CAA News Today
Deadline Approaching to Nominate for 2017 Awards for Distinction
posted by CAA — August 26, 2016
The window to submit nominees for the Awards for Distinction for the 2017 Annual Conference is quickly closing!
Last year, we honored pathbreaking contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems with the Distinguished Feminist Award. We honored Sabina Ott, professor of Art and Art History at Columbia College Chicago, with the Distinguished Teaching of Art Award. We honored artist Carmen Herrera with the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement. The list of other awardees is equally impressive for their impact on the field of visual arts. There is still time to honor deserving colleagues for their contributions to our field in 2017. Who would you like to see recognized for their work?
Submit your nominees for the Awards for Distinction before August 31, 2016!
Nomination Guidelines for the 2017 Annual Conference.
Recipients of the 2016 Awards for Distinction.
For more information about the nomination process, contact Katie Apsey, CAA manager of programs, 212-392-4405.
New in caa.reviews
posted by CAA — August 26, 2016
Claudia Hucke reads Timed Out: Art and the Transnational Caribbean by Leon Wainwright, a “demanding read” and rare piece of theoretical literature on Caribbean art. Focusing on the Anglophone Caribbean, especially Trinidad and Guyana, the book “provides a good balance between theory and insightful analyses of artworks and artists’ biographies.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Beatriz E. Balanta reviews Kristine Juncker’s Afro-Cuban Religious Arts: Popular Expressions of Cultural Inheritance in Espiritismo and Santería. The volume “combines the study of material culture with the methodological tools of anthropology to trace the history of Afro-Cuban religious arts,” with a concentration on the artworks of four prominent female religious leaders. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Shawn Digney-Peer examines Historical Perspectives on Preventive Conservation, the sixth installment in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Reading in Conservation series. Comprised of sixty-six entries divided into nine themes, “the intent of the volume is to provide a context for what is meant by ‘preventive conservation’ and to illustrate how thinking and practices have evolved.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Patricia Johnston takes a look at Wendy Bellion’s Citizen Spectator: Art, Illusion, and Visual Perception in Early National America. The author, focused on “Federal-period American visual culture,” demonstrates “how active looking reflected political ideologies and encouraged the emergence of community and national identities in the decades following the Revolution.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Caa.reviews publishes over 150 reviews each year. Founded in 1998, the site publishes timely scholarly and critical reviews of studies and projects in all areas and periods of art history, visual studies, and the fine arts, providing peer review for the disciplines served by the College Art Association. Publications and projects reviewed include books, articles, exhibitions, conferences, digital scholarship, and other works as appropriate. Read more reviews at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — August 24, 2016
Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Defining the Relationship
Dear Students: I think it’s time we had the talk. You know, the one couples who have been together for a while sometimes have to review boundaries and expectations? Your generation calls this DTR—short for “defining the relationship.” (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
What Went Wrong with the Macon Social Practice Residency?
It should have been a dream-come-true artist residency and a template for responsible and holistic community redevelopment. But an apparent breakdown in communication and trust between the Macon Arts Alliance and the artists Ed Woodham and Samantha Hill led to the artists being terminated from their contracts on July 26, just a few weeks into their three- and four-month residencies. (Read more from Burnaway.)
Art World Wants US to Better Protect Artifacts in Iraq and Syria
Art-market experts want the Defense Department to get more involved in preventing the destruction and looting of cultural artifacts in Iraq and Syria, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The recommendation was one of seven suggestions experts gave for ways the United States can better protect artifacts from the Islamic State and other groups. (Read more from the Hill.)
Understanding the Techniques of Pouring Acrylics
While the practice of pouring is certainly not a new way to apply paint, achieving consistent results can be frustrating and costly. Therefore it is vital to the process to conduct experiments to gain the knowledge of what are the most critical controlling factors that preside over paint pours. (Read more from Just Paint.)
In Search of the Lost Empire of the Maya
The ancient city of Holmul isn’t much to look at. To the casual observer it’s just a series of steep, forested hills in the middle of the jungle in northern Guatemala, near the Mexican border. The jungle here in the Petén Basin is thick and warm but drier than you might expect. And silent, except for the drum of cicadas and the occasional calls of howler monkeys. (Read more from National Geographic.)
