CAA News Today
Anitra Haendel: In Memoriam
posted Aug 05, 2013
CAA staff mourns the loss of its dear friend and colleague, Anita Haendel. Anitra was CAA’s office services and purchasing coordinator (2004–10) and brightened the lives of all of us every day with her presence and her work. She received her BA from Brown University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 2012.
Projekt Papier Interview
Watch Anitra Haendel’s video interview with Projekt Papier, posted in 2012.
New Faces for CAA’s Journals
posted Aug 02, 2013
The president of the CAA Board of Directors, Anne Collins Goodyear, has confirmed new appointments to the editorial boards of CAA’s three scholarly journals and to the Publications Committee, in consultation with the vice president for publications, Suzanne Preston Blier. The appointments took effect on July 1, 2013.
The Art Bulletin
The three new members of the Art Bulletin Editorial Board are: Sarah Betzer, assistant professor of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art and director of the undergraduate program in art history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; Rita Freed, a historian of Egyptian art and chair of the Department of Art of the Ancient World at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in Massachusetts; and Glenn Peers, a professor of medieval art at the University of Texas at Austin. They will serve four-year terms, through June 30, 2017. In addition, Goodyear appointed David Getsy of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois to a two-year term as editorial-board chair.
Art Journal
The new member-at-large for the Art Journal Editorial Board is Juan Vicente Aliaga, a curator and a professor of modern and contemporary art and theory at Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain.
caa.reviews
The caa.reviews Editorial Board welcomes David Raskin as editor designate through June 30, 2014. Raskin is professor of contemporary art history in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism and chair of the Department of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois. Juliet Bellows, assistant professor of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art in the Department of Art at American University in Washington, DC, joins the editorial board for a three-year term.
New field editors for the journal are: Suzanne Hudson, a historian of modern and contemporary art at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and an active critic, as field editor for reviews of exhibitions of modern and contemporary art on the West Coast; Kevin Murphy, chair of the History of Art Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, as field editor for books on architecture and urbanism from 1800 to the present; Kristoffer Neville, assistant professor in the Department of the History of Art at the University of California, Riverside, as field editor for books on architecture and urbanism, pre-1800; Andrei Pop, assistant professor of art history at Universität Basel in Switzerland, as field editor for books on theory and historiography; and Jason Weems, assistant professor in the Department of the History of Art at the University of California, Riverside, as field editor for books on American art.
Publications Committee
Susan Higman Larsen joins CAA’s Publications Committee. Larsen is director of publications at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Michigan and an adjunct professor in the graduate program in museum studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Major NEA Cut Frozen until Fall
posted Aug 01, 2013
Americans for the Arts sent the following email on August 1, 2013.
Major NEA Cut Frozen until Fall
Yesterday the US House Appropriations Committee began consideration of legislation that would devastate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) with a 49 percent cut to its budget. An amendment to restore the funding to the NEA was defeated along a party-line vote of 19–27. With rising tempers over this cut and many others, the committee has now suspended its consideration until mid-September.
This legislation began its journey as a subcommittee proposal last week and the full committee is the middle step before it goes to the House floor for final consideration. Arts advocates are outraged and have sent more than 22,000 messages to Capitol Hill this past week calling for a rejection of these cuts.
If you have two minutes, please contact your member of Congress, or you can use our powerful media alert tool to send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspapers calling for Congress to reject this cut.
As stated in yesterday’s committee meeting by members of Congress from both parties, the cuts to our cultural resources are misguided and disproportionate. Not only will they impact the NEA, but the millions of Americans working in the creative industries that are boosted by the strategic grants made by the NEA.
- Senior Democratic appropriator Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) described the bill as the “worst bill considered during this appropriations cycle”
- Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) said, “We’d be better off passing a blank piece of paper”
- Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) noted how many communities in her state have been revitalized because of NEA support and how critical it is
The Road Ahead
As members of Congress head back to their home districts shortly for a five-week recess period, the appropriations process will be put on hold until their return on September 9. Americans for the Arts will continue to build our advocacy efforts, looking ahead to later in the fall when the committee will try again to complete its work and move consideration of the bill to the House floor, where amendments to restore funding, and unfortunately reduce funding even further, could be offered.
