CAA News Today
Committee on Diversity Practices highlights for May/June 2015
posted May 09, 2015
CDP Highlights
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.
May/June 2015
Kahlil Joseph: Double Conscience
Museum of Contemporary Art
Los Angeles, California
March 20, 2015–August 16, 2015
“Kahlil Joseph: Double Conscience is MOCA’s presentation of Kahlil Joseph’s m.A.A.d, a double screen projection that is a lush portrait of contemporary Los Angeles. The camera sinuously glides through predominantly African American neighborhoods, pausing to capture quotidian moments—driving in a car, a marching band, the barbershop—that are suffused with creativity, joy, and sadness. The split screen divides the viewer’s attention, and alludes to the history of auteur cinema—a form of filmmaking pioneered by French director Jean Luc Godard—which sacrificed linear narrative for experimentation with the formal and political possibilities of filmmaking. m.A.A.d extends this tradition of formal experimentation by crossing the wires of music videos, amateur film footage, and moments of magical realism. The two-part projection may also slyly evoke philosopher W.E.B. Dubois’s early twentieth century concept of “double consciousness,” a psychological description of Black life in America. The film’s verbally dense and thick booming soundtrack, provided by hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar, adds yet another layer to this prismatic account of contemporary life in Los Angeles.” (http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?&id=503)
More information: http://www.moca.org
UNDER THE MEXICAN SKY: Gabriel Figueroa—Art and Film
Museo El Barrio
New York, New York
March 4, 2015–June 27, 2015
“From the early 1930s through the early 1980s, the Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (1907–1997) helped forge an evocative and enduring image of Mexico. Among the most important cinematographers of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, Figueroa worked with leading directors from Mexico, the United States and Europe, traversing a wide range of genres while maintaining his distinctive and vivid visual style.
In the 1930s, Figueroa was part of a vibrant community of artists in many media, including Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Edward Weston and Manuel Alvarez Bravo, who sought to convey the country’s transformation following the trauma of the Mexican Revolution. Later, he adapted his approach to the very different sensibilities of directors Luis Buñuel and John Huston, among others. Figueroa spoke of creating una imágen mexicana, a Mexican image. His films are an essential part of the network of appropriations, exchanges and reinterpretations that formed Mexican visual identity and visual culture in the mid-twentieth century and beyond.
The exhibition features film clips, paintings by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Manuel Rodriguez Lozano and José Chavez Morado, photographs, prints, posters and documents, many of which are drawn from Figueroa’s archive, the Televisa Foundation collection, the collections of the Museo de la Estampa and the Museo Nacional in Mexico. In addition, the exhibition includes work by other artists and filmmakers from the period such as Luis Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and Tina Modotti that draw from the vast inventory of distinctly Mexican imagery associated with Figueroa’s cinematography or were heavily influenced by his vision.” (http://www.elmuseo.org/under-the-mexican-sky/)
More information: http://www.elmuseo.org
Imagining New Worlds: Wilfredo Lam, Jose Parla, Fahamu Pecou
High Museum of Art
Atlanta, Georgia
February 14, 2015–May 24, 2015
“Imagining New Worlds traces the lengthy career of Wifredo Lam (1902-1982), perhaps best remembered as a member of the Surrealist group in the 1940s. Born in Cuba to a Chinese father and mother of African and Spanish descent, Lam gave expression to his multiracial and cultural ancestry through a signature hybrid style of painting that blended Surrealism, magical realism, modernism, and postmodernism. The exhibition begins with the academic work made while studying painting in Madrid, and includes the fantastical mid-century canvases that incorporate figures from the syncretic religion Santéria. His work is informed by a cross-cultural fusion of influences such as Afro-Cuban symbolism and Negritude, a movement that rejected the French colonial framing of African identity.” (http://www.high.org/Art/Exhibitions/Imagining-New-Worlds.aspx)
More information: http://www.high.org
Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Brooklyn, New York
February 20, 2015–May 24, 2015
“The works presented in Kehinde Wiley: A New Republicraise questions about race, gender, and the politics of representation by portraying contemporary African American men and women using the conventions of traditional European portraiture. The exhibition includes an overview of the artist’s prolific fourteen-year career and features sixty paintings and sculptures.