Seven Vanishing Technologies Making a Comeback through Art
The scope of digital technology has made many things obsolete, from traditional black-and-white film to the homemade cassette mixtape, but it also prevents them from ever disappearing completely. Enthusiasts can congregate online, exploring, preserving, and sharing information on dwindling technologies before they’re ever truly lost. (Read more from Artsy.)
Are Replicas Changing the Way We Experience Art?
Digital reproductions do not have to be copies of existing works. Recently, the Next Rembrandt project saw scientists develop a brand-new painting, complete with an original subject and composition, digitally designed and printed to look like a lost work by Rembrandt. Aesthetically, when viewed on a computer or television screen, it convinces. (Read more from Zócalo Public Square.)
Toward an Art History for Video Games
If video games possess an “official history,” it is predicated primarily on the advancement of technology, the shifting of markets, and the consolidation of multinational corporations. This history prioritizes technological advancement, from computer gaming’s rise as the product of quiet dissent among the engineers of military computers at MIT to the clinking of arcade machines and the ensuing success of the home console. (Read more from Rhizome.)
Exhibitor and Advertiser Prospectus for 2017
posted by CAA — August 22, 2016
The Exhibitor and Advertiser Prospectus for the 2017 Annual Conference in New York is now available for download. Featuring essential details for participation in the Book and Trade Fair, the booklet also contains options for sponsorship opportunities and advertisements in the Conference Program and on the conference website. Printed copies of the prospectus will be available at the end of August.
The Exhibitor and Advertiser Prospectus will help you to reach a core audience of artists, art historians, educators, students, and administrators, who will converge in New York for CAA’s 105th Annual Conference, taking place February 15–18, 2017. With three days of exhibit time, the Book and Trade Fair will be centrally located in the New York Hilton Midtown. CAA offers several options for booths and tables that can help you to connect with conference attendees in person. The priority deadline for Book and Trade Fair applications is Monday, October 31, 2016; the final deadline for all applications and full payments is Friday, December 9, 2016.
In addition, sponsorship packages will allow you to maintain a high profile throughout the conference. Companies, organizations, and publishers may choose one of four visibility packages, sponsor specific areas and events, or work with CAA staff to design a custom package. Advertising possibilities include the Conference Program, distributed to over four thousand registrants and press contacts in the conference tote bag, and the conference website, seen by tens of thousands more. The deadline for sponsorships and advertisements in the Conference Program is Monday, December 5, 2016; web ads are taken on a rolling basis.
Questions about the 2017 Book and Trade Fair? Please contact Paul Skiff, CAA assistant director for Annual Conference, at 212-392-4412. For sponsorship and advertising queries, speak to Anna Cline, CAA development and marketing assistant, at 212-392-4426.
New in caa.reviews
posted by CAA — August 19, 2016
Francesco Ceccarelli visits Jefferson e Palladio: Come construire un mondo nuovo at the Palladio Museum in Vicenza, Italy. The exhibition is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, one of Andrea Palladio’s “greatest American disciples,” and demonstrates “how both men prefigured a new world through their novel conceptions of the built environment and its symbols.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Jo Farb Hernández reviews Horace Pippin: The Way I See It, the catalogue published “in conjunction with the first exhibition project in over twenty years to provide an in-depth examination of the work of the painter Horace Pippin” at the Brandywine River Museum of Art. The six contributing authors “focus their texts to contrast with the platitudes that have defined Pippin’s work” since the late 1930s. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Linda Rodriguez reads Urban Space as Heritage in Late Colonial Cuba: Classicism and Dissonance on the Plaza de Armas of Havana, 1754–1828 by Paul Barrett Niell. Featuring a “heritage approach,” it is “one of the few books that analyzes the art and architectural history of the Cuban colonial period in depth, while placing it in useful dialogue with works produced in other areas of the Spanish viceroyalties.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Caa.reviews publishes over 150 reviews each year. Founded in 1998, the site publishes timely scholarly and critical reviews of studies and projects in all areas and periods of art history, visual studies, and the fine arts, providing peer review for the disciplines served by the College Art Association. Publications and projects reviewed include books, articles, exhibitions, conferences, digital scholarship, and other works as appropriate. Read more reviews at caa.reviews.