The steps beyond that are unclear as the appropriations process this year appears to be heading toward a dysfunctional ending. As the Senate and the House have vastly different appropriations levels on a variety of bills, it is unlikely that they will find a compromise position. The most likely outcome would be a “continuing resolution” that would maintain the current NEA funding level into the next fiscal year.
If you have two minutes, please contact your member of Congress, or send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspapers calling for Congress to reject this cut. Americans for the Arts has further details and will be providing updates on our ARTSblog here.
Please help us continue this important work by becoming an official member of the Arts Action Fund. If you are not already a member, you can play your part by joining the Arts Action Fund today—it’s free and easy to join.
Speak Up Now! 49 Percent Cut to the NEH Stalled in the House
posted Aug 01, 2013
The National Humanities Alliance sent the following email on August 1, 2013.
Speak Up Now! 49 Percent Cut to the NEH Stalled in the House
By acting now, you can help to ensure that this devastating cut doesn’t move beyond the committee room.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee considered a 49 percent ($71 million) cut to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). After a lengthy debate, the committee adjourned for the August recess without acting on the proposal but with the intent to take it up again in September. We must use this recess to make our voices heard in order prevent these devastating cuts from being enacted. Please send messages to your elected officials today by clicking this link.
If you sent a message last week, please send this new message to both your Senators and Representatives. Click here to send a message today.
This battle will continue into the fall, as this bill moves toward a vote of the full House of Representatives and as the Senate considers its own spending bills. During this period it is important that your elected officials hear from you and your friends and colleagues. Click here to learn about six steps that you can take to oppose these cuts and preserve the NEH during this time. Please take these steps and circulate them widely.
This drastic cut would end programs that provide critical support for humanities teaching, preservation, public programming, and research and result in positive impacts on every community in the country. Programs supported by the NEH teach essential skills and habits including reading, writing, critical thinking, and effective communication that are crucial for ensuring that each individual has the opportunity to learn and become a productive member of society. Further, NEH’s programs strengthen communities by promoting understanding of our common ideals, enduring civic values, and shared cultural heritage.
Please share this message with your friends.
Click here to download “Six Steps to Oppose cuts to NEH.”
The NEH desperately needs your help.
Click here to send a message to your elected officials.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jul 31, 2013
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.
Art Collection Assessed as Detroit Nears Bankruptcy
As the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy case survived its first legal challenges in federal court, the Detroit Institute of Arts remains at the center of a national debate over what city-owned property can and should be liquidated to help cover its estimated $18 billion debt. At some point in the past two months, Christie’s auction house sent two employees to Detroit to assess the collection. The employees did not meet with museum leadership during their visit. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)
Embargoes for Dissertations?
The American Historical Association has released a policy calling on history departments and university libraries to allow students to place embargoes on the online versions of PhD dissertations in the field for up to six years. The association says that such a policy is needed to enable new PhDs to successfully publish books based on their dissertations. But some historians are upset about the proposal, which they say isn’t needed and runs counter to the scholarly mission of sharing research findings. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Publishing Your Dissertation Online: What’s a New PhD to Do?
The American Historical Association recently released a controversial statement that strongly advised graduate programs and libraries to adopt a policy allowing the embargoing of the publication of completed dissertations online for up to six years. Supporters argue that it protects junior authors, given that in the current academic climate a completed and published single-authored monograph continues to be the standard for tenure and promotion. Opponents counter with several arguments, such as making the dissertation research public allows the junior scholar to gain credit for his or her work. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Jeffrey Deitch Resigns as Head of Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Jeffrey Deitch has made it official: he’ll be stepping down after a stormy three years as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The museum’s board said it had launched a search for his successor. Deitch told the board of his decision to leave at a recent meeting, according to an official statement. “He will stay on to ensure a smooth transition and the successful completion” of a campaign begun in March to boost the museum’s endowment to $100 million. (Read more in the Los Angeles Times.)
From Art Book to iPad App: Josef Albers’s Classic Work Undergoes a “Magical” Transformation
Interaction of Color—Josef Albers’s iconic book that taught legions of students and professionals alike how to think creatively about color—has been given a modern makeover as an iPad app, just in time for the fiftieth anniversary of its publication by Yale University Press. The app, which combines Albers’s traditional teaching methods with twenty-first-century technology, was created by the press and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and developed by Potion, an award-winning design and technology firm specializing in interactive experiences. (Read more in Yale News.)