Wiley’s signature portraits of everyday men and women riff on specific paintings by Old Masters, replacing the European aristocrats depicted in those paintings with contemporary black subjects, drawing attention to the absence of African Americans from historical and cultural narratives. The subjects in Wiley’s paintings often wear sneakers, hoodies, and baseball caps, gear associated with hip-hop culture, and are set against contrasting ornate decorative backgrounds that evoke earlier eras and a range of cultures. Through the process of “street casting,” Wiley invites individuals, often strangers he encounters on the street, to sit for portraits. In this collaborative process, the model chooses a reproduction of a painting from a book and reenacts the pose of the painting’s figure. By inviting the subjects to select a work of art, Wiley gives them a measure of control over the way they’re portrayed. The exhibition includes a selection of Wiley’s World Stagepaintings, begun in 2006, in which he takes his street casting process to other countries, widening the scope of his collaboration. Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic is organized by Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum. A fully illustrated catalogue published by the Brooklyn Museum and DelMonico Books • Prestel accompanies the exhibition.” (http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/kehinde_wiley_new_republic/)
More information: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/home.php
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit
Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit, Michigan
March 15, 2015–July 12, 2015
“Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were an explosive couple. He carried a pistol. She carried a flask. He romanticized Detroit. She rejected it. But what they shared was a belief in communism, a thirst for tequila and a passion for each other. Discover how they left their mark on Detroit. And how Detroit left its mark on their art. Exclusively on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit brings together nearly 70 works of art that depict the evolution of these two extraordinary artists’ careers, including eight of Rivera’s epic preparatory drawings for the Detroit Industry murals and 23 pieces by Kahlo, whose work has never before been shown at the DIA.” (http://www.dia.org/calendar/event.aspx?id=4608&iid=)
More information: http://www.dia.org
NEA Awards Seventh Consecutive Grant for ARTspace
posted May 08, 2015
CAA has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the next installment of ARTspace, taking place during the 2016 Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Spearheaded by CAA’s Services to Artists Committee, ARTspace is a forum for programming designed by artists for artists that is among the most vital and exciting aspects of the conference. Held at each Annual Conference since 2001, ARTspace is intended to reflect the current state of the visual arts and arts education.
ARTspace offers free program sessions and includes diverse activities such as the Annual Distinguished Artists’ Interviews (most recently with William Pope.L and Ursula von Rydingsvard in New York in February 2015); screenings of film, video, and multimedia works; live performances; and papers and presentations that facilitate a conversational yet professional exchange of ideas and practices designed to engage CAA’s artist members as well as the general public.
The grant, which is the NEA’s seventh consecutive award to CAA for ARTspace, will help fund programs such as ARTexchange, the popular open-portfolio exhibition for artists; the Distinguished Artists’ Interviews; and the Media Lounge, a space dedicated to curated programs of film, video, and multimedia work. ARTspace programming at the 2015 conference in New York included panels that explored the shifting landscape of the field, from “Surveillance as Art Practice” and “Art Collectives and the Contemporary World” to “Balancing Act: Art, Family, and Other Distractions” and “Imagining an Alternative School of Art.” You can explore all of the 2015 ARTspace programming on the conference website.
CAA’s 104th Annual Conference will take place February 3–6, 2016, in Washington, DC. Through grants to thousands of nonprofits each year, the NEA promotes opportunities for people in communities across America to experience the arts and exercise their creativity.
Image Caption
Jenny Schlenzka of MoMA PS 1 interviews the artist William Pope.L during ARTspace at the 2015 Annual Conference in New York (photograph by Bradley Marks)
Insight and Inclusion: Expanding Visions of American Art
posted May 07, 2015
Initiatives in Art and Culture will present “Insight and Inclusion: Expanding Visions of American Art,” a conference on American art to be held May 15–17, 2015, at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted May 06, 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.
QS World University Rankings by Subject 2015: Art and Design
Discover the world’s top universities for art and design, with the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2015. The rankings highlight the world’s top universities in thirty-six individual subjects, based on academic reputation, employer reputation, and research impact. (Read more from Top Universities.)
How to Get On with Artists, Handle Mergers, and Avoid Lawsuits
Museums collaborate with artists on projects such as exhibitions, artist residencies, commissions, and acquisitions. What should the contracts for these arrangements cover? When a museum commissions a work of art, it generally gets rights of first refusal to buy the work, to be credited in exhibitions, and to apply the commission fee to the purchase price, said John Thomas, a New York–based lawyer. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Four Questions to Answer before Commissioning an Artist
A successful commission, like any transaction, depends on both parties. The artist must deliver the work to spec, and the collector, once engaged, must step back and let the artist create. This duality adds a layer of complexity to the already nuanced arena of art collecting. Here are four questions to answer before commissioning an artist to create an original work of art. (Read more from Forbes.)