CAA Seeks Membership Specialist
posted by CAA — August 18, 2016
CAA seeks a Membership Specialist to support membership growth at the organization.
Approximately 10 to 20 hours per week – flexible hours with some nights and weekend hours available. $16 per hour – September through December 2016
Founded in 1911, the College Art Association (CAA) is the preeminent international leadership organization in the visual arts, promoting the field through intellectual engagement, advocacy, and a commitment to the diversity of practices and practitioners. Each year, CAA offers an Annual Conference, publishes three scholarly journals, and offers a variety of other programs. Visit www.collegeart.org for a complete description of programs and offerings.
CAA has more than 9,000 members worldwide. The majority of members are curators, art historians, scholars, visual artists, and designers. Each year, members renew their membership to CAA. The Membership Specialist will reach out to CAA members whose membership has lapsed and seek to renew that individual’s membership. Selected applicant(s) will receive a one-year complimentary CAA student membership.
Responsibilities include:
- Understanding the core mission, purpose, and programs offered by CAA
- Understanding the various membership levels offered by CAA
- Understanding the benefits assigned to membership levels offered by CAA
- Telephoning members and requesting they renew their annual memberships
- Recording meaningful feedback (both positive and negative) about CAA
- Imparting current information about CAA and its Annual Conference to the individuals called
- Updating objective information (i.e., address, phone, email, etc.) in CAA’s database about the individual
- Processing the payment for renewal of the individual’s membership
- Transmitting information to supervisors with feedback from Members about CAA
Required Qualifications:
- Minimum of two years of college, preferably in the visual arts, art history, or related fields
- Ability to speak in a pleasant professional manner over the phone
- Ability to type with speed and accuracy
- Sufficient computer knowledge (PC) to allow for the successful processing of membership renewals
- Ability to work independently and in collaboration with others
- Ability to convey to the individuals the value of renewing Membership with CAA
- Flexibility, creativity, and initiative
The College Art Association is an equal opportunity employer and considers all candidates for employment regardless of race, color, sex, age, national origin, creed, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender expression, or political affiliation.
Application Instructions / Public Contact Information
Interested individuals should submit a cover letter and resume to Denise Williams via email at jobs@collegeart.org. Applications will be accepted until all positions are filled. Please include the names and contact information for three references who can speak to your ability to perform the tasks requested.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — August 17, 2016
Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Rhizome Releases First Public Version of Webrecorder
Current digital preservation solutions involve complex, automated processes that were designed for a web made from relatively static documents. Webrecorder, in contrast, can capture social media and other dynamic content, such as embedded video and complex JavaScript, while putting the user at the center of the archiving process. (Read more from Rhizome.)
Does Technological Analysis Destroy the Romance of Art History?
In 2012, a linguist at the University of Southern California decoded a famous medieval manuscript written in a cypher with software designed to translate remote languages and based on algorithms that matched the frequency of unknown sounds with the frequency of word-use in known tongues. Meanwhile, archaeologists use satellite photographs to identify unexcavated sites in Egypt and map terrorist looting in the Middle East. (Read more from Aeon.)
Black Art Incubator Aims to Invert Art-World Normal
The Black Art Incubator takes blackness—and everything this racial identifier suggests about what a person might know or feel—as a given. The project isn’t so much oppositional as an inversion of what we tend to expect. “Most art institutions are rooted in whiteness, but it’s implied, it’s this normalized thing,” Kim Drew says. With the project, “we’re normalizing being rooted in blackness without beating people over the head with it.” (Read more from the Village Voice.)
What Artists Need to Understand about Privacy
Artists regularly include identifiable figures in their work, and calling this work “art” won’t always suffice to keep them out of trouble. Artists aren’t being hauled into court every time they include a recognizable face in their work, but the growing sense that one’s likeness is a “property” that can be commercially exploited has led many artists to feel less secure in pursuing realistic figurative images. (Read more from the Huffington Post.)
