CAA News Today
Take the 2011 Annual Conference Survey
posted Mar 16, 2011
Last week, CAA sent an email blast to 2011 Annual Conference attendees, asking for feedback on all aspects of last month’s event. Please complete the survey, which has several fields for open-ended answers, by Friday, March 25, 2011.
The survey asks you to identify yourself (e.g., artist, art historian, or student) and your type of affiliation and then to rate your experiences with various conference events and services—from online registration and the conference hotels to session content and Career Services activities. If you attended the Book and Trade Fair or used your conference badge for free museum admission, let CAA know. The survey also asks your thoughts about the conference website and how CAA can better deliver conference information.
March 2011 Issue of The Art Bulletin Features Essays on the Bocca della Verità and on German Painting and Czech Cubism
posted Mar 15, 2011
Articles in the March 2011 issue of The Art Bulletin, the leading publication of international art-historical scholarship, examine a range of topics that include the Bocca della Verità in Rome and German painting and Czech Cubism. Two additional essays and a collection of important book reviews round out the issue, which has been mailed to all individual CAA members who elect to receive the journal, and to all institutional members.
In “The Mouth of Truth and Forum Boarium,” Fabio Barry evaluates the Bocca della Verità in Rome from numerous perspectives to recover its origin as an antique drain cover in the form of the god Oceanus, relating the Bocca to the myth of the Romanized Hercules from the reign of Hadrian. Moving to modern times, Eleanor Moseman uses the case study of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Bohumil Kubiša to explore the relation of German painting and Czech Cubism, revealing “style” as a central issue in the international dialogue of the visual arts of early-twentieth-century Central Europe.
Two essays focus on historical Chinese art and culture. In “The Buddha’s Finger Bones at Famensi and the Art of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism,” Robert H. Sharf argues that the “finger bone” relics of the Buddha, discovered in 1987 in a crypt beneath the Famensi (Dharma Gate Monastery) in Shaanxi Province, China, could be considered as “art.” For her contribution, Jeehee Hong examines the peddler as a skeletal puppeteer in Li Song’s thirteenth-century painting, The Skeletons’ Illusory Performance, to unveil a midimperial Chinese visual commentary on the relations among performance, the everyday world, and death.
In the Reviews section, Robert S. Nelson surveys several books on art, architecture, and urbanism in the Turkish capital from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, including Shirine Hamadeh’s The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century and Murat Gül’s The Emergence of Modern Istanbul. Stephen J. Campbell examines the understudied field of Renaissance portrait medals through a recent book and a two-volume catalogue, while Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom consider the implications of Finbarr Barry Flood’s Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter, a book about the material culture of the region from western Afghanistan to northern India from the eighth to the thirteenth century. Last, Kirk Ambrose reviews the English translation of Friedrich Kittler’s Optical Media: Berlin Lectures 1999, a theoretical study of visuality and technology that considers such topics as Renaissance perspective, photography, film, and television, and the computer.
Please read the full table of contents for more details. The next issue, to be published in June 2011, will feature essays on Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Edgar Degas, and Philip Guston.
CAA Salutes Donors in the Acknowledgments Section
posted Mar 14, 2011
Membership fees cover less than half of CAA’s operating costs; thus voluntary contributions from members significantly help to make possible the wide range of programs and services that the organization offers. In a new website section called Acknowledgments, CAA recognizes the distinguished contributors for each of the following:
- The Centennial Campaign celebrates CAA’s one hundredth anniversary, a celebratory landmark for any organization but particularly so given the organization’s dynamic influence in shaping the study and practice of the visual arts
- The Annual Campaign helps CAA maintain affordable membership dues and Annual Conference fees, implement its myriad programs and publications, and serve the international community of professionals in the visual arts
- The Donors Circle of Patron, Sponsoring, and Sustaining Members includes individuals who contribute to CAA above and beyond their regular dues
- Life Members are individuals who make one-time payments of $5,000 and remain active CAA members for life
- The Art Bulletin Publication Fund supports the production of CAA’s preeminent scholarly journal covering all areas and periods of art history
- The Art Journal Publication Fund supports the production of CAA’s cutting-edge quarterly of contemporary art and ideas
- The caa.reviews Publication Fund supports the production of CAA’s online journal devoted to critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies
- The Annual Conference Travel Grants help cover expenses for graduate students in art history and studio art, and for international artists and scholars, who attend the CAA Annual Conference
CAA offers additional ways to contribute to the organization. Through Planned Giving, you can include CAA in your will. You can also purchase Benefit Prints by the artists Willie Cole and Buzz Spector or a collection of Art Journal Artists’ Projects by Barbara Bloom, Clifton Meador, Mary Lum, and William Pope.L. For general inquiries on CAA’s campaigns and funds, please contact Sara Hines, CAA development and marketing manager, at 212-691-1051, ext. 216.
