CAA News Today
National Arts Index Results Released
posted Jan 22, 2010
In 2008 the National Arts Index fell 4.2 points to a score of 98.4, reveals Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit arts group. This means, among other things, that charitable giving and attendance at larger cultural institutions have declined, even as the number of artists and arts-related businesses grew.
Other findings from the index tell us that nonprofit arts organizations expanded from 73,000 to 104,000 between 1998 and 2008, but a third of them failed to balance their budgets. Also, demand for the arts has been mixed. Although millions of Americans attended concerts, plays, and museum exhibitions last year, the overall percentage of those who participate in such activities, compared to the total population, is decreasing. The good news is that those who create art, whether that’s making music, taking photographs, or drawing, is up. The demand for arts education is also strong.
Those involved in the National Arts Index herald its usefulness in shaping the future of the arts in the United States. “As with key business measures like the Dow or the GDP, we now have a way to measure the health of the arts in America,” said Albert Chao, a member of the Business Committee for the Arts, a business leadership program of Americans for the Arts. To that end, the Kresge Foundation has awarded a $1.2 million grant to Americans for the Arts to support that vision.
Read more about the index on the PR Newswire. The Americans for the Arts website has more detailed information, as well as PDF downloads of a detailed summary and the full report. There is also discussion and opinions on the organization’s blog.
NEA Chairman Announces New Arts Grant for Cities
posted Jan 22, 2010
On January 21, 2010, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman gave a policy address at the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors. In his speech, he addressed the role of smart design and artists and arts organizations as place-makers and announced the NEA Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative. This funding program builds on the accomplishments of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD) over its twenty-five-year history and reflects the program’s tenets of transforming communities through design.
Landesman said, “Artists are entrepreneurs, small businessmen all, great place-makers and community builders. Bring artists into the center of town and that town changes profoundly. We know now that people do not migrate to businesses. It is businesses that will move to where they can find a skilled, motivated, educated workforce. And what does that workforce look for? In survey after survey, the answer is education and culture.”
“Mayors understand that the arts mean business,” stated Conference of Mayors President Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz. “The nonprofit arts sector alone generates over $166 billion annually in economic activity. An important element to making our cities places to attract and grow businesses, tourism, and jobs is for a community to maintain good urban design. The initiatives announced today by Chairman Landesman will help mayors to implement projects and programs locally to ensure that their communities maintain design standards that will promote business and jobs.”
Application to MICD 25 is open to the six hundred cities (or their designees) that have participated in the MICD since 1986 or are committed to participate in an institute in 2010. All phases of a project—planning, development, design, implementation, and related innovative arts activities—are eligible for support. The NEA encourages partnerships which can further the success of MICD projects, especially when involving public and private sector resources.
The NEA anticipates awarding up to fifteen grants ranging from $25,000 to $250,000. Guidelines and application materials are now available on the NEA website.
Since its inception in 1986, more than eight hundred mayors from six hundred cities—from small town to metropolises—have participated in a MICD session. These mayors learn that through design and the engagement of arts and cultural activities, communities experience a celebration of place that can have a powerful impact on community sustainability and vitality. This place-making is accomplished by providing opportunities for creativity, building social networks, facilitating connections across geographic boundaries, and serving as magnets for attracting a vibrant workforce.
Please see Landesman’s complete speech.
National Arts Index Results Released
posted Jan 22, 2010
In 2008 the National Arts Index fell 4.2 points to a score of 98.4, reveals Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit arts group. This means, among other things, that charitable giving and attendance at larger cultural institutions have declined, even as the number of artists and arts-related businesses grew.
Other findings from the index tell us that nonprofit arts organizations expanded from 73,000 to 104,000 between 1998 and 2008, but a third of them failed to balance their budgets. Also, demand for the arts has been mixed. Although millions of Americans attended concerts, plays, and museum exhibitions last year, the overall percentage of those who participate in such activities, compared to the total population, is decreasing. The good news is that those who create art, whether that’s making music, taking photographs, or drawing, is up. The demand for arts education is also strong.
Those involved in the National Arts Index herald its usefulness in shaping the future of the arts in the United States. “As with key business measures like the Dow or the GDP, we now have a way to measure the health of the arts in America,” said Albert Chao, a member of the Business Committee for the Arts, a business leadership program of Americans for the Arts. To that end, the Kresge Foundation has awarded a $1.2 million grant to Americans for the Arts to support that vision.
Read more about the index on the PR Newswire. The Americans for the Arts website has more detailed information, as well as PDF downloads of a detailed summary and the full report. There is also discussion and opinions on the organization’s blog.