Five Strategies Successful Artists Follow to Thrive in Their Careers
As a gallery owner, I’ve been particularly interested in watching the careers of artists who have built strong sales of their work. These artists are able to generate sales that allow them to devote all of their time to their art. They have found ways to make a successful living while at the same time pursuing their passion. (Read more from Red Dot Blog.)
The Unintended Consequences of Seeking Tenure
Originally established to protect scholars from reprisals for advancing new ideas in research or in the classroom, tenure now comes under regular fire for limiting how quickly institutions can respond to change in the short term and for tying up budgets in the long term. Another important yet unintended consequence receives comparatively little discussion: the limitations that the pursuit of tenure has on the contributions assistant professors can make to their own institutions. (Read more from Vitae.)
Stress and Student Success
I’ve spent a decade teaching college success strategies to mostly nontraditional first-year students. At times I would stare at my course roster, hoping that an answer to the success riddle would appear. “Why do you leave?” I’d ask. “What else can I do to help you?” While I use countless teaching strategies in my courses, I’ve been tracking something more fundamental: a unified field theory for student success in higher education. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Hands Off My Smiley Face: Emoji Become Corporate Tools
Apple’s new emoji feature seems more likely to impede a different kind of skill: creating surprising, figurative, and subversive forms of individual expression from the digital ephemera that populate our devices. In a rush to harness the power of the web’s most evocative cultural units—emoji and their hyperactive cousins, GIFs—tech companies, corporate brands, and social-media stars could inadvertently risk flattening the creative world that’s sprung up around them. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Solo Exhibitions by Artist Members
posted by CAA — August 15, 2016
See when and where CAA members are exhibiting their art, and view images of their work.
Solo Exhibitions by Artist Members is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
August 2016
Midwest
Paul Catanese, Visible from Space Field Test: Sidney R. Yates Gallery, 2015, installation, dimensions variable (artwork © Paul Catanese)Paul Catanese. Sidney R. Yates Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois, July 9–September 27, 2016. Visible from Space. Installation.
South
Mokha Laget. Museum of Geometric and MADI Art, Dallas, Texas, July 29–October 30, 2016. Mokha Laget: Color into Space. Painting and lithography.
People in the News
posted by CAA — August 15, 2016
People in the News lists new hires, positions, and promotions in three sections: Academe, Museums and Galleries, and Organizations and Publications.
The section is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
August 2016
Academe
Jeff Bellantoni (photograph by Peter Tannenbaum)Jeff Bellantoni has left his position as vice president for academic affairs at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida.
Tamara Brantmeier has resumed teaching and research duties as professor of art, after serving as director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin, Stout, in Menomonie, Wisconsin.
Kimberly Callas, formerly executive director of the Belfast Creative Coalition in Belfast, Maine, has taken a tenure-track position in the Department of Art and Design at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
Frank L. Chance, associate director for academics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for East Asian Studies in Philadelphia, has retired.
Alexis Clark, a lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, has accepted a visiting assistant professorship in art history and visual culture at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
Mia Reinoso Genoni, formerly John B. Madden Dean of Berkeley College and lecturer in the history of art and humanities at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, has become dean of Westhampton College and associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
Glenn J. Hild, a professor of painting and drawing and interim dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, has retired.
Arnold KempArnold Kemp, associate professor and chair of the Department of Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, has been named dean of graduate studies for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois. He has also joined the school’s Department of Painting and Sculpture as a professor.
Donna Moran has been appointed dean of the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute’s campus in Utica, New York, called the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute.
Michael Wille, professor of art at Illinois State University in Normal, has been named director of his college’s School of Art. He had previously served as interim director since 2014.
Museums and Galleries
Lucinda BarnesLucinda Barnes, chief curator and director of programs at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in California, has retired.
Peter Nisbet, chief curator of the University of North Carolina’s Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, has ended his service as interim director. The new director began work in July.
Halona Norton-WestbrookHalona Norton-Westbrook, associate curator of contemporary art and head of visitor engagement at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, has been appointed to the newly created position of director of collections.
