CAA News Today
2015 Annual Conference Registrant Information
posted Feb 06, 2015
Thank you for registering for CAA’s 103rd Annual Conference in New York, taking place February 11–14, 2015. This text will provide you with helpful resources and tips to make your conference experience easier and more enjoyable. For a more comprehensive guide, visit the Conference Registrant Information page by logging into your CAA account, where you can access the Conference Program and Abstracts for this year and search or download the Directory of Attendees.
Onsite Check-in
As a preconference registrant, please proceed to the Third Floor West Promenade at the Hilton New York Midtown, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, where you will receive your Conference Program, badge, and tote bag at the registration booths on that floor. If you purchased special event or workshop tickets in advance, they will be included in your registration packet. Depending upon availability, you can buy special event and workshop tickets onsite in the registration area on the Second Floor Promenade.
Conference Website
The Annual Conference website is the best resource for everything related to the conference. There you can find everything from travel discounts and a searchable list of events and sessions to a list of exhibitors in the Book and Trade Fair and the Career Services Guide.
Free Mobile App
CAA is once again offering a free mobile app to help you navigate the conference. The app, which works on most mobile platforms—including iPhones and iPads, Android devices, and Blackberries—allows you to:
- Search and browse sessions and events
- Create a personalized schedule
- Find your way with maps of the conference venue
- Browse exhibitors in the Book and Trade Fair
- Share events on Twitter and Facebook
Visit conference.collegeart.org/app to download the app.
First-time Attendee?
Visit the conference website for a list of practical tips and advice on how to make the most of the four-day event. And watch last year’s preconference Google+ Hangout, which covers conference basics and answers frequently asked questions, from how to choose among the hundreds of sessions and events to what to wear.
Thanks to Attendees and Sponsors
This year’s Annual Conference promises to be our best yet—thank you for being a part of it. We look forward to seeing you in New York next week. Safe travels!
CAA appreciates the support of the 2015 Annual Conference sponsors: the Getty Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Blick, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Alberta College of Art and Design, Artstor, Bloomsbury, Laurence King Publishing, Pearson, Prestel, Yale University Press, Richmond University, IDSVA, and Art in America.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Feb 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.
No Detail Goes Unnoticed When Art Is a Click Away
The construction of new art museum buildings like that of the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan’s meatpacking district naturally receives a lot of attention. But there’s another kind of construction going on that tells more about where museums are at and where they are going than any shiny new edifice: their websites. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Fighting the Wikipedia Boys’ Club
The midcentury sculptor Doris Porter Caesar’s presence on Wikipedia only came into being a year ago. Before February 1, 2014, her female nudes were mere blips waving at art history from under university archives and phonebook entries. That day, around one hundred female artists got new Wikipedia entries. The intruders behind the takeover were members of the group Art+Feminism, whose global edit-a-thon saw sessions across six countries involving more than six hundred participants. (Read more from Dazed.)
Is the Design World Still a Boys’ Club?
When Gertrud Arndt quit her job in an architect’s office in 1923 to take up a scholarship at an art and design school whose prospectus promised to welcome “any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex,” she had high hopes of studying architecture. Instead, she was told to join the weaving workshop, as were most of the other women intent on studying design at the Bauhaus. (Read more from Frieze.)
Help Desk: Interviews and Expectations
I have an interview with a critic who sent me his questions in advance, and I found them to be leading and directive. How can I approach this conversation so that I can communicate what is interesting about my work? For many artists, dealing with writers and art reviewers is an inevitable part of showing work. What are some tactics in general for making these conversations go well, for both interviewer and interviewee? (Read more from Daily Serving.)
Ten Tips for More Efficient and Effective Grading
Many instructors dread grading, not just because grading takes up a sizable amount of time and can prove itself a tedious task, but also because instructors struggle with grading effectively and efficiently. However, effective grading does not have to take inordinate amounts of time, nor does one need to sacrifice quality for speed. The following tips can help instructors grade more effectively while enhancing student learning. (Read more from Faculty Focus.)
Dealing with Inappropriate Emails from Students
About once a week I will open my inbox and be greeted by an email that will leave me at a loss for words. A few nights ago, for instance, one student emailed me at 10:30 PM on a Sunday requesting—“urgently”—a meeting at 7:30 the next morning. She wanted to discuss an assignment that was due the day after and couldn’t make it any other time during the day. I decided not to respond—at least not immediately. (Read more from GradHacker.)
Teach or Perish
My undergraduates’ career plans are a peculiar mix of naked ambition and hair-shirt altruism. If they pursue investment banking, they do so not merely to make money. Rather, they wish to use their eventual wealth to distribute solar light bulbs to every resident of a developing nation. They’ll apply to the finest law schools in hopes of some day judging war criminals at The Hague. They dream of engineering an app that will make tequila flow out of thin air into your outstretched shot glass. My students, I suspect, are receiving their professional advice from a council of emojis. (Read more from the Chronicle Review.)
Two Bronzes Attributed Convincingly to Michelangelo
A team of art historians, scientists, and anatomical experts has announced that a pair of bronze statues—meter-high, idealized, muscular nude male followers of the god Bacchus riding panthers—are by Michelangelo and date from around 1508–10. The pair, which is in a private collection, will go on display on February 3 at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
CAA to Publish Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts
posted Feb 04, 2015
On February 9, 2015, in time for the Annual Conference, CAA will publish the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, a set of principles addressing best practices in the fair use of copyrighted materials based on a consensus of opinion developed through discussions with visual-arts professionals. It will be a vital resource for all those working in the field, including artists, art historians, museum professionals, and editors.
Printed copies of the Code will be available at Registration at the conference and at the CAA booth in the Book and Trade Fair throughout the week. It will also be available online beginning February 9.
If you are attending the conference, please come to an introductory presentation about the Code on Friday, February 13, 12:30–2:00 PM, in the Trianon Ballroom, Third Floor, New York Hilton Midtown.
CAA’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional support provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Art Journal Seeks Reviews Editor
posted Feb 03, 2015
The Art Journal Editorial Board invites nominations and self-nominations for the position of reviews editor for a three-year term: July 1, 2016–June 30, 2019 (with service as incoming reviews editor designate, July 1, 2015–June 30, 2016). The candidate may be an artist, art historian, art critic, art educator, curator, or other art professional with stature in the field and experience in editing book and/or exhibition reviews; institutional affiliation is not required. Art Journal, published quarterly by CAA, is devoted to twentieth- and twenty-first-century art and visual culture.
Working with the editorial board, the reviews editor is responsible for commissioning all book and exhibition reviews in Art Journal. He or she selects books and exhibitions for review, commissions reviewers, and determines the appropriate length and character of reviews. The reviews editor also works with authors and CAA’s manuscript editor in the development and preparation of review manuscripts for publication. He or she is expected to keep abreast of newly published and important books and recent exhibitions in twentieth-century and contemporary art, criticism, theory, and visual culture. The three-year term includes membership on the Art Journal Editorial Board and a small annual honorarium, paid quarterly.
The reviews editor attends the three meetings each year of the Art Journal Editorial Board—held in New York in the spring and fall and at the CAA Annual Conference in February—and submits an annual report to CAA’s Board of Directors. CAA reimburses the reviews editor for travel and lodging expenses for the two New York meetings in accordance with its travel policy, but he or she pays these expenses to attend the conference topbankinfo.ru.
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 at least one letter of recommendation to: Art Journal Reviews Editor Search, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or email the documents to Joe Hannan, CAA editorial director. Deadline: April 1, 2015; finalists will be interviewed on April 30.
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/.