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for March 2011
posted Mar 10, 2011
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts selects the best in feminist art and scholarship. The following artists’ conversation and three exhibitions should not be missed. Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
March 2011
Margarita Cabrera, contents of Backpack (Green), 2006, vinyl, thread, fabric, and mixed media, 16 x 13 x 4 in. (artwork © Margarita Cabrera; photograph provided by the artist, Walter Maciel Gallery, and the Sweeney Art Gallery)
Margarita Cabrera: Pulso y Martillo (Pulse and Hammer)
Sweeney Art Gallery
Culver Center of the Arts, University of California, Riverside, 3834 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92501
February 5–April 2, 2011
For years, Margarita Cabrera has worked on a number of collaborative projects that combine contemporary art practices, indigenous Mexican folk art and craft traditions, and relations between the United States and Mexico. These projects have actively investigated the creation of fair working conditions and the protection of immigrant rights. This exhibition includes a survey of past works from 2003 to 2008; a performance, called Florezca Board of Directors: Performance; and a new installation, Pulse and Hammer.
Taking place on Saturday, March 5, Florezca Board of Directors: Performance will be the first meeting of the “leaders” of Florezca Inc., a multinational corporation founded by Cabrera for undocumented people in the US. Consisting of Cabrera, students, and others, the performance will mix rehearsed statements with improvisation. Also a collaboration with Juan Felipe Herrera, a creative-writing professor at Riverside, Florezca Board of Directors: Performance is part of daylong series of events exploring issues around the border, undocumented workers, and a maquiladora-based economy.
For Pulse and Hammer, Cabrera will install approximately one thousand copper butterflies in Culver Center’s North Atrium Gallery, creating a swarmlike environment that represents the manic transformation of the Mexican economy.
Yoko Ono and Kara Walker in Conversation
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019
March 8, 2011
In conjunction with the exhibition Contemporary Art from the Collection, the artists Yoko Ono and Kara Walker will discuss their art and how social, political, and gender issues inform their work. Glenn Lowry, director of the museum, will moderate the conversation, which takes place on Tuesday, March 8, at 6:30 PM.
Maira Kalman and Rick Meyerowitz’s cover of the New Yorker
Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)
Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
March 11–July 31, 2011
The illustrator, author, and designer Maira Kalma is perhaps best known for the cartoon map of New York City that she created with Rick Meyerowitz for a New Yorker cover from December 10, 2001. Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, this retrospective exhibition includes works on paper from a thirty-year period and highlights lesser-known photographs, textiles, and performances.
Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
2 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128
March 18–June 5, 2011
With her husband Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay founded the early-twentieth-century movement, Orphism. This exhibition focuses on her work with fashion and textiles that display the same strong colors and geometric shapes as her paintings. Included are designs from her fashion line, Atelier Simultané, created in Paris during the 1920s, and textiles she designed in the 1930s for the Metz & Co., a department store in Amsterdam.
CAA Gives Four Centennial Awards at the 2011 Annual Conference
posted Mar 09, 2011
The CAA Board of Directors has selected five extraordinary individuals as the distinguished recipients of CAA’s four Centennial Awards in recognition of the extraordinary time and expertise they have contributed to the visual arts in New York and across the nation. The honorees are:
- Philippe de Montebello, Centennial Award for Leadership
- Agnes Gund, Centennial Award for Service to the Field
- Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, Centennial Award for Patronage
- Stuart E. Eizenstat, Centennial Award for Protecting Art as a Cultural Product
Special guests presenters gave the Centennial Awards during Convocation at the 99th Annual Conference and Centennial Kickoff at the Hilton New York on Wednesday evening, February 9, 2011.
Affiliated Society News for March 2011
posted Mar 09, 2011
American Council for Southern Asian Art
The American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) has elected three new officers. Stephen Markel, curator and head of the South and Southeast Asian Art Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California, is the new president. Serving as vice president will be Deepali Dewan, curator in the Department of World Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum and assistant professor in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto. Last, John Cort, professor in the Department of Religion at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, has become a board member.