Nicole Simpson has joined the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, as assistant curator of prints and drawings.
Organizations and Publications
Mariët Westermann has been promoted to executive vice president for programs and research at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, based in New York.
Institutional News
posted by CAA — August 15, 2016
Read about the latest news from institutional members.
Institutional News is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
August 2016
The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, based in Washington, DC, has received a comprehensive financial analysis and capacity building financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through a four-year pilot initiative, organized in collaboration with the National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network and Nonprofit Finance Fund.
Vidya DehejiaThe Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has posted audio and video of the sixty-fifth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. In a six-part series titled “The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280,” the art historian Vidya Dehejia of Columbia University discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva.
The Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, has accepted a five-year, $500,000 donation from the Harold C. Schott Foundation to strengthen the museum’s special exhibitions and related programming.
Architectural rendering of the Bo Barlett Center at Columbus State University from Olson KundigColumbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, has created the Bo Bartlett Center as the result of a public/private partnership dedicated to the arts, creativity, and collaboration. Opening in late 2017, the center will feature a gallery, archive, and multidisciplinary programming spaces.
The Detroit Institute of Arts in Michigan has been given a $1 million pledge to its operating endowment from the Founders Junior Council. The Egyptian gallery will be named the Founders Junior Council Gallery in recognition of the promised gift.
Getty Publications, based in Los Angeles, California, has launched two new online catalogues highlighting antiquities in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, providing free access to these works online and in a variety of downloadable formats.
Getty Research PortalThe Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California, has launched an updated version of the Getty Research Portal, which now offers more than 100,000 volumes available from over twenty international partners. Launched in 2012, the Getty Research Portal is an online search gateway that aggregates the metadata of art-history and cultural texts, with links to fully digitized copies that are free to download.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York has received a major grant from the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation to support Guggenheim Social Practice, a new initiative that will explore the ways in which artists can initiate projects that engage community participants, together with the museum, to foster new forms of public engagement.
Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore has received a $75,000 award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the North Avenue Knowledge Exchange, an educational platform developed with Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse and Station North Arts and Entertainment. Centered in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District and open to all, the Knowledge Exchange will provide opportunities for neighborhood residents to learn from each other and to work on projects that improve the community through art, design, and creativity.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota has unveiled a series of new digital initiatives designed to augment and personalize visitors’ experiences within and beyond the museum’s galleries. From innovative mobile apps that facilitate a customized journey through the museum to in-depth multimedia explorations of treasured artworks—as well as new features on the museum’s website—these new digital platforms will allow visitors to more deeply engage with the institute’s collection and create shared art experiences in unprecedented ways.
Oklahoma State University in Stillwater has won a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support an exhibition of artwork and related programming centered on female deities in Native American creation stories. The exhibition will be held September 2016–January 2017 at the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia has created a curatorial fellowship dedicated to enhancing diversity ranks among curators in the fine arts. The Winston and Carolyn Lowe Curatorial Fellowship for Diversity in the Fine Arts is a full-time, two-year position that will offer a highly mentored and structured curatorial experience at the academy.
The Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, New Jersey, has won a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment, an exhibition, publication, and companion programming that will explore the evolving human understanding of, and relation to, the natural world.
SAH ArchipediaThe Society of Architectural Historians, based in Chicago, Illinois, has been awarded a $205,000 outright and matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to commission new content and site enhancements to SAH Archipedia, a media-rich online encyclopedia of American architecture developed by SAH in collaboration with the University of Virginia Press.
The University of Oklahoma in Norman has accepted a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the commissioning and exhibition of photographs of the state’s Native American community by the contemporary Navajo artist Will Wilson. The exhibition, to open in spring 2017, will be held at the university’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.
This Currier & Ives hand-colored lithograph is among 1,500 works to be digitized at Winterthur thanks to an NEA Art Works grant recommendation.The Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, has accepted a $35,000 grant recommendation from the National Endowment for the Arts to digitize 1,500 important works of art on paper. The project is part of a Winterthur initiative to thoroughly document its collection, upgrade its cataloguing content, and provide broad access through the museum’s collection website.