Genres, Like Sand, Tricky to Pin Down
It is pitch dark as you are swallowed up in a crowd of unknowable size, voices chanting and burbling around you, bodies jostling close by. There is no way to know how big the room is, where you are going, or whether you are about to collide with a wall or a human. It is Tino Sehgal’s This Variation, and as your eyes adjust, performers become slowly visible, moving amid the crowd, dancing and singing or pausing to talk about money and jobs. (Read more in the New York Times.)
Is the Australian Resale Royalty Scheme Benefiting Indigenous Artists?
Australia’s artist resale royalty scheme, which came into effect in June 2010 and is currently being reviewed, seems to be offering increased protection to indigenous artists, with 60 percent of the artists who have been paid royalties being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Indeed, one of the driving forces behind the introduction of the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Bill was to improve the welfare of indigenous artists. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)
Union Raises for Adjuncts
When adjuncts push to unionize, they typically want better pay, better benefits (or any benefits if they don’t have them), and job security. With unionization drives spreading, a key question is: does collective bargaining yield meaningful gains? The results of numerous initial contracts suggest the answer is “Yes.” Negotiations on first contracts can take six months or more, but gains in those contracts frequently include significant pay increases and other, nonfinancial benefits. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
First Issue of Art Journal under New Editor-in-Chief
posted Jul 31, 2013
The new issue of Art Journal, which features Burn the Diaries, an artist’s project by Moyra Davey, is the first in the editorship of Lane Relyea.
Essays consider topics such as role of the art critic in the emerging art market of China ca. 1990, the 1970s Tee Pee Video Space Troupe of the artist Shirley Clarke, obscurity and stillness in current film-based installations, and ethnicity in Marcel’s Duchamp’s gender-bending alter ego, Rrose Sélavy.
An essay by Michael Jay McClure on the work of Trisha Donnelly, titled “If It Need Be Termed Surrender,” has been published as free content on the Art Journal website, along with Maymanah Farat’s review of the exhibition and publication The Fertile Crescent.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jul 24, 2013
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 Rise of the Machines: NEH and the Digital Humanities, the Early Years
Stephen Mitchell suffered from allergies. “When the trees come out, I can’t see. People stand around saying, ‘Isn’t it lovely,’ but I weep,” he told the New York Times in 1965. A thirty-five-year-old professor at Syracuse University, he found sanctuary in the temperature-controlled environment of the school’s computer center, where he surprised many people by showing how computers could be used to advance work in the humanities. (Read more in Humanities.)
Well-Marked Paths to Tenure Put New Professors at Ease
Peter Seldin has visited more than 350 colleges as a consultant specializing in faculty evaluation. At nearly every one, he says, young faculty members have the same problem: “They are scared to death.” The reason, he says, is that unclear expectations about tenure generate apprehension among tenure-track faculty members who are worried their careers might stall or jump the rails. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
AHA Statement on Policies regarding the Embargoing of Completed History PhD Dissertations
In its June 2013 meeting, the AHA Council drafted a statement on policies regarding best practices for embargoing completed history PhD dissertations. “The American Historical Association,” the document begins, “strongly encourages graduate programs and university libraries to adopt a policy that allows the embargoing of completed history PhD dissertations in digital form for as many as six years.” (Read more from the American Historical Association.)
Detroit Art Caught in Bankruptcy Battle
Detroit, which became the largest city to declare bankruptcy in United States history, is home to one of the most prestigious collections of art in the world. And one of the options on the table to deal with its crippling debt is for all of that to be sold. But it’s not so simple. To Rod Spencer, the Detroit Institute of Arts is priceless. “The DIA is the history of Detroit. That’s what it means to me,” he said. (Read more from CBS News.)
Does Art Help the Economy?
An unexpected upshot in the wake of Britain’s latest spending review was the fate of the culture budget—it avoided a pummeling. What might be considered an easy target in a time of austerity emerged relatively unscathed, with only a 5 percent decrease in funding from £472 million to £451 million. The arts world had already been hit by a 30 percent cut meted out in the 2010 budget and had been waiting to find out whether they might be granted a reprieve at this latest round of belt-tightening. This time, advocates for arts funding breathed a collective sigh of relief, with the budget reduction described as a “best-case scenario.” (Read more in the Atlantic.)
