CAA News Today
Committee on Diversity Practices highlights for March/April 2015
posted Mar 09, 2015
The CAA Committee on Diversity Practices highlights exhibitions, events, and activities that support the development of global perspectives on art and visual culture and deepen our appreciation of political and cultural heterogeneity as educational and professional values. Current highlights are listed below; browse past highlights through links at the bottom of this page.
March/April 2015
Wael Shawky: Cabaret Crusades
MoMA PS1
Long Island City, New York
January 31, 2015–August 31, 2015
“For his first solo exhibition at a major American museum, Wael Shawky presents his epic video trilogy that recounts the history of The Crusades from an Arab perspective. Inspired by The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Lebanese historian Amin Maalouf, Shawky’s videos chart the numerous European campaigns to the Holy Land, starting from the early Crusades from 1096–1099 A.D. that are depicted in CABARET CRUSADES: THE HORROR SHOW FILES (2010) and the First and Second Crusades from 1099–1145 A.D. in CABARET CRUSADES: THE PATH TO CAIRO (2012). The MoMA PS1 exhibition will feature both works and debut the third and final video from the series, CABARET CRUSADES: THE SECRETS of KARBALA.
Based on accounts from primary sources, Shawky complicates the traditional civilization clash narrative by describing scenes that refute common notions of the era. Shawky highlights both the secular motivations of the European fighters and the competition and violence among Arab leaders. Using 200-year-old marionettes from a collection in Italy for the first installment, and custom-made ceramic figures for the second, Shawky says the puppets help create a “surreal and mythical atmosphere that blends drama and cynicism, telling a story of remote events that could hardly be more topical today. The puppets’ strings clearly refer to the idea of control. The work also implies a criticism of the way history has been written and manipulated.” (http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/394)
More information: http://momaps1.org
After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997
Queens Museum
Queens, New York
March 8, 2015–June 28, 2015
“After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997 presents a comparative study of art created in the wake of two defining moments in Indian history. The first, Indian independence in 1947 was notable for the emergence of the Progressives Artists Group. The second was 1997, which marked 50 years of India’s independence, a period that coincided with economic liberalization, political instability, the growth of a religious right wing, as well as a newly globalizing art market and international biennial circuit, in which Indian artists had begun to participate. The year 1997 also prompted a host of several important international exhibitions of Indian art around the world including the first Indian exhibitions in the United States: Out of India, at the Queens Museum and Traditions/Tensions at The Asia Society 1996–1997. Telling Tales: 5 Women artists from India, held at the Victoria Gallery, Bath, UK was followed by Private Mythology: Contemporary Art from India, curated by The Japan Foundation in Tokyo, 1998.
After Midnight will be the first exhibition large-scale examination of Indian art in the United States prominently featuring the Modern masters, core members of the Progressives including M. F. Husain, S. H. Raza, F. N. Souza, and their extended circle of friends such as Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, V. S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, and Akbar Padamsee.
The contemporary section of the show brings to the fore pertinent issues that have taken place from 1997 to the present. These include a critique of globalization-at-large, affected by the changing economy that forever altered the nation. Not only did this prompt economic growth in India that created opportunities for growth and progress, but at the same time it brought several setbacks such as the exploitation of labor and rural migration to name a few. The contemporary artists in the exhibition are CAMP, Nikhil Chopra, Desire Machine Collective, Atul Dodiya, Anita Dube, Sheela Gowda, Shilpa Gupta, Subodh Gupta, Tushar Joag, Jitish Kallat, Tallur L. N., Prajakta Potnis, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Raqs Media Collective, Sharmila Samant, Mithu Sen, Dayanita Singh and Asim Waqif.
After Midnight, while a large-scale survey show itself, adopts a critical position against blockbuster exhibitions of Indian art that have undertaken tokenist representation of India, or have attempted to illustrate the nation through its art. Instead of capitulating to the market forces and the need of the West to “present” and “frame” Indian cultural practices, the intent of the exhibition is to dismantle the stereotypical nationalist presentations of India. The exhibition attempts to produce and present art practices, dialogues, and questions emerging from an Indian context to be embraced within the larger global framework of modernity. After Midnight resists being mapped or firmly placed with the boundaries of the nation. Instead, it looks to draw on a new critical body of knowledge that has arisen from a new globalism, in which everything seems to be in the process of being redefined, including individual freedom and rights and the idea of India itself. Most importantly the exhibition disbands positions that are no longer useful, to allow for an expanded, inclusive dialogue of art and culture to emerge. The exhibition includes work in a variety of media and consists of both existing works and new commissions.” (http://www.queensmuseum.org/exhibitions/2013/11/08/after-midnight/)
More information: http://www.queensmuseum.org
Jesse Howard: Thy Kingdom Come
Contemporary Art Museum St Louis.