What Is Being Learned from MOOCs? New Report Takes Stock
The hype around the free online courses called MOOCs has drawn millions of students, who are all essentially part of a teaching experiment of unprecedented scale. These days, researchers are increasingly checking in on that experiment. A new report, released last week, seeks to answer the question “Where is research on massive open online courses headed?” (Read more from Wired Campus.)
Recognizing Complicity
Here is where my description of T. J. Clark’s project in Farewell to an Idea ends and questions about its premises arise. If we understand modernism only through those works that despised it, those artists whose output stood in a negative or negating relation to it, then do we provide ourselves with an adequate assessment of what occurred and what role fine art has played in its complicities? What alternative is there to the consensual narratives that propose that the function of aesthetic work is the power and legitimacy of critique? (Read more from the Los Angeles Review of Books.)
The Object as Subject
The books in Bloomsbury Academic’s series Object Lessons are small-formatted volumes, well designed and well packaged, under 150 pages; they fit easily into the palm. They not only discuss everyday objects but they are handsome objects in their own right, which bespeaks their place in the current zeitgeist. They look like things one might want to collect and showcase. In their subject matter and their presentation they tap a fascination with objects, which is hardly new, but seems to be intensifying. Why? (Read more from the Chronicle Review.)
The Trouble with Collaboration
A few weeks ago, I terminated an eight-year-old collaboration with someone who had once been my professor. I was the lead author on the paper, having done all of the writing and analyses. My one-time professor was second author—he’d promised that with his edits and his name on the paper, we would get it in a top journal. Unfortunately, I finished a draft four years ago, and I’ve been waiting … and waiting … and waiting for his input ever since. (Read more from Vitae.)
Museums in Europe and US Draw Up Rescue Plans for Ravaged Sites in Iraq
European and American museums that preserve and display Assyrian artifacts from the ancient royal cities under attack by Islamic State are working to help their Iraqi colleagues prepare for a day when the sites are liberated. A coalition of the willing exists, but it remains to be seen whether institutions will coordinate their efforts. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Fair Use in the Visual Arts: Detroit Happenings
posted May 06, 2015
The visual arts community is already putting the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts to work in Detroit. At a late-April meeting at the Cranbrook Art Museum, speakers showed fair use can enable work in five areas.
After a presentation on the Code by Janet Landay of the College Art Association and myself, a panel of experts explained why fair use matters to them:
Publishing. At Wayne State University Press, explained its director Jane Hoehner, fair use is essential to publishing work on film studies, one of the press’ major lines. Until now, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies code of best practices in fair use has been useful, but this new code opens more opportunities. The press does not depend on fair use for covers of the books, which function more like advertisements and are much harder to justify as a transformative use because of that.
Teaching. Diana Y. Ng, who teaches art history at University of Michigan-Dearborn, was pleased to see that current practice in her department agrees generally with the field’s consensus on using teaching materials. Fairly-used materials are, among other things, limited both to a particular course and to the students, teachers and staff in that course, and images are used at an appropriate resolution for teaching.
Art. Mark Newport, Artist-in-Residence and Head of the fiber department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, recalled an earlier project in which he created an artwork incorporating a DC Comics character. His rationale for doing so fell squarely within the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts. But when DC Comics sent a letter asking him if he would like to license the work, he found himself having to take sole responsibility for his copyright choice. He hopes that the Code would provide guidance for institutions on what level of risk is involved in a fair use decision, since working within a field consensus generally significantly lowers the risk. “As an artist, I think you should use your fair use rights,” he said, “and be a problem for anyone who believes you should not.”
Collections. At the Henry Ford Museum, Nardina Mein, who manages the archives and library at the Benson Ford Research Center there, a number of policies encourage access to archival materials. Her museum provides digital access to some collections, and “the Code will help us tremendously with this work, especially in cases where we cannot find the copyright holders.”