LACMA, Broad, and Other Art Museums Work to Put Storage on Display
Behind an art museum’s gleaming galleries lies the off-limits and uninviting space that can hold as much as 95 percent of its collection: storage. These spaces are often packed with hundreds or even thousands of paintings, decorative art objects, and other artifacts that can languish, unappreciated and untouched by curators, for years. But as a way to bring art out from its underbelly and display more of a museum’s possessions, several institutions are embracing “visible storage” in public areas, exhibiting the art without the expense of a spacious, beautifully installed and curated show. (Read more in the Los Angeles Times.)
Smithsonian Institution Grapples with Maintenance of Its Growing Inventory
The world’s largest museum complex is bursting with stuff, from elephants to first-lady gowns, biological specimens to space shuttles. Now, the Smithsonian Institution is grappling with a long-term challenge: how to maintain the 137 million items in its collection. Last week the Committee on House Administration held a collections stewardship hearing to discuss challenges to implementing a maintenance plan to care for the art, archival footage, and dinosaur bones. (Read more in the Washington Post.)
Art Education Fails to Paint a Pretty Picture
The views of older men of painting are often dismissed as out-of-touch and old-fashioned, harking back to a mythical golden age. But the critical remarks made by the acclaimed artist Ken Currie, in advance of his first exhibition in over ten years—Meditations on Portraiture at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery—warrant consideration. He raises serious questions about the problems with art schools today. (Read more in the Scotsman.)
House Subcommittee Cuts the NEA by 49 Percent
posted Jul 24, 2013
Americans for the Arts sent the following email on July 23, 2013.
House Subcommittee Cuts the NEA by 49 Percent
Today, the US House of Representatives Interior Appropriations Subcommittee approved its initial FY 2014 funding legislation, which includes a proposed cut of $71 million to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This would bring funding of the NEA down to $75 million, a level not seen since 1974!
While the subcommittee bill includes a 20 percent reduction in total spending as a part of the House budget plan, the proposed cuts of 49 percent to the NEA are significantly disproportionate. The arts community recognizes the challenges our elected leaders face in prioritizing federal resources, but funding for the NEA has already been cut by more than $29 million over the past three years. These disproportionate cuts recall the dramatic decline of federal funding for the arts in the early 90s, from which the agency has still not recovered.
In her statement during today’s markup, senior appropriator Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) said these cuts “harken back to a time when a misguided war on the arts and culture ignored the educational and cultural benefits they provide our communities.”
Final FY 2013 (includes 5 percent sequester cut)
National Endowment for the Arts: $138.4 million
National Endowment for the Humanities: $138.4 million
FY 2014 President’s Request
National Endowment for the Arts: $154.466 million
National Endowment for the Humanities: $154.466 million
FY 2014 House Subcommittee Proposal
National Endowment for the Arts: $75 million
National Endowment for the Humanities: $75 million
This is just the first step in an annual appropriations process, which this year appears to be heading toward a dysfunctional ending. It is expected that the full House Appropriations Committee will consider this legislation next week; however, as the Senate and the House have vastly different appropriations levels, it remains unclear whether this bill will reach the House floor or a final version will ever be completed with the Senate. A message from you now registering your concerns with your member of Congress would be well-timed to arrive prior to any possible next step in the appropriations process.
Please help us continue this important work by becoming an official member of the Arts Action Fund. If you are not already a member, you can play your part by joining the Arts Action Fund today—it’s free and easy to join.
Recent Deaths in the Arts
posted Jul 23, 2013
In its regular roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, photographers, scholars, architects, educators, museum directors, and others whose work has significantly influenced the visual arts. Notable deaths this summer include the artist Sarah Charlesworth and the former Museum of Modern Art director John Hightower. In addition, CAA has published a special obituary on Jens T. Wollesen, a historian of the art of medieval Italy and Cyprus who taught at the University of Toronto for many years.