Association of Academic Museums and Galleries
The University of Houston will host the 2011 AAMG annual conference. Clockwise from top left: the Blaffer Art Museum, the Moores Opera House, and the Roy G. Cullen Building (photographs provided by the University of Houston)
The Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) will hold its next annual conference, “Who’s Muse? Challenges to the Curatorial Profession in Academic Museums,” on May 21, 2011, at the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum in Texas. Curatorial practices in academic museums and galleries are sometimes highly experimental. Faculty members from a wide variety of fields and with limited curatorial experience periodically recommend and help lead exhibition projects. The organization of exhibitions likewise engages both graduate and undergraduate students, museum-education professionals, librarians, and even area school classes in project leadership roles. Exhibitions thus generated offer unorthodox approaches to curatorial planning and execution. Appropriate to a scholarly mission, they can stretch disciplinary boundaries, cross-fertilize disciplinary methodologies, and generate wholly new paradigms for knowledge. Academic museums and galleries thus become vital centers of original research, interdisciplinary dialogue, and participatory learning. While this democratic and laboratory approach to curatorial practice contributes in significant ways to the groundbreaking research and all-important teaching missions of universities and colleges, it can also challenge conventional standards of the curatorial profession. Through the presentation of outstanding case studies and lively roundtable discussions, the 2011 conference will explore the pros and cons of the broad curatorial approaches found in academic museums and galleries.
Association of Historians of American Art
The Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) seeks to sponsor a scholarly session for CAA’s 2013 Annual Conference in New York. The scholarly session, lasting two-and-half hours and part of the regular conference program, tends to be similar to the type of sessions generally held at CAA, although sometimes more topical issues are addressed. Please read the submission guidelines and send your session proposal by April 1, 2011, for notification by June 1.
Foundations in Art: Theory and Education
Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) and the Mid-America College Art Association, another CAA affiliated society, will present a joint conference, called “ON STREAM,” at the Ball Park Hilton in St. Louis, Missouri. Taking place March 30–April 2, 2011, the conference will explore how artists and teachers develop and foster creativity in the second decade of the third millennium. For more details, visit the FATE website or contact Jeff Boshart, conference coordinator.
Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture
The Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture (HECAA) congratulate the recipients of the Mary Vidal Memorial Fund for graduate student travel. Georgina Cole, a PhD student at the University of Sydney in Australia, will present a paper, “Eavesdropping: Rethinking Space and Subjectivity in the Eighteenth Century,” at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, The second recipient, Susan Wager, a doctoral student at Columbia University in New York, presented a paper, “Madame de Pompadour’s Indiscreet Jewels: Boucher, Reproduction, and Luxury in Eighteenth-Century France,” at CAA’s 2011 Annual Conference in New York.
Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture
The Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture (HGCEAA) have announced the results of its recent board election: Marsha Morton is president; Rose-Carol Washton Long is treasurer; Eva Forgacs is secretary; Emily Pugh is newsletter editor; and Jay Clark, James van Dyke, Keith Holz, and Juliet Koss are at-large board members.
Historians of Netherlandish Art
Jan van Eyck, Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine and Michael and a Donor (the Dresden or Giustiniani Triptych), 1437, oil on oak panel, 33.1 x 27.5 cm (center), 33.3 x 13.6 cm (wings) (artwork in the public domain)
The Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) have published the Winter 2011 issue of its open-access, online peer-reviewed, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, which features articles by Noëlle L. W. Streeton on Jan van Eyck, Jürgen Müller on Albrecht Dürer, Stephanie Porras on peasant imagery, and Alexandra Onuf on Claesz Visscher’s landscape prints.
The HNA Fellowship for Scholarly Research, Publication, and Travel for 2011 has been awarded to Christopher D. M. Atkins of Queen’s College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, for his book Frans Hals’s Signature Style: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity (forthcoming from Amsterdam University Press).
Italian Art Society
The Italian Art Society (IAS) has selected Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, to present the 2011 Italian Art Society–Kress Foundation Lecture. Her talk, entitled “The Wake of Desiderio: His Impact on Sculpture of the Late Quattrocento,” will take place at the historic Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence at 4:00 PM on June 8, 2011.
Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Science, and Technology
Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Science, and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) has partnered with the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences to present DC Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER), a monthly discussion forum on art and science projects in or near Washington, DC. Historically, the artist has communicated, educated, and preserved the ideas of science. But how does the creative processes of artists inform the work of scientists, engineers, physicians, and experts from other disciplines? Each DASER will feature presentations by such practitioners along with time for discussion and socializing. The monthly series began on February 16 at the Keck Center in Washington, DC. The next events take place on March 16 and April 21.
National Council of Arts Administrators
The National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA) has announced the names and affiliations of its 2011 board officers and members. Officers for the coming year are: Carolyn Henne, Florida State University, Executive Director; Jim Hopfensperger, Western Michigan University, President; Cora Lynn Diebler, University of Connecticut, Secretary; Andrea Eis, Oakland University, Treasurer. Board members for 2011 are: John Kissick, University of Guelph; Sally McRorie, Florida State University; Kim Russo, Ringling College of Art and Design; Sergio Soave, Ohio State University; and Georgia Strange, University of Georgia.
The next NCAA annual meeting, entitled “Push: The Artistic Engine of Innovation,” will take place November 2–5, 2011, at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. The NCAA board seeks proposals for presentations, sessions, and/or panels for the annual Arts Administrators Workshops, scheduled for Wednesday, November 2. Initial proposals should be no more than 350 words. Topics may include but are not limited to: leadership and management; promotion and tenure; interpersonal communication; succeeding with external constituencies; budget management; personnel evaluation; personal growth; career paths; and case studies (in any area related to arts administration). Please send proposals and inquiries to Sergio Soave by May 16, 2011. Selected entries will be asked to submit a 1,000-word abstract by June 20. The NCAA board will formally acknowledge the presenters, whose names will be posted to the NCAA website.
Society for Photographic Education
The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) seeks proposals for its forty-ninth national conference, called “Intimacy and Voyeurism: The Public/Private Divide in Photography” and taking place March 22–25, 2012, in San Francisco, California. Topics, which need not be theme based, may include but are not limited to: image making, history, contemporary theory and criticism, new technologies, effects of media and culture, educational issues, and funding. The conference offers six presentation formats: (1) Lecture: presentation on historical topic, theory, or another artist’s work; (2) Imagemaker: presentation on your own artistic work (photography, film, video, performance and installation, multidisciplinary approaches); (3) Panel: a moderator-led group discussing a chosen topic; (4) Demonstration: a how-to presentation; (5) Graduate Student: short presentation of your own artistic work and a brief introduction to your graduate program (you must be enrolled in a graduate program at the time of submission); and (6) Academic Practicum Workshop: lectures and panels that address educational issues. SPE membership is required to submit; proposals are peer reviewed. Visit the SPE website for information on membership and to read the full proposal guidelines. Deadline: June 1, 2011.
Society of Architectural Historians
On March 1, 2010, a multimedia edition of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH Online), led by the editors Hilary Ballon and David Brownlee with the stewardship of the University of California Press, became available to individual members of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH). As part of the Current Scholarship Program at JSTOR, JSAH Online has begun publishing papers that incorporate images, video, and geographic information system (GIS) technologies, enabling readers to engage in new ways and better understand their arguments. SAH has also mounted a campaign to encourage submissions of this kind and is working with other societies in the arts to do the same. Read more on the Resource Shelf blog and view a sample multimedia article in JSAH Online. SAH also offers instructional videos about how to prepare multimedia content for JSAH Online and other internet-based journals.
In addition, SAH will hold its sixty-fourth annual meeting in New Orleans, April 13–17, 2011. The meeting will focus on new research in the history of architecture, landscapes, and urbanism in 150 papers delivered by historians, preservationists, and architects from around the world. Additional offerings at the meeting include evening receptions, networking opportunities, and a vast array of architecture and landscape tours of the city and region. This year, SAH will offer attendees the opportunity to perform community service at the Priestly School, a charter high school devoted to architecture and the arts.
Southeastern College Art Conference
The Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) will hold its sixty-seventh annual meeting at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Georgia this fall. Taking place November 9–12, 201, the conference theme is “Text + Texture: an intersection of academics and the arts.” The conference headquarters will be the DeSoto Hilton Hotel, located in the heart of historic Savannah. Featuring extensive panels and sessions for the exchange of ideas and concerns relevant to the practice and study of art, the conference will include the annual awards luncheon and the fourteenth annual members’ exhibition, as well as offer a rich array of tours, workshops, and evening events. Dan Cameron, founding director of Prospect New Orleans, will present a plenary address and jury the SECAC members’ exhibition, to be held at one of SCAD’s premier venues.