St. Louis, Missouri
January 16, 2015–April 11, 2015
“Thy Kingdom Come is the first comprehensive museum survey of the work of Jesse Clyde Howard, a self-taught artist, evangelist, and keen advocate of “free thought and free speech” who lived and worked in Fulton, Missouri, from the 1940s through the early ’80s. Presenting more than 100 of Howard’s hand-painted signs comprising religious exhortations, political denunciations, and autobiographical details, the exhibition documents the profusion of creative energy reflected in the artist’s dogmatic faith in the First Amendment—rights that were, according to Howard, under threat from the dissemination of communism and progressivism.
In 1903, at the age of eighteen, Howard left home to pursue a variety of temporary occupations on the West Coast. These years of migrant labor exposed him to a system of vernacular signage that would later instruct his principal period of artistic production. In 1944 Howard and his wife, Maude Linton, moved with their five children to “Sorehead Hill,” a twenty-acre compound north of Fulton. Here he began crafting model airplanes, dog carts, and other curiosities before devoting himself to creating signs expounding personal dogmas and cultural perceptions. By the time of his death in 1983, Howard had constructed a landscape of sculptural and textual works surrounding his home and workshops.
Howard’s initial artistic projects of the 1940s were met with condemnation by Fulton, leading some in the community to steal and deface his works, which resulted in subsequent allegations in Howard’s later signage. For Howard, the biblical citations of “the confusion of language” and “the earth divided” found throughout his text are not simply cosmic consequences of human transgression but intimate biographical details that reflect his community’s misunderstanding and rejection. Howard projects the inequities present in Biblical literature onto his neighbors to legitimize the prophetic nature of his “signs and wonders,” and in the process reveals the problematic relationship between self-advertisement and recourse to scriptural authority.” (http://camstl.org/exhibitions/main-gallery/jesse-howard/)
More information: http://camstl.org
Wifredo Lam: Imagining New Worlds
High Museum of Art
Atlanta, Georgia
February 14, 2015–May 24, 2015
“The High Museum of Art presents a retrospective of work by Wifredo Lam, a preeminent artist of Latin American origin and one of the Surrealist movement’s most influential figures, from Feb. 14 through May 24, 2015. Wifredo Lam: Imagining New Worlds features more than 40 paintings and a selection of drawings, prints and ephemera by the internationally renowned, Cuban-born artist. Many of Lam’s masterworks—drawn from public and private collections across Europe, Latin America and the U.S.—are presented together for the first time in the exhibition, which offers a rare overview and reexamination of the artist’s career.
Wifredo Lam: Imagining New Words sheds light on Lam’s seminal periods of artistic development, tracing the global path of his career from its academic roots in Madrid to Lam’s pivotal stay in pre-war Paris and his return to Cuba in the early 1940s. The works reveal the many important influences on Lam’s career, from the European literary and artistic avant-garde to African art.
Born in Cuba to a Chinese father and a mother of African and Spanish descent, Lam (1902-82) gave expression to his multiracial and cultural ancestry while engaging with the major political, literary and artistic circles whose work came to define modernism in the 20th century. In 1938, Lam moved to Paris, where he absorbed the tenets of European modernism, became an important artist of the 1940s Surrealist group, and was introduced to such influential figures as Pablo Picasso and André Breton.
The impact of Lam’s interactions with artists, poets and philosophers on his work is a central theme of Imagining New Worlds, which examines the influence of such pioneering figures as Picasso, Breton, Federico García Lorca, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez and Aimé Césaire.
The exhibition will also consider how the Négritude movement shaped Lam’s work. Lam discovered the literary and ideological movement during his time in Haiti through his relationship with Césaire, the Francophone writer from Martinique whose book of poetry “The Native Land” was published in Spanish translation (“Retorno al pais natal”) in 1943 with illustrations by Lam. Césaire was one of the founders of the movement, which focuses on a black identity that rejects French colonialism.
Returning to Havana in 1941, Lam arrived at his signature hybrid style of painting: a blend of surrealism, magic realism, modernism and postmodernism characterized by a cross-cultural fusion of influences including Afro-Cuban symbolism and imagery related to the Santería religion practiced in the Caribbean.” (http://www.high.org/Press/Press-Releases/2015/February/Wifredo-Lam-Press-Release.aspx)
More information: http://www.high.org/
Lee Bul
National Museum of Contemporary Art
Seoul, Korea
September 30, 2014–March 1, 2015
“In the 1980s, Lee received a very traditional education in sculpture at Hongik University in Korea. From her earliest works, however, she has actively rebelled against the conventional academic art that tends to dominate the Korean art field. She officially launched her professional career in the late 1980s with a series of provocative performances, installations, and sculptures that scathingly criticized the social and political power structure of patriarchal culture. She hung upside down from a rope while naked, to the accompaniment of a pop song. The work was a powerful visualization of the pain of abortion as well as a public confession about her own experience. The same year, in her outdoor performance, she wore the makeup of a shaman and a soft costume of a monster with giant tentacles, and then ran through the fields of Jangheung. In another performance, she wore a similar monster outfit when she wandered Gimpo Airport in Korea, Narita Airport in Japan and the streets of downtown Tokyo for twelve days in costume, eliciting various responses from pedestrians. These performances represented her resistance to a number of binary oppositions: human vs. monster, reason vs. feeling, man vs. woman, logic vs. illogic. Furthermore, they were parodies of femininity, which has been identified with the seditious object of exclusion. As such, she raised compelling questions about existing values and conventions.