Opt-Out Deadline for Google Book Settlement Approaching
posted Jan 20, 2010
Following the submission of the amended Google Book Settlement in November 2009, the deadline for opting out was extended. The new deadline is January 28, 2010 (postmarked or submitted online on or before that date).
Those who had not opted out of the settlement may still do so, and those who had opted out may now opt in, if they so wish. If you wish to maintain your previous status, you need not do anything. (Under a class-action settlement, all class members remain in the class unless they opt out.)
Opt-out forms (to mail in) and instructions for opting out online are available at the settlement website. You may also read the settlement FAQ for more information.
US State Department Ends Ban on Muslim Academics
posted Jan 20, 2010
Today the US State Department announced the removal of a ban on two foreign Muslim scholars, Adam Habib from South Africa and Tariq Ramadan of Switzerland, from entry into the United States. The American Association of University Professors and the American Civil Liberties Union, among other groups, had lobbied for several years to allow Habib and Ramadan into the country for various activities, including a position at the University of Notre Dame for the latter.
Peter Schmidt of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which has the full story, writes: “Secretary Clinton’s orders did not tackle the broader question of whether the Obama administration planned to end ‘ideological exclusion,’ the controversial practice, adopted by the federal government after the 2001 terrorist attacks, of denying visas to intellectuals based on their viewpoints.”
Woman’s Art Journal Focuses on Paula Modersohn-Becker
posted Jan 20, 2010
The first American anthology of writings on the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker has just been published by Woman’s Art Journal (Fall/Winter 2009) in an issue devoted to the artist.
Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) was a German painter who worked in styles ranging from Postimpressionism to early Expressionism. Influenced by Cézanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh, she is recognized today for her early feminist imagery.
The two lead articles were originally written for the catalogue of the Modersohn-Becker exhibition that was to have opened at the Neue Galerie in 2009 in New York (postponed): Anne Higonnet (Barnard College, Columbia University), “Making Babies, Painting Bodies: Women, Art, and Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Productivity”; Diane Radycki (Moravian College), “Pictures of Flesh: Modersohn-Becker and the Nude.”
The three following articles were first presented as talks at the 2009 CAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles. The session, chaired by Radycki, was called “Paula Modersohn-Becker: Art, Risk, Fame”:Rainer Stamm (Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum), “Paula Modersohn-Becker and the Body in Art”; Monica Strauss (author of Cruel Banquet: The Life and Loves of Frida Strindberg), “Helen Serger’s Galerie La Boetie: Paula Modersohn-Becker on Madison Avenue”; Michelle Vangen (Graduate Center, City University of New York), “Left and Right: Politics and Images of Motherhood in Weimar Germany.”
Published semiannually—May and November—since 1980, Woman’s Art Journal continues to represent the interests of women and art worldwide. Articles and reviews cover all areas of women in the visual arts, from antiquity to the present day.
Image: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Self-Portrait (Semi-Nude with Amber Necklace and Flowers II), 1906, oil on canvas, 61 x 50 cm (artwork in the public domain)
First Issue of a New Journal on Art Historiography Published
posted Jan 20, 2010
On New Year’s Eve, the first issue of the Journal of Art Historiography was published online. This peer-reviewed open-access ejournal, published in June and December of each year, is devoted exclusively to the study of the practice of art-historical writing. Supported by the Institute for Art History at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, the journal has a distinguished editorial advisory board drawn from a broad range of specialist areas. Richard Woodfield, senior honorary research fellow at the University of Glasgow, is the editor.
The central purpose of the Journal of Art Historiography is to understand why the history of art gets written in the way that it does. How has it taken shape as a discipline? What are the grounds of its inclusions and exclusions? What are its modes of writing? How does it relate to and intersect with other disciplines?
Though the journal has much wider ambitions, the first issue reflects its editor’s preoccupation with German and Viennese art historiography and is dedicated to the memory of Ernst Gombrich. Already, though, it has material on the debates surrounding the emergence of Australian Aboriginal art as contemporary artistic practice, the role of the journal Zodiaque in the promotion of notions of French Romanesque art, and the reception of Aby Warburg’s work in Argentina.
There are also translations of Julius von Schlosser’s famous account of the Vienna School, along with Moriz Thausing’s pronouncements on the objective study of art history. Studies on Fritz Novotny, Max Dvořák, Alois Riegl, Michael Baxandall, Fritz Saxl, John Shearman, and John White have been published as well.
The next issue, due in June this year, is already extending its scope to cover Indian and Chinese art, Baltic and Polish art history, classical archaeology, and more.