The conference website offers PDFs of both the call for papers and the call for entries. Please download and review the documents and follow the instructions for proposals on the website. The deadline for papers is April 20; the deadline for entries is April 1. For more information, write to secac@secollegeart.org or secac2011@scad.edu. All are welcome to SECAC membership, which is required for exhibitors.
Southern Graphics Council International
For a panel called “Coaction: Innovative Printmaking Collaborations” for the 2012 CAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles, the Southern Graphics Council International (SGCI) invites proposals from artists, curators, and historians who have participated in or have written about innovative community print projects that contribute to social change, the environment, communications, and technology. Historically, printmakers are artists who enjoy the sense of community that a print shop creates by sharing their images, ideas, and techniques. They also produce multiples, thus increasing their reach to individuals outside their immediate community in the practice of exchanging prints. The use of the multiple, the shared history of fine art printmaking with commercial graphics, and the need for printmakers to share equipment and expertise have encouraged the propagation of community print projects—many that have redefined the role of printmaking as a vehicle for social innovation. This panel focuses on printmaking collaborations that extend beyond the traditional print exchange or work that is done in the print shop, hence examining partnerships between printmakers and the communities they live in; the impact that collaborations have in these communities; and the innovations in printmaking that have resulted. Please email your proposal—which must include a one-page abstract; 1–4 JPEGs of referenced images (no more than 1.5 MB each); and short CV—to Candace Nicol. Deadline: May 1, 2011.
Visual Resources Association
The Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress, in partnership with the Visual Resources Association (VRA), is now hosting the VRA Core, a data standard for descriptions of works of visual culture and images that document them. VRA has also published user support materials, such as VRA Core examples, FAQs, and presentations.
VRA’s Data Standards Committee formed the Embedded Metadata Working Group (EMwg) to explore use of embedded metadata in images of artworks and other cultural resources. EMwg is developing guidelines and tools to make embedded metadata easy to create and use. The group’s first product is a free custom File Info Panel (beta) for use with Photoshop and Bridge in Adobe’s Creative Suites 4 and 5. This panel allows users—including students, faculty, and image-collection assistants—to enter rich descriptive metadata that can then be ingested into a database or used on a local computer to find and organize images. You can download the info panel and user guide, which contain instructions for installing and using the panel.
Winter Deaths in the Arts
posted Mar 08, 2011
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, critics, architects, museum directors, collectors, and other men and women whose work has had a significant impact on the visual arts.
- Maria Altmann, a woman who pursued the restitution of her family’s Gustav Klimt paintings from the Austrian government, died on February 7, 2011, at the age of 94
- Françoise Cachin, a French curator and art historian who specialized in Impressionism and Postimpressionism, died on February 4, 2011, at age 74. She helped found the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and also served as its director when it opened in 1986
- Vlassis Caniaris, an artist based in Athens, Greece, whose work was exhibited across Europe, died in March 2011 at the age of 83. He also served as chair of architecture at the National Technical University in Greece for twenty years
- Robert J. Clark, a longtime professor of art and archaeology at Princeton University and curator of the influential 1972 exhibition The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1876–1916, died on January 4, 2011. He was 73
- Edmund de Unger, a Hungarian-born businessman who developed property London and owned a major collection of Islamic fine and decorative art, died on January 25, 2011. He was 92
- B. H. Friedman, a novelist and the author of the biography Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible (1972) who started his career in real estate, died on January 4, 2011. He was 84
- Oleg Grabar, a renowned historian of Islamic art and architecture and professor emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies, died on January 8, 2011, at age 81. Grabar won CAA’s Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art in 2005, among other others
- Ida Kay Greathouse, director of the Frye Art Museum in Seattle from 1966 to 1993, died on January 6, 2011. She was 105 years old
- Roy Gussow, an abstract sculptor based in New York whose large public works in stainless steel can be seen across the United States, died on February 11, 2011. He was 92
- John Keefe, a curator of decorative arts at the New Orleans Museum of Art in Louisiana since 1983, died on January 31, 2011, at the age of 69. He had organized exhibitions on antique glass, Wedgwood china, Fabergé eggs, and perfume bottles