Lee’s Mon grand récit series, first shown in 2005, continued to explore the oppressive relationship between the human and society and the gloomy future of science and technology. At the same time, Lee harkened back to some of the central issues of early twentieth-century architecture, with its pursuit of utopia through design. For On Every New Shadow, Lee’s 2007 exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, she made to unfold massive installation works, as if reconstituting these themes as landscapes unto themselves. The Mon grand récit series reflects Lee’s views on Jean-François Lyotard, who posited that the so-called “grand narrative,” or metanarrative, was impossible in the age of post-modernism. Recognizing the impossibility of grand narrative, Lee presented various “small narratives” that were fragmented and imperfect, and which continuously floated around with no resolution. Her works were designed to make viewers contemplate the traces of corruption disclosed in history, the failure of modernist idealism, and the specters of modernism that continue to haunt the daily life and consciousness of individuals.” (http://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/exhibitions/exhibitionsDetail.do?exhId=201409300000154&menuId=1010000000)
More information: http://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/
Propose a Paper or Presentation for the 2016 Annual Conference
posted Mar 05, 2015
The deadline to propose a paper or presentation passed on Friday, May 8, 2015.
The 2016 Call for Participation for the 104th Annual Conference, taking place February 3–6, 2016, in Washington, DC, describes many of next year’s programs sessions. CAA and the session chairs invite your participation: please follow the instructions in the booklet to submit a proposal for a paper or presentation. This publication also includes a call for Poster Session proposals and describes the Open Format Sessions.
Listing more than one hundred panels, the 2016 Call for Participation is only available as a PDF download; CAA will not mail hard copies of this twenty-four-page document.
The deadline for proposals of papers and presentations for the DC conference is Friday, May 8, 2015.
In addition to dozens of wide-ranging panels on art history, studio art, contemporary issues, and professional and educational practices, CAA conference attendees can expect participation from many area schools, museums, galleries, and other institutions. The Washington Marriott Wardman Park is the conference headquarters, holding most sessions, Career Services, the Book and Trade Fair, ARTspace, special events, and more. Deadline: Friday, May 8, 2015.
Contact
For more information about proposals of papers and presentations for the 2016 Annual Conference, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-392-4405.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Mar 04, 2015
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.
Day of Protest
It started as a simple question on social media: What would happen if adjuncts across the country walked out on the same day, at the same time? That question got answered last week on the first-ever National Adjunct Walkout Day. There were some big walkouts at a few institutions but, for a variety of reasons, adjuncts at many more colleges and universities staged alternative protests, such as teach-ins, rallies, and talks. The movement led to unprecedented levels of conversation about the working conditions of the majority of college faculty. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
The Solace of Art
Art invites multiple possible readings. At its best, it embraces contradiction, dissent, ambiguity, and idiosyncrasy. It could be said that all art—all nonpropagandist art—is a form of resistance to the idea that the shape, the meaning, the myriad ways of living in and moving through the world should—or even could—ever be one thing. The greatest paintings, performances, sculptures, installations, and films refuse to represent anyone as a type: this is, perhaps, art’s finest attribute. (Read more from Frieze.)
How It’s Being Done: Arts Business Training across the US
As a follow up to its report How It’s Being Done: Arts Business Training in the US, the Pave Program in Arts Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University has compiled a list of arts business training resources available either online or in person at no cost to the participant. The program hopes that you—as well as the artists and arts organizations you work with—find this resource list helpful. (Read more from the Pave Program in Arts Entrepreneurship.)
The Role of Creative Failure
As an artist you’re very demanding on yourself. You see all types of things that you think you could have done better, or that you want to challenge yourself to do. Setting high standards, high expectations—it’s a very self-critical life. You’re often your own hardest critic. But through executing well and through executing poorly, you get better. You see things more clearly. (Read more from NEA Arts.)
Activists Launch “Debt Strike” against College Chain
The debt-forgiveness movement born out of Occupy Wall Street has entered a new stage in its activism around student loans. Recently a wing of the campaign known as Debt Collective announced a “debt strike” by fifteen former students of the for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges Inc. The former students said they will not repay any more of their student loans in protest of what they describe as predatory lending practices. (Read more from Al Jazeera.)