Museums. Terry Segal, a registrar for the Detroit Institute of Arts, sees fair use as a way of expanding access and also streamlining work. She took heart from the simplicity of CAA’s fair use code. As someone who has spent a lot of time granting and getting permissions, she found the fact that fair use is so simple to execute heartening. “When we’re using fair use, we don’t have to worry about what all the rights in the piece are,” she noted.
Librarians, museum staff, scholars, artists, and teachers at the event seized upon copies of the Code to share with their colleagues. We look forward to stories of how the Code was received and used; stay in touch at nyoffice@colleageart.org.
Fair Use in the Visual Arts: The News Spreads
posted May 06, 2015
Since the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts launched in February, it has begun conversations in libraries, museums, archives, editorial offices, and classrooms. (Need a refresher on that code? Check out this video!) Now, it’s picking up fans.
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) have just endorsed the Code and other organizations have also expressed their enthusiasm. The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) sent a letter of support to CAA in February, as has the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), which also posted it on their resource page.
The Code’s facilitators have been busy with workshops and presentations at the San Francisco Art Institute, the Art Libraries Society of America annual conference in Dallas, a meeting of the Legal Issues in Museum Administration in Washington, D.C., the University of Chicago and Western Illinois University among others. The College Art Association has also sponsored several webinars, including a five-part series that continues into May.
If you’re interested in hosting an event on fair use in the visual arts, contact nyoffice@collegeart.org.
Art Crime and Cultural Heritage: Fakes, Forgeries, and Looted and Stolen Art
posted May 05, 2015
Artists’ Royalties Act Introduced by Nadler
posted Apr 29, 2015
Congressman Jerrold Nadler has reintroduced a revised bill, The American Royalties Too Act 2015, to provide royalties to visual artists whose work is resold and valued at over $5,000.
H. R. 1881
To amend title 17, United States Code, to secure the rights of visual artists to copyright, to provide for resale royalties, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 16, 2015
Mr. Nadler (for himself, Ms. Slaughter, Ms. Chu of California, Ms. Jackson Lee, Mr. Engel, Ms. Meng, Mr. Deutch, Ms. Schakowsky, and Mr. Pocan) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend title 17, United States Code, to secure the rights of visual artists to copyright, to provide for resale royalties, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the “American Royalties Too Act of 2015”.
SEC. 2. Definitions.
Section 101 of title 17, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting after the definition of “architectural work” the following:
(2) by inserting after the definition of “Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works” the following:
(3) by inserting after the definition of “registration” the following:
(4) in the definition of “work of visual art”, by striking “A ‘work of visual art’ is—” and all that follows through “by the author.” and inserting the following: “A ‘work of visual art’ is a painting, drawing, print, sculpture, or photograph, existing either in the original embodiment or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author and are consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author.”.
SEC. 3. Exclusive rights.
Section 106 of title 17, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting “(a) In general.—” before “Subject to sections 107 through 122”;
(2) in paragraph (5), by striking “and” at the end;
(3) in paragraph (6), by striking the period at the end and inserting “; and”; and
(4) by adding at the end the following:
“(7) in the case of a work of visual art, to collect a royalty for the work if the work is sold by a person other than the author of the work for a price of not less than $5,000 as the result of an auction.
“(b) Collection of royalty.—
“(1) IN GENERAL.—The collection of a royalty under subsection (a)(7) shall be conducted in accordance with this subsection.
“(2) CALCULATION OF ROYALTY.—
“(A) IN GENERAL.—The royalty shall be an amount equal to the lesser of—
“(i) 5 percent of the price paid for the work of visual art; or
“(ii) $35,000.
“(B) ADJUSTMENT OF AMOUNT.—In 2016 and each year thereafter, the dollar amount described in subparagraph (A)(ii) shall be increased by an amount equal to the product of—
“(i) that dollar amount; and
“(ii) the cost-of-living adjustment determined under section 1(f)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for the year, determined by substituting ‘calender year 2016’ for ‘calendar year 1992’ in subparagraph (B) thereof.
“(3) COLLECTION OF ROYALTY.—
“(A) COLLECTION.—Not later than 90 days after the date on which the auction occurs, the entity that conducts the auction shall—
“(i) collect the royalty; and
“(ii) pay the royalty to a visual artists’ copyright collecting society.
