CAA News Today
Art Journal Editorial Board Seeks New Member
posted Feb 03, 2015
CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for one individual to serve on the Art Journal Editorial Board for a four-year term: July 1, 2015–June 30, 2019. Candidates may be artists, art historians, art critics, art educators, curators, or other art professionals; institutional affiliation is not required. 1000 dollar loan. Art Journal, published quarterly by CAA, is devoted to twentieth- and twenty-first-century art and visual culture.
The editorial board advises the Art Journal editor-in-chief and assists him or her in seeking authors, articles, artists’ projects, and other content. The group also guides the journal’s editorial program and may propose new initiatives for it, performs peer review and recommends peer reviewers, and may support fundraising efforts on the journal’s behalf. Members also assist the editor-in-chief to keep abreast of trends and issues in the field by attending and reporting on sessions at the CAA Annual Conference and at other academic conferences, symposia, and events.
The Art Journal 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. CAA reimburses members for travel and lodging expenses for the two New York meetings in accordance with its travel policy, but members pay these expenses to attend the conference. Members of all editorial boards volunteer their services to CAA without compensation.
Candidates must be current CAA members and should not be serving on the editorial board of a competitive journal or on another CAA editorial board or committee. Members may not publish their own work in the journal during the term of service. 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: Chair, Art Journal Editorial Board, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or email the documents to Joe Hannan, CAA editorial director. Deadline: April 15, 2015.
caa.reviews Editorial Board Seeks One Member
posted Feb 03, 2015
CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for one individual to serve on the caa.reviews Editorial Board for a four-year term, July 1, 2015–June 30, 2019. 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 and at least one published book or the equivalent who are committed to the imaginative development of caa.reviews. An online journal, caa.reviews is devoted to the peer review of new 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 of and field editors for caa.reviews and helps them to identify books and exhibitions for review and to solicit reviewers, articles, and other content for the journal. The group also guides the journal’s editorial program and may propose new initiatives for it. Members must stay abreast of trends and issues in the field by attending and reporting on sessions at the CAA Annual Conference and at other academic conferences, symposia, and events in the field.
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. CAA reimburses members for travel and lodging expenses for the two New York meetings in accordance with its travel policy, but members pay these expenses to attend the conference. 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 10, 2015.
Media Lounge Workshops at the Annual Conference
posted Feb 02, 2015
Alternative Economies
A Project of Media Lounge and ARTspace
103rd Annual Conference
February 11–14, 2015
New York Hilton Midtown, Gibson Room
During the 2015 Annual Conference, the Media Lounge and ARTspace will host programming with the shared theme of “Alternative Economies.” These programs will consider models of social, cultural, and technological economies that transform the conditions for critical discourse and art making. The following workshops organized by Jenny Marketou and Stacy Miller are part of the event which take place at the Media Lounge; they are free and open to the public.
Imagining an Alternative School of Art
OWS Arts & Labor | Alternative Economies Working Group
Wednesday, February 11
9:00 AM–1:00 PM
The economic and structural realities of art schools as they exist today can often be a source of anxiety and frustration for students, faculty, and staff alike, so what might an alternative school of art look like? In this workshop the participants will familiarize themselves with over thirty alternative economic models that are in practice throughout the world today. After analyzing the current economic and structural issues apparent in our places of work and study, participants will be asked to imagine and consider the implications of using these alternative models to augment, remedy, or perhaps replace the current structure altogether.
About: Arts & Labor’s Alternative Economies Working Group is focused on researching alternative economic models that can be used to create and nurture more equitable and sustainable art worlds. Believing that vibrant creative communities come from the bottom up, they encourage relationships based on mutual aid rather than competition and advocate for cultural institutions rooted in a framework of social, economic, and environmental justice.
Facilitation: Melissa Liu, Daniel Tuss, Antonio Serna, Yana Dimitrova, and James Douglas Whitman.
Beyond Faxes with Clip Art: Connective Technology and Art Making
Saturday, February 14
9:30–11:00 AM
This hands-on workshop will move beyond social media as a simple broadcast media for artists and examine how technologically engaged creation and collaboration can enhance, enable, and disrupt established models for art-making practice and interaction. In this workshop, participants will use open-source and/or free tools to connect with artists and create works; they will also discuss relevant issues in practice and pedagogy.
