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Annual Conference Committee Seeks Members

posted by March 08, 2016

CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for at-large members of the Annual Conference Committee to serve a three-year term, beginning May 1, 2016. Working with the Programs Department staff, this committee selects the sessions and shapes the program of the Annual Conference. The committee ensures that the program will reflect the goals of the association and of the Annual Conference, namely, to make the conference an effective place for intellectual, aesthetic, and professional learning and exchange, and to provide opportunities for participation that are fair, equal, and balanced.

The Annual Conference Committee meets at least two times a year at the call of the vice president for Annual Conference and the committee’s chair. Members must be available throughout May and June to review and select 2017 conference content from the submitted proposals. Please send a 150-word letter of interest and a CV to Katie Apsey, CAA manager of programs. Deadline: April 15, 2016.

New and Forthcoming in CAA’s Journals

posted by March 08, 2016

Art Journal Open

“Knight’s Heritage: Karl Haendel and the Legacy of Appropriation,” brings together the artist Karl Haendel and the scholar Natilee Harren, with an introduction by web editor Gloria Sutton, and a response text by the artist and writer Nate Harrison. Harren’s three-part essay looks closely at appropriation as an artistic practice through a case study of three specific episodes in Haendel’s career. Harrison provides a response to each essay by Harren to historically contextualize this enduring artistic tradition. Haendel’s contribution Oral Sadism & The Vegetarian Personality (Approximately) draws on the artist’s extensive archival collection of some ten thousand found images and photographs, which he uses as source material for his drawings. Haendel animated 135 images from his analogue archive especially for Art Journal Open, his first foray into the online presentation of his source imagery.

Art Journal

Artists’ projects by Amy Adler and Jason Simon are highlighted in the Winter 2015 issue of Art Journal. It also features extended essays by Cynthia Chris with Jason Simon on the economics of video art as it nears the half-century mark, and by Daniel Rosenberg on the presentation of complex data about war and disaster in large photographic works by the Dutch artist Gert Jan Kocken; a short essay by Liz Kotz introduces the Adler project. In addition to reviews of books by Matthew Kentridge and Hannah Feldman, the issue includes a review of three exhibitions and catalogues on artists of the Dusseldorf school, as well as an annotated bibliography by Gavin Kroeber on the intersection of art, urbanism, and landscape.

The forthcoming Spring 2016 issue, the first edited by Rebecca M. Brown, features an artist’s project with pen-and-ink drawings and text by Julia Oldham, essays by Emma Chubb and Natilee Harren, and a multiauthor forum organized by Jordana Moore Saggese on diversity and difference. Books by Gil Hochberg, Ros Murray, and Anthony Gardner are reviewed, and an annotated bibliography by James Walsh focuses on books from six centuries that he consulted while creating his artist’s book The Arctic Plants of New York City.

The Art Bulletin

The cover of the December 2015 issue of The Art Bulletin presents an unusual view of Édourad Manet’s painting Olympia: it shows just the right side of the 1863 work, cropping out most of the central figure, but bringing into focus both the courtesan’s black maid, the subject of Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby’s essay “Still Thinking about Olympia’s Maid,” and the elaborate shawl draped over the bed, examined by Therese Dolan in “Fringe Benefits: Manet’s Olympia and Her Shawl.” The issue also features essays by Sun-Ah Choi on the medieval reception of the Mahābodhi Temple statue of the Buddha and by Lisa Pon on the visual and auditory impacts of Raphael’s tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, as well as the recurring “Whither Art History?” feature, in which Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu explores the global reach of Ottoman art and architecture.

The forthcoming March 2016 issue includes essays by Erik Inglis, Paola Demattè, Richard Taws, Jacopo Galimberti, and Youngna Kim. In addition, Nancy Um makes her debut as reviews editor of the journal, with four reviews linked by a theme of artistic exchange and material transmission.

caa.reviews

CAA’s online book and exhibition review journal publishes content continuously on a newly updated platform. Recently published book reviews include  Victoria L. Rovine’s African Fashion, Global Style: Histories, Innovations, and Ideas You Can Wear (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014) reviewed by Erin M. Rice;  David Young Kim’s The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance: Geography, Mobility, and Style (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014) reviewed by Christian K. Kleinbub; and  Cynthia Mills’s Beyond Grief: Sculpture and Wonder in the Gilded Age Cemetery (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2014) reviewed by Melissa Dabakis.