“(B) DISTRIBUTION.—Not fewer than 4 times each year, the visual artists’ copyright collecting society shall distribute to the author or his or her successor as copyright owner an amount equal to the difference between—
“(i) the net royalty attributable to the sales of the author; and
“(ii) the reasonable administrative expenses of the collecting society as determined by regulations issued under section 701(b)(5).
“(4) FAILURE TO PAY ROYALTY.—Failure to pay a royalty provided for under this subsection shall—
“(A) constitute an infringement of copyright; and
“(B) be subject to—
“(i) the payment of statutory damages under section 504(c); and
“(ii) liability for payment of the full royalty due.
“(5) RIGHT TO COLLECT ROYALTY.—The right to collect a royalty under this subsection may not be sold, assigned, or waived except as provided in section 201.
“(6) ELIGIBILITY TO RECEIVE ROYALTY PAYMENT.—The royalty shall be paid to—
“(A) any author of a work of visual art—
“(i) who is a citizen of or domiciled in the United States;
“(ii) who is a citizen of or domiciled in a country that provides resale royalty rights; or
“(iii) whose work of visual art is first created in the United States or in a country that provides resale royalty rights; or
“(B) the successor as copyright owner of an author described in subparagraph (A).”.
SEC. 4. Notice of copyright.
Section 401 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(e) Non-Applicability to works of visual art.—The provisions of this section shall not apply to a work of visual art.”.
SEC. 5. Copyright office.
Section 701(b) of title 17, United States Code, is amended by—
(1) redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (6); and
(2) inserting after paragraph (4) the following:
“(5) Issue regulations governing visual artists’ copyright collecting societies described in section 106, that—
“(A) establish a process by which an entity is determined to be and designated as a visual artists’ copyright collecting society, that—
“(i) requires that a visual artists’ copyright collecting society authorized to administer royalty collections and distributions under this title shall—
“(I) have prior experience in licensing the copyrights of authors of works of visual art in the United States; or
“(II) have been authorized by not fewer than 10,000 authors of works of visual art, either directly or through reciprocal agreements with foreign collecting societies, to license the rights granted under section 106; and
“(ii) prohibits an entity from being designated as a visual artists’ copyright collecting society if, during a period of not less than 5 years that begins after the date on which the entity is designated as a visual artists’ copyright collecting society, the entity does not distribute directly to each author, or to the successor as copyright owner of each author, the amount of the royalties required to be distributed under section 106(b)(3)(B);
“(B) determine a reasonable amount of administrative expenses that a visual artists’ copyright collecting society may deduct from the royalties payable to an author of a work of visual art under section 106(b)(3); and
“(C) establish a process by which—
“(i) not less frequently than annually, a visual artists’ copyright collecting society may request from any entity that conducts auctions a list of each work of visual art sold in those auctions that is by an author represented by the collecting society; and
“(ii) an author of a work of visual art may obtain from a visual artists’ copyright collecting society any information requested by the collecting society under clause (i) that relates to a sale of a work of visual art by the author, including the amount of any royalty paid to the collecting society on behalf of the author.”.
SEC. 6. Study required.
Not later than 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Register of Copyrights shall—
(1) conduct a study on—
(A) the effects, if any, of the implementation of this Act, and the amendments made by this Act, on the art market in the United States; and
(B) whether the provisions of this Act, and the amendments made by this Act, should be expanded to cover dealers, galleries, or other professionals engaged in the sale of works of visual art; and
(2) submit to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives a report on the study described in paragraph (1), including any recommendations for legislation.
SEC. 7. Effective date.
This Act and the amendments made by this Act shall take effect on the date that is 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Apr 29, 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.
Next Practices in Digital
Next Practices in Digital and Technology comprises forty-one examples of recent and ongoing digital initiatives designed by AAMD member museums. From social media and mobile apps, to in-gallery interpretation and behind-the-scenes collections management, Next Practices in Digital and Technology explores the ways museums are using technology to advance accessibility, scholarship, education, and audience engagement. (Read more from the Association of Art Museum Directors.)
Dear Artists, Stop Turning in Bad Grant Applications (Part 1)
Show of hands—how many of you who’ve applied for a grant or fellowship have turned in your application on the deadline day, right before the post office closed or the website shut down, after dashing off an unspellchecked artist’s statement and recruiting friends to write your reference letters the night before? (Read more from GrantSpace.)