Facilitation: David Hart (MA, Art and Art Education, Teacher’s College, Columbia University) is a producer, writer, and educator with an emphasis in the museum field. He has taught in afterschool settings, corporate workshops, museum programs (in-person and virtually), and undergraduate and graduate programs. Hart worked in the Department of Education and the Department of Digital Media at the Museum of Modern Art and currently is a producer for Acoustiguide, partnering with such institutions as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the New York Botanical Garden, and the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Help the NEH Celebrate Its Fiftieth Anniversary
posted Jan 29, 2015
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent federal agency created in 1965 and one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2015–16. To mark this historic event, we would like you to tell us about an NEH grant or grant product that has made a difference in your life, career, community, or academic field. To contribute stories about NEH’s past or for more information, send an email to NEH50@neh.gov. Please include your name and telephone number in your message.
Because democracy demands wisdom, the NEH serves and strengthens our republic by promoting excellence in the humanities and conveying the lessons of history to all Americans. The endowment accomplishes this mission by awarding grants for top-rated proposals examined by panels of independent, external reviewers. NEH grants typically go to cultural institutions, such as museums, archives, libraries, colleges, universities, public television, and radio stations, and to individual scholars. The grants:
- strengthen teaching and learning in schools and colleges
- facilitate research and original scholarship
- provide opportunities for lifelong learning
- preserve and provide access to cultural and educational resources
- strengthen the institutional base of the humanities
Since 1965, the endowment has opened new worlds of learning for the American public with noteworthy projects such as:
- Seven thousand books, 16 of which have won Pulitzer Prizes and 20 of which have received the Bancroft Prize
- The Civil War, the landmark documentary by Ken Burns viewed by 38 million Americans
- The Library of America editions of novels, essays, and poems celebrating America’s literary heritage
- The United States Newspaper Project, which catalogued and microfilmed 63.3 million pages of historic newspapers and paved the way for the National Digital Newspaper Program and its digital repository, Chronicling America
- Annual support for 56 states and territories to help support some 56,000 lectures, discussions, exhibitions, and other programs each year
We look forward to hearing from you!
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jan 28, 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.
The $1,000 Job Interview That Will Not Die
I’m relieved to see that more departments, in a diverse array of fields, are choosing to offer alternatives to the traditional convention interview—or to forego the first-round conference interview altogether, like they should, since, as many sane voices have already opined quite loudly, it is no longer necessary. However, it dismays me to report that some holdouts remain. (Read more from Vitae.)
Don’t Kill the Conference Interview
Rebecca Schuman recently called for the death of the conference interview for faculty jobs. A key reason she listed was the expense, citing the Modern Language Association’s recent convention as a case in point. In fact, she went to considerable length to prove that anyone traveling to Vancouver for that meeting would need to spend more than $1,000. But a data point is not a universal. Many faculty members with full-time jobs and many graduate students seeking employment still think the conference interview is a useful enterprise. (Read more from Vitae.)
How Not to Be a Jerk at Your Next Academic Conference
If you’ve spent any time at an academic conference, you know the scene: a stage full of scholars have just finished presenting their papers. As the Q&A session begins, a woman rises from the audience and prefaces her remarks by saying, in so many words, that she hadn’t been invited to appear on the panel. But here, anyway, are the highlights of her paper—and her credentials and biography, too. (Read more from Vitae.)
Teaching Artists Applying the Breadth of Their Skills
The typical structure of 99 percent of American nonprofit arts organizations includes segregated artistic, administrative, and development departments. My colleagues who work in such segregated institutions experience chasms between departments and waste time bickering and competing for an even share of resources. Aside from the intention of human-resource efficiency, I have never understood the acceptance of this structure. (Read more from ARTSblog.)
L’Origine du Monde Sparks Facebook Legal Battle
Facebook has been taken to court by a French user whose account was closed after he posted an image of Gustave Courbet’s racy painting L’Origine du Monde (1866). According to Le Figaro, the world-famous oil on canvas was part of a promo for an art-history video about the artwork, broadcasted by the highbrow TV channel Arte. The plaintiff, a Parisian schoolteacher, seeks the reactivation of his Facebook account and €20,000 in damages. (Read more from Artnet News.)
The NEA and the Federal Reserve Bank Reports
First, the release of the NEA report, A Decade of Arts Engagement, on arts attendance and participation—widely reported almost everywhere. Not much new here. Confirmation that attendance in the core arts continues a two-decade decline, while distribution of arts via technology is on the increase. Arts participation is up overall if you count “selfless” and downloading your favorite pop song, or maybe dancing in front of your mirror. (Read more from Barry’s Blog.)
Might at the Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s big, new move into twentieth-century art—propelled by Leonard Lauder’s recent $1 billion gift of eighty-one Cubist masterpieces—is altering the balance of power among New York’s biggest museums, a change compounded by the Whitney’s relocation downtown and the Museum of Modern Art’s controversial expansion plans. Sorting through talk of a growing rivalry between the Met and MoMA for artworks, board members, and prestige, Bob Colacello uncovers the forces at work. (Read more from Vanity Fair.)