Reviews of recent exhibitions include Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 20, 2014–February 16, 2015), reviewed by Michaël Amy; and  Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit at Detroit Institute of Arts (March 15–July 12, 2015), reviewed by Delia Cosentino.

Taylor & Francis Online

In addition to their print subscription(s), CAA members receive online access to current and back issues of Art Journal and The Art Bulletin. Taylor & Francis, CAA’s publishing partner, also provides complimentary online access to Word and Image, Design and Culture, and Public Art Dialogue for CAA members. To access these journals, please log into your account at collegeart.org and click the link to the CAA Online Publications Platform on Taylor & Francis Online.

College Art Association

The College Art Association is dedicated to providing professional services and resources for artists, art historians, and students in the visual arts. CAA serves as an advocate and a resource for individuals and institutions nationally and internationally by offering forums to discuss the latest developments in the visual arts and art history through its Annual Conference, publications, exhibitions, website, and other programs, services, and events. CAA focuses on a wide range of advocacy issues, including education in the arts, freedom of expression, intellectual-property rights, cultural heritage and preservation, workforce topics in universities and museums, and access to networked information technologies. Representing its members’ professional needs since 1911, CAA is committed to the highest professional and ethical standards of scholarship, creativity, criticism, and teaching. Learn more about CAA at www.collegeart.org.

Top image: Karl Haendel working in his studio, 2001 (photograph © Florian Maier-Aichen)

Marilyn Stokstad Has Died

posted by March 07, 2016

Marilyn Stokstad, a distinguished art historian and president of the CAA Board of Directors from 1978 to 1980, has died. She was 87 years old.

Stokstad was a professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where she began her career in 1958. She also served as the director of the KU Museum of Art (now the Spencer Museum of Art) at her school from 1961 to 1968. Though Stokstad retired in the early 2000s, she remained active in the field.

Stokstad was a long-time CAA supporter, giving at the Patron level for many years, and attended and presented at numerous Annual Conferences. In addition to her widely known textbook Art History, she contributed four articles to Art Journal. Additional books by Stokstad are listed on Amazon.

Filed under: Obituaries, Uncategorized

Build your Online Presence with Wix

posted by March 07, 2016

CAA has partnered with Wix, the leading cloud-based development platform that makes it simple to go online with a beautiful, professional and functional web presence. As a CAA member, you will receive 25% off of Wix’s Yearly Combo Premium Package. The Wix website builder has everything you need to create a fully personalized, high-quality free website, whether to promote your business, showcase your art, set up an online shop or just test out new ideas. Build your online presence today. Contact our membership department today to find out how you can receive this special discount.

CAA wishes to thank the many artists, scholars, curators, critics, educators, and other professionals in the visual arts who generously served as Career Services mentors—for the Artists’ Portfolio Review, Career Development Mentoring, the Mock Interviews, and the Professional Development Roundtable Discussions—during the 2016 Annual Conference in Washington DC. CAA also appreciates the work of the leaders of the Professional Development Workshops and the speakers at Orientation.

Orientation

Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; and Terri Weissman, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Artists’ Portfolio Review

Susan Canning, College of New Rochelle; Jill Conner, Independent Critic and Curator; Brian Curtis, University of Miami; Peter Kaniaris, Anderson University; Suzanne Lemakis, Citigroup (retired); Craig Lloyd, Mt. St. Joseph University; Judith Pratt, Judith Pratt Studio; and David Voros, University of South Carolina.