Dear Artists, Stop Turning in Bad Grant Applications (Part 2)
When panelists are reading through the material, this is the only impression we have of you. Often, the judging is blind and sourced from out of town. If not, and a panelist has a conflict of interest, they have to state that up front and inform the organization and withdraw themselves from the conversation about your work. So, typically your work will be reviewed and assessed by strangers. (Read more from GrantSpace.)
Time to Change the Rules of Negotiation
It is job-offer season, and lately I’ve received an inordinate number of inquiries related to “negotiating while female.” In addition to the normal jitters that come with going back and forth on an offer, it seems lots of women have heard about the Nazareth College case and read the research that suggests they must play into gender stereotypes in order to secure competitive deals. For example, they have been told that they should make requests on behalf of others rather than themselves so as not to seem pushy or aggressive. (Read more from Vitae.)
Should Art Respond to Science? On This Evidence, the Answer Is Simple: No Way
Physics—it really does your head in. That seems to be the less-than-enlightening message the Japanese visual artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda took from a residency at CERN in Geneva. Ikeda’s installation Supersymmetry, staged in the darkened uppermost level of a multistory car park, is apparently what you get when you introduce an artist to the world’s most advanced particle research institute and its renowned Large Hadron Collider: a lot of sound and light, signifying nothing. (Read more from the Guardian.)
Competing or Complementing: Art Loss Databases Proliferate
Stolen art seems to be ubiquitous and difficult to track. It is relatively easy to ship and sell around the world, and can remain easily hidden for decades. The owner faces the conflict of wanting to publicize the loss widely, while also keeping their personal lives private. The development of databases to record losses was first preceded by newsletter alerts of stolen art that proliferated in the arts community to halt sales with questionable provenance. (Read more from the Center for Art Law.)
Three Quarters of New Collectors Buy Art Online for Investment, Study Finds
Collectors who buy art online are increasingly doing it for investment, according to a report released by the fine-art insurance company Hiscox. As many as 63 percent are driven by the value potential of works of art, with 75 percent of new buyers saying they buy art for investment. However, 93 percent of respondents say they collect for passion. Robert Read, the head of fine art at Hiscox, says rapid growth in the contemporary art market, coupled with a lack of options in other markets, is enticing people to “get on the art ladder.” (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Tax Break Used by Investors in Flipping Art Faces Scrutiny
Introduced in the 1920s to ease the tax burden of farmers who wanted to swap property, it soon became a tool for real-estate investors flipping, say, office buildings for shopping malls. Now, this little-known provision in the tax code, known as a like-kind exchange, has become a popular tactic for a new niche of investors: buyers of high-end art who want to put off—and sometimes completely avoid—federal taxes when upgrading their Diebenkorns for Rothkos. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Support CAA’s Annual Fund
posted Apr 27, 2015
Since 1911, the College Art Association has served the individuals and institutions that make up the world’s largest professional association in the visual arts. As you know, CAA supports and enhances the community in the visual arts through advocacy efforts; vital professional documents like CAA’s Standards and Guidelines; critical projects like the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts; prestigious publishing grants for book manuscripts; career-development resources including the Online Career Center; important new writing and scholarship published in The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews; and CAA’s central forum for exchange of creative work and scholarly research at the Annual Conference.
What you may not realize is that CAA does a great deal behind the scenes to support its members. The organization subsidizes more than half of its members through discounted memberships for students, retirees, part-time faculty, and independent artists and scholars, and it provides reduced conference registration fees for student and retired members. CAA’s Strategic Plan (2015–2020) has made part-time faculty issues a priority, and the organization recently asked tenured faculty and administrators in the visual arts to implement its Guidelines for Part-Time Professional Employment. CAA has even devoted an entire website section providing resources for part-time faculty. At the conference, CAA offers Professional-Development Workshops and mentoring opportunities to artists, art historians, designers, and students at the Annual Conference. It also presents ARTspace, an annual forum of programming designed by artists for artists that is free and open to the public.
Today, I ask that you support all that CAA does with a gift to the Annual Fund.
Your contribution to the Annual Fund will enable CAA to continue providing invaluable resources to its members. Voluntary support from CAA members is critical to our collective advancement, and your contribution to the Annual Fund makes this important work possible.
On behalf of the artists, art historians, curators, critics, collectors, designers, educators, and other professionals who make up CAA, I thank you for your dedication. Please give generously!
Sincerely,
John J. Richardson
Vice President for External Affairs