Let’s Give Service a Real Role
“Sarah, you are doing so well—excellent progress this year. However, the committee recommends that you do considerably less service next year.” That’s the message I heard in every annual evaluation during my PhD program. Even when I received accolades for my research and teaching, I was reminded that service is a third-class citizen in graduate-student training and that I would be better off focusing my energies elsewhere. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Why Photo Books Are Booming in a Digital Age
Since it set up in 2010, Self Publish, Be Happy, the online platform for self-published artists’ books, has been at the heart of booming interest in photographic books—in buying them, selling them, making them, exchanging them, sharing news of them on social media, attending book-signings that promote them—on a scale that has defied all predictions of the death of the physical book in a digital future. (Read more from the Financial Times.)
The Job Talk Q&A
Every part of a campus visit is important. Your meetings with faculty members count for a great deal. Your formal sit-down interview with the search committee provides critical information for its deliberations. Meals play a central role in establishing the tenor of your relationships with potential colleagues. But in my experience, the most important part of the campus visit is the Q&A after the job talk. (Read more from Vitae.)
Announcing CAA’s Webinar Series on Fair Use in the Visual Arts
posted Mar 04, 2015
Want to know more about fair use in the visual arts? Have questions about how you can use fair use in your work? Join the lead principal investigators of CAA’s new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, Patricia Aufderheide, university professor in the School of Communication at American University and Peter Jaszi, professor of law in the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University’s Washington College of Law, for a series of webinars offering in-depth tutorials on the Code. CAA will issue Certificates of Participation to those who complete the entire series of webinars. The series will include the following topics:
March 27, 2015, 1:00–2:00 PM (EDT): An Introduction to CAA’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts
April 10, 2015, 1:00–2:00 PM (EDT): Fair Use in Scholarship
May 15, 2015, 1:00–2:00 PM (EDT): Fair Use in Teaching and Art Practice
May 29, 2015, 1:00–2:00 PM (EDT): Fair Use in Museums and Archives
June 5, 2015, 1:00–2:00 PM (EDT): Fair Use in the Visual Arts: A Review
You may register for the first webinar (March 27) here. Registration for the remaining four webinars is available as a series here. Regardless of the number of these sessions you wish to attend, please register for the entire series and participate in whichever sessions you would like.
Registration is free and open to the public thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The webinars will be available at a later date as archived videos for CAA members.
Questions? Email CAA at nyoffice@collegeart.org.
2015 Annual Conference Highlights
posted Mar 03, 2015
CAA hosted its 103rd Annual Conference from February 11 to 14, 2015, at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City. This year’s program included four days of presentations and panel discussions on art history and visual culture, Career Services for professionals at all stages of their careers, a Book and Trade Fair, and a host of special events throughout the region. Preceding the Annual Conference was CAA’s third THATCamp, an “unconference” on digital art and art history.
Attendance
Over 5,000 people from throughout the United States and abroad—including artists, art historians, students, educators, curators, critics, collectors, and museum staff—attended the conference. Visual-arts professionals from over 54 countries were represented.
Sessions
Conference sessions featured presentations by artists, scholars, graduate students, and curators who addressed a range of topics in art history and the visual arts. In total, the conference offered over 200 sessions, developed by CAA members, affiliated societies, and committees. Approximately 800 individuals presented their work.
Career Services
Career Services included four days of mentoring and portfolio-review sessions, professional-development workshops, and job interviews with colleges, universities, and other art institutions. Approximately 200 interviewees and 50 mentors participated in Career Services. During the week of the Annual Conference, there were over 150 active jobs posted on the Online Career Center and more than 50 employers participating onsite.
Book and Trade Fair
This year’s Book and Trade Fair presented 155 exhibitors—including participants from the United States, France, Turkey, China, Canada, Italy, Russia, and Ukraine—that displayed new publications, materials for artists, digital resources, and other innovative products of interest to artists, scholars, and arts enthusiasts. The Book and Trade Fair also featured book signings, lectures, and demonstrations, as well as three exhibitor-sponsored program sessions on art materials and publishing.
ARTspace
ARTspace, a “conference within the conference” tailored to the needs and interests of practicing artists, presented programming that was free and open to the public, including this year’s Annual Distinguished Artist Interviews with William Pope.L, who spoke to Jenny Schlenzka of MoMA PS1, and Ursula von Rydingsvard, who conversed with Mark Stevens. Over 200 people attended this lively event.
ARTspace also featured four days of panel discussions devoted to visual-arts practice, opportunities for professional development, and screenings of film and video.
ARTexchange, an open-portfolio event in which CAA artist members displayed drawings, prints, photographs, small paintings, and works on laptop computers, took place on Friday, February 13. Nearly 40 artists participated in ARTexchange this year.