Effective Ways to Structure Discussion
The use of online discussion in both blended and fully online courses has made clear that those exchanges are more productive if they are structured, if there’s a protocol that guides the interaction. This kind of structure is more important in the online environment because those discussions are usually asynchronous and miss all the nonverbal cues that facilitate face-to-face exchanges. But I’m wondering if more structure might benefit our in-class discussions as well. (Read more from Faculty Focus.)
Art2Drone Catalogue Exhibition
posted Jan 23, 2015
Art2Drone is a catalogue exhibition, published in conjunction with ARTspace at the 2015 Annual Conference in New York, that brings together the work of artists who investigate drone technology and its cultural implications. The artworks will highlight political, social, scientific, and artistic impacts of drone technology. The catalogue is distributed by CAA and v1b3 as a printable PDF. Each project will link to a website to view additional media. Included in the catalogue is a critical essay by Meredith Hoy.
The curators of Art2Drone are Chris Manzione, Conrad Gleber, Gail Rubini, and Mat Rappaport. The online and downloadable catalogue can be found at http://v1b3.com/project/art2drone/.
CAA Appoints New Committee Members and Chairs
posted Jan 22, 2015
CAA’s nine Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committees welcome their newly appointed members, who will serve three-year terms (2015–18). In addition, three new chairs will take over committee leadership. New committee members and chairs will begin their terms at the 2015 Annual Conference in New York. CAA warmly thanks all outgoing committee members for their years of service to the organization.
A call for nominations for these committees appears annually from July to September in CAA News and on the CAA website. CAA’s president, vice president for committees, and executive director review all nominations in November and make appointments that take effect the following February. CAA’s vice president for committees is an ex officio member of all nine groups.
New Committee Members and Chairs
Committee on Diversity Practices: Ann Albritton, Ringling College of Art and Design; Mariola Alvarez, Washington College; Raél Jero Salley, University of Cape Town; and Edith Wolfe, Tulane University. The new chair is Christine Young-Kyung Hahn of Kalamazoo College.
Committee on Intellectual Property: Amy Ogata, University of Southern California.
Committee on Women in the Arts: Jenn Dierdorf, A.I.R. Gallery; Johanna Gosse, independent scholar, Seattle; Heather Belnap Jensen, Brigham Young University; Caitlin Margaret Kelly, Duke University; Miriam Schaer, Columbia College Chicago; and Jean Shin, Pratt Institute. Donna Moran of Pratt Institute is the new committee chair.
Education Committee: Kathleen Holko, Bruce Museum; Richard D. Lubben, South Texas College; and Christopher Ulivo, Santa Barbara City College.
International Committee: Alexandra Chang, Asian/Pacific/American Institute, New York University; and Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral, University of Buenos Aires.
Museum Committee: Jill Deupi, Lowe Art Museum; and Ivan Gaskell, Bard Graduate Center.
Professional Practices Committee: Susan Altman, Middlesex County College; Eunice Howe, University of Southern California; Walter Meyer, Santa Monica College; and Greg Shelnutt, Clemson University. Bruce Mackh of the University of Michigan has become the committee’s new chair.
Services to Artists Committee: Jan Christian Bernabe, Center for Art and Thought; and Carissa Carman, Indiana University.
Student and Emerging Professionals Committee: Tania Batley, Lefferts Historic House; Rachel Kreiter, Emory University; and Jenny Tang, Yale University.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jan 21, 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.
With New Congress, Resale Royalties Bill Is Dead (Again)
This week, the 114th Congress took its seats, meaning that any bill not passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by the president is a dead letter. This is the fate of many bills—indeed most. Art Law Report has followed two proposed laws for four years now, each of which have been introduced in some form in successive Congresses, only to lapse when a new Congress stepped in. (Read more from Art Law Report.)
Can the First Amendment Survive the Internet?
