and February.
Listings of session titles and chairs are also available on the conference website. Full session details, including the names of panelists and their paper titles, will be posted soon.
Register Online Now
Online registration opened yesterday. You can also buy tickets for other events, such as the Gala Reception, professional-development workshops, and postconference tours. Alternatively, you may use the printed forms in Conference Information and Registration.
Early registration is available through December 11, 2009:
- Members: $155
- Student and retired members: $90
- Nonmembers: $280
Reserve Your Hotel Room
CAA was able to renegotiate cheaper hotel rates at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, the headquarters hotel, to help save conference attendees even more money. See Travel & Lodging on the conference website for full details.
Women’s Caucus for Art Announces 2010 Lifetime Achievement Awards
posted by Christopher Howard — October 05, 2009
The Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) has announced the recipients of the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Awards: Tritobia Hayes Benjamin, an educator and art historian from Washington, DC; Mary Jane Jacob, a curator and educator in Chicago; Senga Nengudi, an artist based in Colorado Springs; Joyce J. Scott, a visual and performance artist from Baltimore; and New York’s Spiderwoman Theater, comprising Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel.
These awards were first awarded in 1979 to Isabel Bishop, Selma Burke, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, and Georgia O’Keeffe in a ceremony at President Jimmy Carter’s Oval Office. Past honorees have represented the full range of distinguished achievement in the visual arts, and this year’s awardees are no exception, with considerable accomplishment, achievement, and contributions represented by their professional efforts.
Tritobia Hayes Benjamin
Tritobia Hayes Benjamin is professor of art history and director of the Gallery of Art at Howard University in Washington, DC, where she is also associate dean of the Division of Fine Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences. After receiving her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art history from Howard, she earned a PhD in the same subject from the University of Maryland. On the faculty of Howard since 1970, Benjamin has written and lectured widely on African American art and artists, including the 1994 publication, The Life and Art of Lois Mailou Jones.
Mary Jane Jacob
Mary Jane Jacob is a curator, educator, and author noted for her work on the national and international art scene. She currently serves as professor in the Department of Sculpture and executive of exhibitions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She began her curatorial career at the Detroit Institute of Arts in the late 1970s before becoming chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In the public realm, Jacobs has organized multiyear installations and commissioned outdoor sculptures in urban and park settings. She has also published numerous books and exhibition catalogues on contemporary art.
Senga Nengudi
Senga Nengudi is strongly committed to both creating art and arts education. Currently a lecturer at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs in the Visual Arts and Performing Arts Department, she has always been involved with bringing arts programs emphasizing diversity to the communities in which she resides. Presently Nengudi’s sculptures are taking the form of installations of increasing size. She has been a featured performance artist, dancer, and installation artists in numerous exhibitions at major museums.
Joyce J. Scott
A native of Baltimore, Joyce J. Scott is a highly internationally regarded artist whose work incorporates various artistic media, including sculpture, jewelry, glass, printmaking, installation, and performance art. Her pieces draw strong influence from a wide range of sources: African and Native American experiences, comic books, television, popular American culture, and the culture of the streets of her urban Baltimore neighborhood. The use of beads is a central element throughout Scott’s work, helping turn her works into bold statements about such issues as racism, sexism, violence, and other forms of social injustice.
Spiderwoman Theater (Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel)
Spiderwoman Theater was founded in 1976 when Muriel Miguel gathered a diverse company of women of varying ages, races, sexual orientations, and worldviews, which included her two sisters. As the oldest women’s theater company in North America and originally emerging from the feminist movement, Spiderwoman continues moving toward its goal of creating an artistic environment where indigenous arts and culture—the three are from the Kuna and Rappahannock nations—thrive as an integrated and vital part of the larger arts community. Taking its name from the Hopi creation goddess Spiderwoman, who taught the people to weave, the theater calls its technique of creating their theatrical pieces “story weaving,” in which performers write and present personal and traditional stories that are layered with movement, text, sound, music, and visual images.
Award Ceremony in Chicago
The Lifetime Achievement Awards will be held at the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 East Randolph Street, on Saturday, February 13, 2010, in conjunction with the WCA and CAA annual conferences (WCA is a CAA affiliated society). A dinner will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 PM in the center’s G.A.R. Hall. The awards ceremony will follow at 7:30 PM in the Cassidy Theater. Tickets for the dinner—$90 before January 1, 2010, and $100 after—will be available for purchase from the WCA website. Reserved seating tickets for the awards ceremony will also be available for $10; limited general-audience seating for the awards ceremony is free and available on a first-come, first-served basis—please arrive early. For more information about WCA, please contact Karin Luner, national administrator.
Special Conference Rates on Airfare and Hotel
posted by Christopher Howard — September 28, 2009
Registration for the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago opens in early October, but special deals on travel and lodging can be made now.
How to Get There
American Airlines offers a 5 percent discount to conference travelers. Tickets may be purchased through your local travel agent or by booking directly with American Airlines using 2620AC as the promotion code. You can also call 1-800-433-1790. This deal is good for travel between February 5 and 18, 2010; other restrictions apply.
Where to Stay
CAA recently renegotiated conference rates with the Hyatt Regency Chicago, the headquarters hotel, to offer rooms below the initial rate of $169 a night. Regular attendees and students can make their reservations online before October 31, 2009, to receive these special rates:
- Single: $139
- Double: $139
- Student: $120
- Additional person: $25 each
Room rates for regular attendees increase the closer we get to the conference. The student price remains the same, but this room block generally fills up quickly—make your reservation now and pay later. A valid student ID will be required at check-in.
Exhibitor and Advertiser Prospectus for Chicago Book and Trade Fair
posted by Christopher Howard — August 06, 2009
CAA’s next Annual Conference—the foremost international forum for professionals in the visual arts—takes place February 10–13, 2010, in Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City’s dramatic architectural skyline, world-renowned museums and galleries, and ultracosmopolitan Michigan Avenue provide the setting for an exciting gathering of more than four thousand artists, art historians, curators, critics, educators, and students.
An exhibit booth in the Book and Trade Fair can reach this active and distinguished group. The fair, which annually hosts more than one hundred publishers, art-materials manufacturers, and providers of art-related programs and services, will be centrally located within the conference. With three days of exhibit time, the Book and Trade Fair offers high visibility and high floor traffic for exhibitors.
In addition, an advertisement in conference publications—which include the Conference Program, Abstracts, Convocation Booklet, and Directory of Attendees—can also reach a wide audience for your publications, products, and programs.
Full details are available in the Exhibitor and Advertiser Prospectus. For questions about exhibits, please email Paul Skiff, CAA assistant director for Annual Conference, or call him at 212-691-1051, ext. 213. Interested in advertising? Contact Sara Hines, CAA marketing and development assistant, by email or at 212-691-1051, ext. 216.