- Donald Locke, a Guyanese-born British artist who had settled in Atlanta, Georgia, died on December 6, 2010, at the age of 80. He was known for his work in diverse media, including drawing, painting, ceramics, and sculpture
- Loretta Lorance, an architectural historian at the School of Visual Arts who wrote Becoming Bucky Fuller (2009), died on February 26, 2011. She had worked briefly for CAA in 2001 as a book cataloguer while completing her doctorate at the Graduate Center
- Tom Lubbock, a British artist and the chief art critic for the Independent and Independent on Sunday, died on January 9, 2011, at the age of 53
- Alfred K. Moir, a specialist in Italian Baroque art and professor of art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, died on November 13, 2010. Born in 1924, Moir was instrumental in the growth of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
- Malangatana Ngwenya, a celebrated African artist and political activist from Mozambique who served in his country’s parliament from 1990 to 1994, died on January 5, 2011. He was 74
- Dennis Oppenheim, an artist whose pioneering work in land, video, body, performance, and installation art in the 1960s and 1970s pushed aesthetic boundaries, died on January 22, 2011, at age 72. In his last fifteen years he had actively pursued outdoor sculpture and public commissions
- Charles O. Perry, an American sculptor trained as an architect whose public works were inspired by mathematics, died on February 8, 2011, at the age of 81. He won the Prix de Rome in 1964 and stayed in Italy for fourteen years to pursue art and architecture
- Milton Rogovin, a socially motivated photographer who documented the lower classes in his adopted hometown of Buffalo, New York, and across the United States, died on January 18, 2011. He was 101
- Paul Soldner, a ceramicist who emerged in California in the 1960s with Peter Voulkos, Ken Price, and John Mason, died on January 3, 2011, at the age of 89. A teacher at Scripps College for many years, he invented a pottery technique called American raku
- David Sorensen, a painter and sculptor based in Montreal who taught at Bishop’s University for nearly twenty years, died on February 17, 2011. He was 73
- Brian Stewart, an unorthodox English curator and the director of the Falmouth Art Gallery in Cornwall, died on December 12, 2010, at age 57. He authored The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain up to 1920 (1997) with Mervyn Cutten and wrote twenty more books on his own
- Ellen Stewart, the founder and artistic director of La MaMA Experimental Theater Club, a landmark venue for progressive theater and performance art in New York, died on January 13, 2011. She was about 91 years old
- Edgar Tafel, an architect who had trained with Frank Lloyd Wright, died on January 18, 2011, at the age of 98. The last surviving member of the Taliesin Fellowship, which first met in 1932, Tafel worked on his own projects across the state of New York and beyond
- Alan Uglow, an British-born, New York–based artist and musician whose work in abstract painting, installation, and photography inspired younger New York artists, died on January 20, 2011. He was 69 years old
- Don Van Vliet, a painter, rock musician, and avant-garde composer best known as Captain Beefheart, died on December 17, 2010, at age 69. He had retired from music in the early 1980s to concentrate on his abstract painting
- Doyald Young, a graphic designer, a logotype developer, and a professor at Art Center College of Design for thirty years, died on February 28, 2011, at age 84. His books include Logotypes and Letterforms (1993), Fonts and Logos (1999), and Dangerous Curves (2008)
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
New Members Join CAA’s Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committees
posted Mar 07, 2011
CAA’s nine Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committees have welcomed their newly appointed members, who will serve three-year terms, 2011–14. In addition, seven new chairs have taken over committee leadership. New committee members and chairs began their terms last month at the 2011 Annual Conference in New York.
A call for nominations to serve on 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 nominations in December and make appointments that take effect the following February.
New Committee Members
Committee on Diversity Practices: Julie Levin Caro, Colby College; Yasmin Ramirez, Hunter College, City University of New York; Jordana Moore Saggese, California College of the Arts; and Jacqueline Taylor, University of Virginia. Kevin Concannon of the University of Akron takes over as chair from Renée Ater of the University of Maryland, College Park.
Committee on Intellectual Property: Benjamin Binstock, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; and Charlotte Frost, Writtle School of Design. Doralynn Pines, formerly of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (retired), and Christine Sundt of Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation will share chair duties, succeeding Kenneth Cavalier, a lawyer based in British Columbia.
Committee on Women in the Arts: Wanda Ewing, University of Nebraska; Donna Moran, Pratt Institute; and Claudia Sbrissa, St. John’s University. Taking over the position of chair from Diane Burko, professor emerita at Philadelphia Community College, is Maria Elena Buszek of the University of Colorado, Denver.