The Media Lounge, a space for innovative new-media programming in conjunction with ARTspace, focused on the theme of “alternative economies.” These programs are considered models of social, cultural, and technological economies that transform changing conditions for critical discourse and art making. “Alternative economies” aimed to create a platform that brought together artists, art collectives, new-media practitioners, video artists, film curators, academics, creative thinkers, economists, writers, and activists, with the aspiration to create a space to reflect on intersections of art, culture, and new-media technologies.
Programmed by CAA’s Services to Artists Committee, ARTspace was made possible in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge
The Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge served as a hub for networking, information-sharing, collaboration, professional development, and much more. The Student and Emerging Professionals Committee hosted an incredibly informative session on “Teaching Professional Practices in the Arts” to a packed audience; five Brown Bag Sessions with attendance ranging from 25 to 80; a successful social night; and two days of Mock Interviews at full capacity.
Distinguished Scholar Session
Robert Farris Thompson, professor of the history of art at Yale University, was CAA’s 2015 Distinguished Scholar. Grey Gundaker of the College of William and Mary chaired the session, and five additional participants—Charles Daniel Dawson, Wyatt MacGaffey, Rowland Abiodun, Leslie King-Hammond, and Lowery Stokes Sims—joined her in exploring and celebrating Thompson’s many contributions.
Convocation and Awards
More than 500 people attended CAA’s Convocation and presentation of the annual Awards for Distinction, which honor the outstanding achievements and accomplishments of individual artists, art historians, authors, conservators, curators, and critics whose efforts transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large. Tom Finkelpearl, commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, opened Convocation with a short talk, and Dave Hickey delivered the keynote address.
The recipients of the 2015 awards were:
Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
Megan Holmes
The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence
Yale University Press, 2013
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
Susan Weber, ed.
William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain
Bard Graduate Center and Yale University Press, 2013
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
Lynn Boland, et al.
Cercle et Carré and the International Spirit of Abstract Art
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2013
Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize
Douglas Brine
“Jan van Eyck, Canon Joris van der Paele, and the Art of Commemoration”
The Art Bulletin, September 2014
Art Journal Award
Anna Chave
Art Journal, Winter 2014
Distinguished Feminist Award
Amelia Jones
University of Southern California
Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
Richard Brown
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu
Seton Hall University
Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work
Charles Gaines
Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974–1989
Studio Museum in Harlem
Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
Keith Sonnier
CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
Melanie Gifford
National Gallery of Art
Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
Lucy R. Lippard
Morey and Barr Award Finalists
CAA recognizes the 2015 finalists for the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award and the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for their distinctive achievements:
Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
Matthew C. Hunter, Wicked Intelligence: Visual Art and the Science of Experiment in Restoration London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
Karl Whittington, Body-Worlds: Opicinus de Canistris and the Medieval Cartographic Imagination (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2014)
Catherine Zuromskis, Snapshot Photography: The Lives of Images (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013)
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
Kimberly A. Jones, et al., Degas/Cassatt (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art and DelMonico Books, 2014)
Special Events
Following Convocation, the Museum of Modern Art hosted CAA’s Opening Reception on Wednesday evening, February 11. Over 500 attendees gathered to celebrate the conference while enjoying a stroll through the museum’s permanent collections.
CAA Travel Grant in Memory of Archibald Cason Edwards, Senior, and Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards
Established by Mary D. Edwards with the help of others, the CAA Travel Grant in Memory of Archibald Cason Edwards, Senior, and Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards will support women who are emerging scholars at either an advanced stage of pursuing a doctoral degree (ABD) or who have received their PhD within the two years prior to the submission of the application. Julia Louise Langbein of Oxford University delivered her paper “Caricature and Comic Spectacle at the Paris Salon (1857–1880)” in the “Comic Modern” session. and Kristine Tanton of the University of California, Los Angeles, participated in a panel on “Biblical Archetypes in the Middle Ages,” presenting a talk called “Looking onto Galilee: The Narthex Tribune at Vézelay.”
CAA-Getty International Travel Grant Program
In an effort to promote greater interaction and exchange between American and international art historians, CAA brought 15 scholars from around the world to participate in the Annual Conference. This is the fourth year of the program, which has been generously funded by grants from the Getty Foundation since its inception.
The CAA-Getty International Program participants’ activities began with a one-day preconference colloquium on international issues in art history, during which they met with North American–based CAA members to discuss common interests and challenges. The participants were assisted throughout the conference by CAA member hosts, who recommended relevant panel sessions and introduced them to colleagues who share their interests. Members of CAA’s International Committee served as hosts, along with representatives from several CAA affiliated societies, including the American Council for Southern Asian Art, the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, the Association for Latin American Art, the Society of Contemporary Art Historians, and the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasia, and Russian Art and Architecture.