The Journal of Art Historiography welcomes contributions from young and established scholars and is aimed at building an expanded audience for what has hitherto been a much-specialized field of investigation.
Museums Advocacy Day Takes Place in March
posted Jan 19, 2010
The American Association of Museums (AAM) is organizing Museums Advocacy Day 2010, taking place March 22–23 in Washington, DC, and CAA invites your participation. This event is your chance to receive advocacy and policy training and then take the case to Capitol Hill alongside fellow advocates from your state and congressional district.
AAM is working with sponsoring organizations, which include CAA, to develop the legislative agenda for this year’s event. Likely issues will include federal funding for museums, museums and federal education policy, and charitable giving issues affecting museums.
The entire museum field is welcome to participate: staff, volunteers, trustees, students, or even museum enthusiasts. Museums Advocacy Day is the ideal chance for new and seasoned advocates to network with museum professionals from their state and meet with congressional offices.
Registration
Individual museum professionals, supporters, and trustees may register online. National, regional, and state organizations that would like to register as partnering organizations and individuals who prefer to complete a paper registration may use the Museums Advocacy Day 2010 Registration Form.
Participants are asked to cover the cost of their meals and materials: $75. This amount includes: two breakfasts, one lunch, one evening reception, and all training materials and supplies. Deadline: February 17, 2010.
The event hotel is the Doubletree Hotel Crystal City, 300 Army Navy Drive, Arlington, VA 22202. The Museums Advocacy Day rate is $209, available until February 15 or until sold out. Call 800-222-TREE and reference Museums Advocacy Day or the three-letter reservation code AVD, or reserve a room online and used the group code AVD.
Tentative Schedule
March 22 will be a critical day of advocacy and policy training, to be held at the National Building Museum, featuring:
- A briefing on the museum field’s legislative agenda
- Tips on meeting with elected officials and the stats you need to make your case
- Instruction on how to participate in year-round advocacy and engage your elected officials in the ongoing work of your museum
- Networking with advocates from your state on the following day’s Capitol Hill visits
- An evening reception, with members of Congress and staff invited
On March 23, we will take our message to Capitol Hill. Advocates will gather in groups by state and congressional districts to make coordinated visits to House and Senate offices to make the case for increased federal support for museums.
Museums Advocacy Day Takes Place in March
posted Jan 19, 2010
The American Association of Museums (AAM) is organizing Museums Advocacy Day 2010, taking place March 22–23 in Washington, DC, and CAA invites your participation. This event is your chance to receive advocacy and policy training and then take the case to Capitol Hill alongside fellow advocates from your state and congressional district.
AAM is working with sponsoring organizations, which include CAA, to develop the legislative agenda for this year’s event. Likely issues will include federal funding for museums, museums and federal education policy, and charitable giving issues affecting museums.
The entire museum field is welcome to participate: staff, volunteers, trustees, students, or even museum enthusiasts. Museums Advocacy Day is the ideal chance for new and seasoned advocates to network with museum professionals from their state and meet with congressional offices.
Registration
Individual museum professionals, supporters, and trustees may register online. National, regional, and state organizations that would like to register as partnering organizations and individuals who prefer to complete a paper registration may use the Museums Advocacy Day 2010 Registration Form.
Participants are asked to cover the cost of their meals and materials: $75. This amount includes: two breakfasts, one lunch, one evening reception, and all training materials and supplies.
We are currently arranging affordable hotel options for participants. Please check back for updated information in the coming weeks about participating hotels.
Tentative Schedule
March 22 will be a critical day of advocacy and policy training, to be held at the National Building Museum, featuring:
- A briefing on the museum field’s legislative agenda
- Tips on meeting with elected officials and the stats you need to make your case
- Instruction on how to participate in year-round advocacy and engage your elected officials in the ongoing work of your museum
- Networking with advocates from your state on the following day’s Capitol Hill visits
- An evening reception, with members of Congress and staff invited
On March 23, we will take our message to Capitol Hill. Advocates will gather in groups by state and congressional districts to make coordinated visits to House and Senate offices to make the case for increased federal support for museums.
CAA Seeks Career-Development Volunteers for Mock Interview Session
posted Jan 14, 2010
CAA’s Student and Emerging Professionals Committee seeks volunteers for a series of mock fifteen-minute interviews at the 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago. If you are a seasoned professional and are interested in helping a younger colleague hone his or her interview technique, please contact the session moderator, Daniel Larkin of Friends of Materials for the Arts.
The practice interviews, which allow participants to practice their elevator speech and keep listening skills sharp during a face-to-face interview, will be held between 1:00 and 4:00 PM on Thursday, February 11, in the Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.