The internet presents First Amendment quandaries that seem fundamentally different from those society faced previously. But are they really? Once only people wealthy enough to own a newspaper or a broadcast station could reach a large audience. Now anyone with access to a computer or even a cellphone—in other words, just about everyone—can reach a large number of people almost instantly. It used to be, too, that serious research often required a trip to a distant library or museum. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
US Artists That Use Drones Could Be Grounded
Artists in the United States could have less than a year left to freely use drones in their work. Although current flight restrictions apply only to commercial, not artistic, use of drones, the Federal Aviation Administration is working on new regulations that are due to be submitted to Congress by September. The clampdown comes in the face of the drone’s growing accessibility. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
See What the Artworks See
As museum goers, we’re used to looking at art, but a new project from the filmmaker and artist Masashi Kawamura inverses the traditional relationship of viewer to artwork. For his blog What They See, Kawamura has taken photographs from the perspectives of famous artworks, inviting us into their visual fields. Among the works represented so far are Degas’s The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, who apparently spends her days at the Metropolitan Museum gazing at the arch of a doorway, and Modigliani’s Reclining Nude, who gazes sideways at the paintings on the opposite wall. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)
Describing Art: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Effects of Speaking on Gaze Movements during the Beholding of Paintings
Ever since the Renaissance, speaking about paintings has been a fundamental approach for beholders—especially experts. It is unclear, however, whether and how speaking about art modifies the way we look at it; this was not yet empirically tested. The present study investigated in what way speaking modifies the patterns of fixations and gaze movements while looking at paintings. (Read more from PLOS One.)
How to Survive a PhD Viva: Seventeen Top Tips
Handing in your PhD thesis is a massive achievement—but it’s not the end of the journey for doctoral students. Once you’ve submitted, you’ll need to prepare for the next intellectually grueling hurdle: a viva. This oral examination formally ensures that there’s no plagiarism involved, and that the student understands and can explain their thesis. It involves lots of penetrating questions and conceptually complex debates—and is infamously terrifying. (Read more from the Guardian.)
Ask the Art Professor: How Can I Study to Become a Professional Artist on My Own?
I am 23 years old and a beginning visual artist. I really want to get to a professional level but have no idea how to teach myself to get to that level. I can’t afford to go to art school and don’t have much money for local classes and workshops. Is there any way I could do this on my own? (Read more from the Huffington Post.)
Writing with a Heavy Teaching Load
Rachel Toor’s essay “The Habits of Highly Productive Writers” contains practical information for academics seeking to boost their written output; it also approaches the topic in a way that, for me, makes the whole endeavor seem a bit less daunting. I can imagine many readers came away from her column thinking, “I can do this.” And yet, I can also imagine that many full-time faculty members at community colleges and other teaching-focused institutions found themselves also thinking, “That would be nice—if only I had the time to write.” (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Service as a Mock Interviewer
posted Jan 20, 2015
For the 2015 Annual Conference in New York, the Student and Emerging Professionals Committee seeks established professionals to volunteer as practice interviewers for the Mock Interview Sessions. Participating as an interviewer is an excellent way to serve the field and to assist with the professional development of the next generation of artists and scholars.
In these sessions, interviewers pose as a prospective employer, speaking with individuals in a scenario similar to the Interview Hall at the conference. Each session is composed of approximately 10–15 minutes of interview questions and a quick review of the application packet, followed by 5–10 minutes of candid feedback. Whenever possible, the committee matches interviewers and interviewees based on medium or discipline.
Interested candidates must be current CAA members and prepared to give six successive twenty-minute interviews with feedback in a two-hour period on one or both of these days: Thursday, February 12, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM and 3:00–5:00 PM; and Friday, February 13, 9:00–11:00 AM and 1:00–3:00 PM. Conference registration, while encouraged, is not required to be a mock interviewer. Desired for the sessions are art historians, art educators, designers, museum-studies professionals, critics, curators, and studio artists with tenure and/or experience on a search committee. You may volunteer for one, two, three, or all four Mock Interview Sessions.
Please send your name, affiliation, position, contact information, and the days and times that you are available to Megan Koza Young, chair of the Student and Emerging Professionals Committee. Deadline: January 31, 2015.
The Mock Interview Sessions are not intended as a screening process by institutions seeking new hires.
Career Services Guide for the 2015 Annual Conference
posted Jan 15, 2015
CAA has designed the Career Services Guide to inform job seekers and employers about placement activities at the 2015 Annual Conference in New York. The publication, available as a PDF, will help you navigate Career Services events and provides answers to frequently asked questions. Study this guide carefully so that you will know what to expect from conference interviewing and how best to prepare for a successful experience.
Job candidates can review the basics of the conference employment search. Read about the Candidate Center, your home base at the conference, as well as Orientation, an introduction to Career Services where you can ask questions. In addition, learn more about the Online Career Center, where you can search for position listings, post application materials, and arrange interviews. The publication includes tips for improving your CV, portfolio, and supplemental application materials.
Employers will find details in the guide for renting interview booths and tables as well as recommendations for posting jobs and conducting interviews at the conference. You can begin preparations now for Career Services through the Online Career Center or onsite at the Interviewer Center.
Printed copies of the Career Services Guide will be distributed onsite at Orientation and in the Candidate Center. All conference Career Services will take place at the New York Hilton Midtown. For more information about job searching, professional-development workshops, and more, visit the Career Services section of the conference website.