This program has increased international participation in CAA’s activities and expanded international networking and the exchange of ideas both during and after the conference.
The recipients were: Mokammal H. Bhuiyan, Dafne Cruz Porchini, Boureima Tiékoroni Diamitani, Ljerka Dulibić, Georgina Gluzman, Angelo Kakande, Nazar Kozak, Savita Kumari, Nomusa Makhubu, Ana Mannarino, Márton Orosz, Andrey Shabanov, Shao Yiyang, Lize van Robbroeck, and Nóra Veszprémi.
Other Exciting Highlights
CAA published the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional funding from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. This Code of Best Practices provides visual-arts professionals with a set of principles addressing the fair use of copyrighted materials. It describes how fair use can be invoked and implemented when using copyrighted materials in scholarship, teaching, museums, and archives and in the creation of art. The Code’s authors, Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi of American University, presented the document to conference attendees as part of a panel discussion organized by CAA’s Committee on Intellectual Property.
Board of Directors Update
Results of the Board of Directors election were announced on February 13, 2015, during the Annual Members’ Business Meeting. The new directors are:
- Jawshing Arthur Liou, professor of digital art and the director of the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University, Bloomington
- Chika Okeke-Agulu, associate professor of art history in the Department of Art and Archaeology and Center for African American Studies, Princeton University
- Rachel Weiss, professor of arts administration and policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Andrés Mario Zervigón, associate professor of the history of photography and acting chair of the Art History Department at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
They will take office at the next board meeting in May 2015.
Jim Hopfensperger of Western Michigan University was voted onto the board for a one-year term.
The CAA board also approved:
- New guidelines developed by the Professional Practices Committee on Fine Art Print Publications for Artists
- A Task Force on Advocacy, which will be chaired by Jacqueline Francis, associate professor at California College of the Arts, to address part-time faculty, diversity, and the interaction of artists and art historians in the public sphere
- A Task Force on the Annual Conference, to be led by Suzanne Blier, Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Art at Harvard University, to develop recommendations for changes that will adapt to the changing needs of the field
- The three-year reviews of the Services to Artists Committee, the International Committee, and the Committee on Women in the Arts
New board officers were elected:
- John Richardson, Vice President for External Affairs
- Charles Wright, Vice President for Committees
- Suzanne Blier, Vice President for Annual Conference
- Gail Feigenbaum, Vice President for Publications
- Doralynn Pines, Secretary
Affiliated Societies
CAA would like to welcome two new affiliated societies:
Thank You
Members of CAA’s Board of Directors and staff would like to extend their gratitude to all conference funders and sponsors, attendees, volunteers, and participants; the organization’s committees and award juries; the New York Hilton Midtown staff; the museums and galleries that opened their doors to conference attendees free of charge; and everyone else involved in helping to make the 103rd Annual Conference such a tremendous success!
A warm thanks to the following for their generous support of CAA:
- Alberta College of Art and Design
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
- Art in America
- Artstor
- Blick Art Materials
- Bloomsbury
- Getty Foundation
- Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Arts
- Knoll
- Laurence King Publishing
- McVicker and Higginbotham
- Museum of Modern Art
- National Committee for the History of Art
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Pearson
- Prestel
- Richmond University
- Samuel H. Kress Foundation
- Terra Foundation for American Art
- Wyeth Foundation for American Art
- Yale University Press
Save the Date
CAA’s 104th Annual Conference will be held in Washington, DC, February 3–6, 2016.
About CAA
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, websites, and other events. CAA focuses on a wide range of 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.
CAA Seeks Nominations for 2016–20 Board Service
posted Mar 02, 2015
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations from individuals interested in shaping the future of the organization by serving on the Board of Directors for the 2016–20 term. The board is responsible for all financial and policy matters related to the organization. It promotes excellence in scholarship and teaching in the history and criticism of the visual arts, and it encourages creativity and technical skill in the teaching and practice of art. CAA’s board is also charged with representing the membership on issues affecting the visual arts and the humanities.
Candidates must be current CAA members. Nominations and self-nominations should include a short statement of interest, a condensed résumé of no more than 3–4 pages, and the following information: the nominee’s name, affiliation, address, email address, and telephone number, as well as the name, affiliation, and email address of the nominator, if different from the nominee. Please send all information by mail or email to: Vanessa Jalet, Executive Liaison, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004. Deadline: April 1, 2015.
Thanks to 2015 Career Services Mentors and Workshop Leaders
posted Mar 02, 2015
CAA wishes to thank the 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 Roundtables—during the 2015 Annual Conference in New York. CAA also appreciates the work of leaders of the Professional-Development Workshops and speakers at Orientation.
Orientation
Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; and Jo-Ann Morgan, Western Illinois University.