Career Development Mentoring

Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Leda Cempellin, South Dakota State University; James Farmer, Virginia Commonwealth University; Toni Guglielmo, Getty Leadership Institute, Claremont Graduate University; Dennis Ichiyama, Purdue University; Mark O’Grady, Pratt Institute; Christopher Olszewski, Savannah College of Art and Design; Doralynn Pines, Metropolitan Museum of Art (retired); Judith Pratt, Judith Pratt Studio; Florence Quideau, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York; Andrew Jay Svedlow, University of Northern Colorado; Ann Tsubota, Raritan Valley Community College; Philip Van Keuren, Southern Methodist University; and Chad Wesley Airhart, Carson-Newman University.

Professional Development Roundtable Discussions

Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Peter Kaniaris, Anderson University; Brian Curtis, University of Miami; Suzanne Lemakis, Citigroup (retired); and Leo Morrissey, Georgian Court University.

Mock Interview Sessions

Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Maria Ann Conelli, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn; Erin C. Devine, Northern Virginia Community College; Carole Garmon, University of Mary Washington; Christian J. Gerstheimer, El Paso Museum of Art; Terence Hannum, Stevenson University; Kim Hartswick, City University of New York; David Howarth, Zayed University; Dennis Ichiyama , Purdue University; Matt King, Virginia Commonwealth University; Andrea Kirsh, Independent Scholar and Rutgers University; Jason Lahr, University of Notre Dame; David LaPalombara, Ohio University; Jo-Ann Morgan, Western Illinois University; Mark O’Grady, Pratt Institute; Arthur Blake Pierce, Valdosta State University; Thomas Post, Kendall College of Art and Design, Ferris State University; Patricia Joan Sarro, Youngstown State University; Mattie M. Schloetzer, National Gallery of Art; and Megan Koza Young, Prospect New Orleans.

Brown Bag Lunches and Sessions

Leda Cempellin, South Dakota State University; Rachel P. Kreiter, Spelman College; Sooyoun Lee, Cornell University; Brittany Lockard, Wichita State University; Tamryn McDermott, George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College; Lauren Puzier, Sotheby’s Institute of Art; Annie Storr, Montserrat College of Art; Jenny Tang, Yale University; and Amanda S. Wright, University of South Carolina; and Megan Koza Young, Prospect New Orleans.

Professional Development Workshops

Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Barbara Bernstein, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and University of Virginia; Steven Bleicher, Coastal Carolina University; Mika Cho, California State University, Los Angeles; Chris Coleman, University of Denver; Curtis Fletcher, University of Southern California; Ronda Grizzle, Scholars’ Lab, University of Virginia Library; Sharon Leon, George Mason University; Lisa Reilly, University of Virginia; Gigi Rosenberg, Author and Artist; David Sokol, University of Illinois, Chicago (emeritus); and Blaise Tobia, Drexel University.

The deadline to propose a Poster Session is Thursday, September 15, 2016.

CAA invites individual members to submit abstracts for Poster Sessions at the 105th Annual Conference, taking place February 15–18, 2017, in New York. Poster Sessions—presentations displayed on bulletin boards by an individual for small groups—usually include a brief narrative paper mixed with illustrations, tables, graphs, and similar presentation formats. The poster display can intelligently and concisely communicate the essence of the presenter’s research, synthesizing its main ideas and directions. Colorado State University has published useful general information on Poster Sessions.

Poster Sessions offer excellent opportunities for extended informal discussion and conversation focused on topics of scholarly or pedagogical research. Posters are displayed for the duration of the conference, so that interested persons can view the work even when the presenters are not physically present. Poster Sessions take place in a high-traffic area, in close proximity to the Book and Trade Fair and conference rooms.

Proposals for Poster Sessions must include the following:

  • Title of Poster Session
  • Summary of project, not to exceed 250 words
  • Name of presenter(s), affiliation(s), and CAA member number(s)
  • A two-page CV of presenter
  • Complete mailing address and telephone number
  • Email address

Proposals are due by Thursday, September 15, 2016. Send all materials to Katie Apsey, CAA manager of programs. A working group of the Annual Conference Committee selects Poster Sessions based on individual merit and space availability at the conference. (Approximately ten posters may be accepted.) Accepted presenters must maintain their membership status through the conference.