- Gabriele Basilico, a prominent Italian photographer of architecture and urban landscapes, died on February 13, 2013. He was 68
- George Paul Horse Capture Sr., former deputy assistant director for cultural resources at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and later senior counselor to its director, died on April 16, 2013. Also known as Nay Gyagya Nee (Spotted Otter), he was 75 years old
- Sarah Charlesworth, an artist and photographer associated with the Pictures Generation, died on June 25, 2013, at the age of 66
- Alex Colville, a celebrated Canadian painter who depicted realistic scenes of everyday life, passed away on July 16, 2013. He was 92 year old
- Martha Mayer Erlebacher, a figurative artist and longtime professor at the New York Academy of Art, died on June 22, 2013. She was 75
- Paul Feiler, an Anglo-German painter of lyrical abstraction, died on July 8, 2013, at age 95. He had taught for many years at the West of England College of Art (now Royal West of England Academy) in Bristol
- Mark Fisher, a set designer for the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and U2 who trained as an architect, died on June 25, 2013. He was 66
- John Hightower, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1970 to 1971, died on July 6, 2013. Hightower also led the New York State Council of the Arts from 1964 to 1970 and later served as director of the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia, for thirteen years
- Elspeth kydd, a filmmaker, author, and scholar, passed away on April 9, 2013, at the age of 46. She had taught at the University of Toledo, the University of the West of England, and the University of the West Indies
- Henning Larsen, an award-winning architect who designed the Copenhagen Business School Dalgas Have and the Royal Danish Opera, died on June 22, 2013. He was 87 years old
- Virginia Pitts Rembert Liles, a professor of art history who served as chair of the Art Department at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, died on July 5, 2013. The fall 2012 issue of the Loupe published a profile on Liles’s long, distinguished career
- Cynthia Moody, a British filmmaker and editor of documentaries and advertisements, died in summer 2013, at the age of 89. Moody was also the caretaker of the estate of her Jamaican-born uncle, the sculptor Ronald Moody
- Norman Parish, an artist and art dealer whose gallery in Washington, DC, showed the work of African American artists, died on July 8, 2013. He was 75
- Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, an Australian-born ceramicist whose work was known internationally, passed away on July 5, 2013, age 78. The National Gallery of Victoria held a major retrospective of her pottery in 2006
- Alejandro Puente, an Argentinian artist who participated in the avant-garde scene at the Instituto Di Tella in Buenos Aires, has died. Born in 1933, Puente was also associated with the geometría sensible movement
- Monica Ross, a performance artist, feminist, and professor at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, died on June 14, 2013. She was 63 years old
- William Z. Slany, chief historian of the US Department of State whose work helped to recover Jewish property looted by the Nazis, died on May 13, 2013. He was 84
- Jeffrey Smart, an Australian painter based in Italy who was known for his postindustrial urban landscapes, died on June 20, 2013. He was 91 years old
- Bert Stern, a commercial photographer and documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of Marilyn Monroe taken six weeks before her death, passed away on June 26, 2013. He was 83
- William Turner, an English artist who was a leading member of the Northern School of Lancashire painters, died on July 10, 2013, at the age of 93
- Jens T. Wollesen, a historian of medieval art who was a longtime professor in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto, died on April 22, 2013. Born in 1947, Wollesen had recently completed a book, Acre or Cyprus: A New Approach to Crusader Painting around 1300. CAA has published a special obituary on the late professor
- Walter Zanini, a Brazilian professor of philosophy and the founder of the Brazilian Committee of History of Art, died on January 29, 2013. Born in 1925, Zanini served as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo from 1963 to 1978
Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries, or your completed texts, to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the next list.
Statement on the House Appropriations Subcommittee Draft FY2014 Spending Bill for the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
posted Jul 23, 2013
The League of American Orchestras has circulated a statement that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will be using in response to press inquiries.
Statement on the House Appropriations Subcommittee Draft FY2014 Spending Bill for the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
If enacted, the FY2014 budget proposed for the National Endowment for the Arts in the draft appropriations bill would severely hamper the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission of investing in arts organizations throughout all 50 states.
As the President, Congress, and the American people continue to be focused on the country’s economy, it is important to note that a dollar invested by the NEA is matched by $9 of additional investment and generates $26 in economic activity.
Last year, the NEA invested nearly $116 million through more than 2,200 grants in communities of all sizes. In turn, these nonprofit arts organizations had direct expenditures of $31.2 billion that helped support the 5.7 million arts-related jobs and 2 million working artists in this country.
The President’s FY2014 budget request recognizes the importance of this investment and lays out a strong case for funding the NEA at $154.5 million, which the full House and the Senate will review as the budget process continues.