Artists’ Portfolio Review
Virginia Fabbri Butera, College of Saint Elizabeth; Michael Bzdak, Johnson & Johnson; Susan Canning, College of New Rochelle; Brian Curtis, University of Miami; Peter Kaniaris, Anderson University; Jason Lahr, University of Notre Dame; Matthew LaRose, Park University; Preston B. Lawing, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota; Suzanne Lemakis; Sharon Lippman, Art Without Walls; Craig Lloyd, College of Mount St. Joseph; Judith Pratt, Judith Pratt Studio; Habibur Rahman, Claflin University; Steve Teczar, Maryville University of St. Louis; and David Voros, University of South Carolina.
Career Development Mentoring
Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Frances Altvater, University of Hartford; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Brian Bishop, Framingham State University; Colin Blakeley, Eastern Michigan University; Karen Carter, Kendall College of Art and Design, Ferris State University; Leda Cempellin, South Dakota State University; Jaia Chen, Shelton State Community College; Kevin Concannon, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Anne D’Alleva, University of Connecticut; Rebecca DeRoo, Rochester Institute of Technology; James Farmer, Virginia Commonwealth University; Joan Giroux, Columbia College Chicago; Reni Gower, Virginia Commonwealth University; Jim Hopfensperger, Western Michigan University; Dennis Ichiyama, Purdue University; Carol Krinsky, New York University; Elisabeth Leach; Heather McPherson, University of Alabama, Birmingham; Jo-Ann Morgan, Western Illinois University; Jeff Nathanson, Arts Council of Princeton; Niki Nolin, Columbia College Chicago; Mark O’Grady, Pratt Institute; Christopher Olszewski, Savannah College of Art and Design; Morgan Paine, Florida Gulf Coast University; Doralynn Pines, Metropolitan Museum of Art, retired; Judith Pratt, Judith Pratt Studio; David Raizman, Drexel University; Jack Risley, University of Texas at Austin; Dinah Ryan, the Principia; Paul Ryan, Mary Baldwin College; Gerald Silk, Tyler School of Art, Temple University; Andrew Jay Svedlow, University of Northern Colorado; Joe A. Thomas, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw State University; Larry Thompson, Samford University; Ann Tsubota, Raritan Valley Community College; Philip Van Keuren, Southern Methodist University; and Barbara Yontz, St. Thomas Aquinas College.
Professional Development Roundtables
Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Brian Curtis, University of Miami; Dennis Ichiyama, Purdue University; Peter Kaniaris, Anderson University; and Leo Morrissey, Georgian Court University.
Mock Interview Sessions
Dina Bandel, Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar; Colin Blakely, Eastern Michigan University; Maria Ann Conelli, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Jacqueline Coutré, Queens University; Stephanie Dickey, Queens University; Adam Fung, Texas Christian University; Carol Garmon, University of Mary Washington; Joann Giroux, Columbia College Chicago; Bertha Gutman, Delware County Community College; Kim Hartswick, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Rebecca Harvey, Ohio State University; Richard Heipp, University of Florida; Heidi Hogden, University of South Dakota; David Howarth, Zayed University; Eldred Hudson, University of North Carolina, Charlotte; Dennis Ichiyama, Purdue University; Matt King, Virginia Commonwealth University; Andrea Kirsch, Rutgers University; David LaPolambara, Ohio University; Brittany Lockard, Wichita State University; Carolyn Martin; Tamryn McDermott; Jo-Ann Morgan, Western Illinois University; Thomas Post, Kendall College of Art and Design; Lauren Puzier, Sotheby’s Institute of Art; David Yager, University of California, Santa Cruz; and Megan Koza Young, Prospect New Orleans.
Brown Bag Lunches/Sessions
Leda Campellin, South Dakota State University; Maria Ann Conelli, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Jacqueline Coutré, Queens University; Lauren Grace Kilroy-Ewbank, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Brittany Lockard, Wichita State University; Carolyn Martin; Tamryn McDermott; Lauren Puzier, Sotheby’s Institute of Art; Georgia Strange, University of Georgia; and Megan Koza Young, Prospect New Orleans.
Professional Development Workshops
Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Michael Aurbach, Vanderbilt University; Barbara Bernstein, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and University of Virginia; Steven Bleicher, Coastal Carolina University; Mika Cho, California State University, Los Angeles; Curtis Fletcher, University of Southern California; Amanda French, George Mason University; Gigi Rosenberg; and Blaise Tobia, Drexel University.