Displays must be assembled by 10:00 AM on Thursday, February 16, and cleared by 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 18. Live presentations last ninety minutes and are scheduled during the lunch breaks on Thursday and Friday, 12:00–1:30 PM. During this time, presenters stand by their poster displays while others view the presentation and interact with the presenters.

CAA assigns presenters one freestanding bulletin board (about 4 x 8 feet of display space) onto which they can affix their poster display and other materials, as well as a table to place materials such as handouts or a sign-up sheet to record the names and addresses of attendees who want to receive more information. CAA also provides pushpins or thumbtacks to attach components to the bulletin board on the day of installation.

Printed materials must be easily read at a distance of four feet. Each display should include the title of the presentation (104-point size) and the name of the presenter(s) and his or her affiliation(s) (72-point size). CAA recommends a point size of 16–18 or larger for body text. No electrical support is available in the Poster Session area; you must have your own source of power if using a laptop or other forms of electronics.

Contact

For more information about proposals of Poster Sessions for the 2017 Annual Conference, please contact Katie Apsey, CAA manager of programs, at 212-392-4405.

CAA is accepting applications for spring 2016 grants through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund. Thanks to a generous bequest by the late art historian Millard Meiss, the twice-yearly program supports book-length scholarly manuscripts in any period of the history of art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy.

The publisher, rather than the author, must submit the application to CAA. Awards are made at the discretion of the jury and vary according to merit, need, and number of applications. Awardees are announced six to eight weeks after the deadline. For the complete guidelines, application forms, and a grant description, please visit the Meiss section of the CAA website. Deadline: March 15, 2016.

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Save Our Public Universities

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 lecture “The American Scholar” implicitly raised radical questions about the nature of education, culture, and consciousness, and about their interactions. He urged his hearers to make the New World as new as it ought to be, to outlive the constraints that colonial experience imposed on them, and to create the culture that would arise from the full and honest use of their own intellects, minds, and senses. (Read more from Harper’s.)

Rauschenberg Foundation Eases Copyright Restrictions on Art

Museum goers tend to be unaware of the vast network of copyright protections that underlie images of much of modern and contemporary art, until they try to shoot a cellphone picture of a favorite painting and receive an embarrassing tut-tut from a guard. But for decades, historians, curators, and museum officials have been highly aware of these protections. And many have chafed under a system whose fees and elaborate permission agreements can make publishing scholarly books or publicizing exhibitions prohibitively expensive or an administrative nightmare. (Read more from the New York Times.)

How Many Artists Can’t Create?

The starving artist: one who sacrifices a comfortable lifestyle to invest limited resources toward his or her art. This could be anyone: visual artists, literary artists, musicians, actors. But how many artists or potential artists are out there who simply don’t create because life, with its stresses and burdens, has deprived them of the ability? (Read more from the Michigan Daily.)

Met Museum Settles Lawsuit, Will Revise Admission Signs

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will soon get new signs that spell out, in boldfaced type, the voluntary nature of the museum’s pay-what-you-wish admission policy. The changes—which include replacing the word “recommended” with “suggested”—result from an agreement to settle a lawsuit that accused the Met of trying to mislead visitors into paying an entrance fee when none is required. (Read more from the Wall Street Journal.)

Collaborate: An Imperative for Graduate Students

Graduate students need to seek out opportunities for collaboration at every stage of their graduate career. Experience working as part of a team is valuable for PhD students preparing for a rapidly evolving academic job market, and it is indispensable for those pursuing careers beyond academe. Want proof? Survey the requirements section of ads for positions you could see yourself taking. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

The Importance of Being an Artist’s Assistant

The tradition of artists assisting other artists is as old as the profession itself. The New York gallery Luxembourg and Dayan has also made it the subject of an exhibition, In the Making. Three of the artists included in the show spoke to the Art Newspaper about their experience assisting Andy Warhol, Jack Goldstein, and Robert Rauschenberg, and how it shaped their own work. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Ageism and Creativity

Psychologists generally consider creativity to be the domain of the young. In this they have followed the lead of Harvey Lehman, who in 1953 conceded that “the old usually possess greater wisdom and erudition” but claimed that “when a situation requires a new way of looking at things … the old seem stereotyped and rigid.” Lehman and his successors are guilty of ageism: in this case, a mistaken belief that creativity is inversely related to age. (Read more from the Huffington Post.)