Education Committee: Wayne (Mick) Charney, Kansas State University; Linda Cirocco, Savannah College of Art and Design; Joan Giroux, Columbia College Chicago; James Haywood Rolling, Syracuse University; and Julia Sienkewicz, Auburn University, Montgomery. Rosanne Gibel of the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale succeeds Richard Tichich of Western Carolina University as chair.
International Committee: Kathryn Brown, Tilburg University; Diane Derr, Virginia Commonwealth University; Gwen Farrelly, Museum of Modern Art; and Geraldine A. Johnson, University of Oxford. Jennifer Milam of the University of Sydney remains the committee chair.
Museum Committee: Helen Burnham, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Christa Clarke, Newark Museum; Briley Rasmussen, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and N. Elizabeth Schlatter, University of Richmond Museum. Karol Ann Lawson of Sweet Briar College assumes chair duties from Jay Clarke of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
Professional Practices Committee: Dana B. Clancy, Boston University; Anne McClanan, Portland State University; and Robert Tynes, University of North Carolina, Asheville. Charles Wright of Western Illinois University will continue to serve as chair.
Services to Artists Committee: Sharon L. Butler, Eastern Connecticut State University; Conrad Gleber, La Salle University; Micol Hebron, Chapman University; Julia Morrisroe, University of Florida; and Timothy Nolan, independent artist, Los Angeles. Jackie Apple of Art Center College of Design follows Brian Bishop of Framingham State University as chair.
Student and Emerging Professionals Committee: Hazel Antaramian-Hofman, California State University, Fresno; Steven Bleicher, Coastal Carolina University; Deborah Karpman, University of Montevallo; David Lindsay, Texas Tech University; and Laurel O. Peterson, Yale University. Jennifer Stoneking-Stewart of Lander University succeeds Hilary Batzel of Women’s Studio Workshop as chair.
March Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted Mar 04, 2011
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
One CWA Pick for March 2011 is a conversation between the artists Yoko Ono and Kara Walker at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, taking place on Tuesday evening, March 8. Another selection is an exhibition at the University of California, Riverside, called Margarita Cabrera: Pulso y Martillo (Pulse and Hammer). On Saturday, March 5, the artist will present Florezca Board of Directors: Performance with Riverside students and faculty. The March picks also include two exhibitions in New York: Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) at the Jewish Museum and Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Margarita Cabrera, Black Toaster, 2003, vinyl, thread, and appliance parts, 10 x 7 x 10 in. (artwork © Margarita Cabrera; photograph provided by the artist, Walter Maciel Gallery, and the Sweeney Art Gallery)
The Modern Art Iraq Archive Offers New Hope for Lost Works of Modern Art from Iraq
posted Mar 04, 2011
The newly created Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA) is part of a long-term effort to document and preserve the modern artistic works from the Iraqi Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, most of which were lost and damaged in the fires and looting during the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003. As the site shows, little is known about many works, including their current whereabouts and their original location in the museum. The lack of documents about modern Iraqi art prompted the growth of the project to include supporting text. The site makes the works of art available as an open-access database in order to raise public awareness of the many lost works and to encourage interested individuals help document the museum’s original and/or lost holdings.
The MAIA site is the culmination of seven years of work by its project director, Nada Shabout, professor of art history and director of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute at the University of North Texas in Denton. Since 2003, Shabout has been collecting information on the lost works through intensive research, interviews with artists, museum personnel, and art-gallery owners. Shabout received two fellowships from the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq, in 2006 and 2007, to conduct the first phase of data collection. In 2009, she teamed with colleagues at the Alexandria Archive Institute, a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to opening global cultural heritage for research, education, and creative works. The team won a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create a comprehensive archive of works once housed in museum’s galleries. These significant national treasures are displayed in an format that invites worldwide use, including the Iraqi national and expatriate communities. Users are encouraged to help identify and further document individual pieces.
MAIA aims to map the development of modern art in Iraq during the twentieth century and be a research tool to scholars, students, authorities, and the general public. It also strives to raise awareness of the rich modern heritage of Iraq. Furthermore, the creation of an authoritative, public inventory of the collection will not only act as a reminder of its cultural value and thus hopefully hasten its return, but it will also help combat smuggling and black-market dealings of the works.