CAA Statement on Mosul Museum Destruction
posted Feb 26, 2015
CAA abhors the senseless destruction of ancient Assyrian sculpture that was publicized today. The Assyrians created sophisticated monumental sculpture that reflected their unique form of government, fostered urban development projects of palaces, temples and markets, built a prosperous economy and promoted reading and writing in cuneiform. The monumental works from this extraordinary ancient civilization had been preserved for over 2,500 years in one of the most important collections of Middle Eastern art, the Mosul Museum. CAA calls upon the Iraq and United States government as well as the ICOMOS, the World Monuments Fund and other international organizations to adhere to Hague Convention (1954), in concert with the public and the scholarly community, to develop and implement programs to protect ancient sites, monuments, antiquities, and cultural institutions in the case of war.
DeWitt Godfrey, CAA President
Linda Downs, Executive Director
Membership Categories and Conference Registration
posted Feb 26, 2015
This past spring CAA restructured its membership program in order to provide more options and better serve its members. CAA added new benefits such as online access to The Art Bulletin and Art Journal as well as discounted access to JPASS. CAA also added new, discounted membership categories for part-time faculty and independent artists and scholars. These changes were made in direct response to important feedback from CAA members.
The four income-based levels of membership that CAA used for many years were replaced by two general categories: Basic and Premium. The Basic level ($125 a year) provides a lower-cost option for members who aren’t planning to attend the Annual Conference. If they do attend, Basic members receive a 20 percent discount on registration. The Premium level ($195 a year) costs a bit more but offers a much greater value for conference attendees: a 55 percent registration discount.
CAA communicated this information through letters, eblasts, a presentation on CAA’s YouTube Channel, and an Individual Member Guide and member FAQs posted on the website. We have since learned from members, however, that some confusion has arisen over the new membership categories and their respective benefits related to conference discounts.
We are in the process of reviewing and updating the Membership section of the website, and we will aim to be clearer in member correspondence throughout the year. Please keep in mind that if you are renewing your membership and you know at that time that you will attend the Annual Conference, the Premium membership with its larger conference registration discount will provide you with the greatest overall value when combined with the conference cost.
If you ever have any questions about your membership, please do not hesitate to contact us at membership@collegeart.org. Thank you for your continued support of CAA.
John Richardson, CAA Vice President for External Affairs
Professor and Chair, Department of Art and Art History, Wayne State University
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Feb 25, 2015
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.
Why Is Art So Expensive?
I recently went to a gallery and saw pieces of broken glass selling for $1,000 per shard. Why? And why is art so expensive? (Read more from Slate.)
The Academy’s Dirty Secret
According to a new study that scrutinized more than 16,000 faculty members at 242 schools, just a quarter of all universities account for 71 to 86 percent of all tenure-track faculty in the US and Canada in business, computer science, and history. Just eighteen elite universities produce half of all computer-science professors, sixteen schools produce half of all business professors, and eight schools account for half of all history professors. (Read more from Slate.)
How to Start an Art School
There are plenty of examples out there, from fly-by-night, for-profit scoundrels to august, ivy-draped centuries-old institutions. Why not just join one of them rather than go through the trouble of starting something new? Unfortunately, the current model for art school is awful. Let us count the ways, easily summed in dollars. (Read more from Momus.)
Do Artist Branding and Hollywood Talent Agency Deals Kill an Artist’s Soul?
Many of us have seen the Andy Warhol Converse sneakers and the Uniqlo t-shirts adorned with famous artworks. We’ve seen the painted BMW cars and the branding of vodka bottles. If artists want to put their signature squiggles on a shoe or a bottle of booze, are they compromising their integrity in exchange for a bit of cash? (Read more from Artnet News.)
US Museums Capitalize on Baby Boomers’ Desire to Write Big Checks
Cultural giving among America’s top philanthropists fell slightly in 2014, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual ranking of the fifty largest charitable donors. The news might come as a surprise to US museum directors, who have been swiftly and quietly raising eight-, nine-, and ten-figure donations from eager patrons. Their ambitious capital campaigns make the austerity measures of the recent recession feel like a distant memory. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
From the Journal Editor’s Vantage Point
We could spend a lot of time discussing why academic journals accept so few manuscripts at the outset. Having satirized the peer-review process myself, I would be the first to acknowledge that it’s far from perfect. But pragmatically speaking, it’s important to realize that if you receive a revise-and-resubmit and decide to cut your losses and move on to another journal, you’re likely to face exactly the same outcome. (Read more from Vitae.)
We Need More STEM Majors with Liberal Arts Training
Our culture has drawn an artificial line between art and science, one that did not exist for many innovators. Leonardo da Vinci’s curiosity and passion for painting, writing, engineering, and biology helped him triumph in both art and science. And Steve Jobs once declared: “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.” (Read more from the Washington Post.)
Yale to Launch Lens Media Lab for Photograph Research and Conservation
The Lens Media Laboratory, a new research facility that will apply scientific principles to the characterization and conservation of photographs and other lens-based media, has been created as part of the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, a center dedicated to improving the science and practice of conservation globally. (Read more from Yale News.)