Who Owns Culture?

The quiet corridors of great public museums have witnessed revolutionary breakthroughs in the understanding of the past, such as when scholars at the British Museum cracked the Rosetta Stone, deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, and no longer had to rely on classical writers to find out about ancient Egyptian civilization. But museums’ quest for knowledge is today under strain, amid angry debates over who owns culture. (Read more from OUP Blog.)

Filed under: CAA News, Uncategorized

caa.reviews Seeks Editor-in-Chief

posted by March 01, 2016

An online journal, caa.reviews is devoted to the peer review of new books, exhibitions, and projects relevant to the fields of art history, visual studies, and the arts.

The caa.reviews Editorial Board invites nominations and self-nominations for the position of editor-in-chief for a three-year, nonrenewable term, July 1, 2017–June 30, 2020. This term is preceded by one year of service on the editorial board as editor designate, July 1, 2016–June 30, 2017, and followed immediately by one year of service as past editor.

Working with the editorial board, the editor-in-chief is responsible for the content and character of the journal. He or she supervises the journal’s Council of Field Editors, assisting them to identify and solicit reviewers, articles, and other content for the journal; develops projects; makes final decisions regarding content.

The editor-in-chief attends and chairs the three annual meetings of the caa.reviews Editorial Board—held in the spring and fall and in February at the CAA Annual Conference—and submits an annual report to CAA’s Publications Committee. The editor-in-chief attends and chairs the annual meeting of the Council of Field Editors in February at the CAA Annual Conference. He or she pays travel and lodging expenses to attend the conference. The editor-in-chief also works closely with CAA’s New York staff and receives an honorarium for their work.

Candidates must be current CAA members. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name. A statement of interest in the position, a CV, contact information, and at least one letter of recommendation must accompany each nomination. Please send application materials to caa.reviews Editorial Board, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or email the documents to Deidre Thompson, CAA publications assistant. Deadline: April 1, 2016.

caa.reviews Editorial Board Seeks Candidates

posted by March 01, 2016

CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for two individuals to serve on the caa.reviews Editorial Board for a four-year term, July 1, 2016–June 30, 2020. Candidates may be artists, art historians, art critics, art educators, curators, or other art professionals with stature in the field and experience writing or editing books and/or exhibition reviews; institutional affiliation is not required. The journal seeks candidates with a strong record of scholarship who are committed to the imaginative development of caa.reviews. An online journal, caa.reviews is devoted to the peer review of recent books, museum exhibitions, and projects relevant to the fields of art history, visual studies, and the arts.

The editorial board advises the editor-in-chief and field editors for the journal, and helps them to identify books and exhibitions for review and to solicit reviewers, articles, and other content for the journal. The editorial board guides the journal’s editorial program and may propose new initiatives for it. Members stay abreast of trends and issues in the field by attending and reporting on sessions at the CAA Annual Conference and academic conferences, symposia, and other events in their fields.

The caa.reviews Editorial Board meets three times a year, twice in New York in the spring and fall and once at the CAA Annual Conference in February. Members also attend the annual meeting of the caa.reviews Council of Field Editors. Members pay their travel and lodging expenses to attend the meeting at the conference. Meetings in the spring and fall are currently held by teleconference. Members of all editorial boards volunteer their services to CAA without compensation.

Candidates must be current CAA members and should not currently serve on the editorial board of a competitive journal or another CAA editorial board or committee. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name; self-nominations are also welcome. Please send a statement describing your interest in and qualifications for appointment, a CV, and your contact information to: caa.reviews Editorial Board, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or email the documents to Deidre Thompson, CAA publications assistant. Deadline: April 21, 2016.