CAA News Today
New in caa.reviews
posted Jul 12, 2019
Kelli Wood reviews the V&A exhibition Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Amalia Ramírez Garayzar discusses Jennifer Jolly’s Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building under Lázaro Cárdenas. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Oscar E. Vázquez writes about The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States by Edward J. Sullivan. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jul 10, 2019
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Frank Bowling, Elder Sun Benjamin (2018), recently purchased by SFMOMA. Courtesy of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Katherine Du Tiel, via artnet News
SFMOMA Sold a Rothko for $50 Million to Diversify Its Collection. Here’s What They Bought With the Proceeds
Work by Alma Thomas, Lygia Clark, and Mickalene Thomas are among the new additions to the museum’s collection. (artnet News)
Blindsided by a ‘Devastating’ Veto, Alaska’s University System Pleads for a Lifeline
The University of Alaska system—which serves more than 26,000 students—is bracing for a 41% funding cut after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a $130 million line item in the state’s budget. (New York Times)
Rethinking the “Bigger Is Better” Museum Model
Is it possible to rethink the “grow or die” museum mentality of the 1990s and 2000s? (Hyperallergic)
State of Massachusetts Investigates Reported Racism at the MFA Boston
The Civil Rights division of the Massachusetts attorney general’s office is now investigating. (The Art Newspaper)
Opinion: San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History
Last week, the San Francisco school board decided the thirteen murals that make up “The Life of Washington” will be destroyed. (New York Times)
CAA Statement on the Removal of WPA Murals by Victor Arnautoff
posted Jul 09, 2019
One of thirteen The Life of Washington murals by Victor Arnautoff, George Washington High School, San Francisco. Image courtesy George Washington High School Alumni Association.
On June 25th, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Board of Education voted to destroy an important series of murals by artist Victor Arnautoff, which he painted as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program inside George Washington High School in 1936. The series of 13 murals, entitled The Life of Washington, includes imagery of dead Native Americans and imagery of slaves working at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, which the school board determined was offensive.
CAA opposes the recent ruling by the San Francisco Unified School District and its Board of Education. By voting to destroy the murals, the Board is advancing an agenda of erasing history in order to appease contemporary critics. CAA firmly believes in the preservation of art historical records and works that serve to educate and inform the public. The murals should be viewed as an opportunity to examine history, to ask questions, and to create discussion around ideas, events, and facts that are woven indisputably into American history.
David Raizman
Interim Executive Director
Editor’s note (8/21/19): The views expressed above do not necessarily represent the views of CAA’s membership.
Further reading: San Francisco School Will Cover Controversial George Washington Murals (New York Times)
A Controversial WPA Mural Is a Litmus Test for the Longevity of Public Art (Hyperallergic)
Art Professor Dewey Crumpler Defends Victor Arnautoff’s WPA Murals (National Coalition Against Censorship)
New in caa.reviews
posted Jul 05, 2019
Myriam Pilutti Namer reviews the two-volume book Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles by Elizabeth Angelicoussis. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Trevor Stark discusses the English translation of Sebastian Egenhofer’s Towards an Aesthetics of Production. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Yukiko Kawamoto explores A History of Roman Art by Steven L. Tuck. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jul 03, 2019
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Capitol Building, Arts Advocacy Day 2019. Photo: Joelle Te Paske
US House Passes Funding Bills with Increased Spending for the NEA and NEH
Great news for arts advocacy! On June 25th, the US House rejected the Trump administration’s budget request to eliminate both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities by approving $167.5 million in funding for fiscal year 2020. This is an increase for both agencies of $12.5 million over the 2019 funding level of $155 million. The funding increase matches the 2019 Arts Advocacy Day ask, which CAA participated in. The Senate vote will follow after the July 4th recess. (The Hill)
One Museum’s Complicated Attempt to Repatriate a “Benin Bronze”
The RISD Museum has held a Benin bronze head in its collection for 80 years. “No one would have given it up unless under duress,” the curators say. But tracing its provenance and repatriating is no simple matter. (Hyperallergic)
Art Collector Agnes Gund Signs Letter in Support of Wealth Tax
Agnes Gund is one of 19 multimillionaires and billionaires calling for a wealth tax on the “fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans—on us.” (ARTnews)
British Doctors May Soon Prescribe Art, Music, Dance, Singing Lessons
“Social prescribing” will enable doctors in the UK to prescribe therapeutic art-based treatments. (Smithsonian)
Ten Proposals for a More Ethical Art History: An Undergraduate Perspective
“Higher education institutions seem to spend a lot of time talking about students, talking to students, asking things of students, but not necessarily talking with or listening to students.” (Material Collective)
New in caa.reviews
posted Jun 28, 2019
Marta Zboralska explores the Cooper Hewitt exhibition Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Dario Donetti discusses Peter Fane-Saunders’s Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Elena Tiribilli reviews Pocket Museum: Ancient Egypt by Campbell Price. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jun 26, 2019
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Installation view of 60 Years at Tate Britain. Photo: Naomi Polonsky for Hyperallergic
POWarts Releases the Results of Its Art-World Salary Survey
the nonprofit POWarts recently released the results of its salary survey comparing compensation levels in the visual arts field at for-profit and nonprofit organizations. (POWarts)
Association of Art Museum Directors Calls for End of Unpaid Internships
While the AAMD resolution may be a small measure in the full context of museum operations, it could lead to helpful consequences for workers getting their start. (ARTnews)
Tate Britain Hangs a Diverse Display of Women Artists Out of Its Permanent Collection
The collection of sixty women artists from the museum’s permanent collection tackles the tricky terrain of museum representation. (Hyperallergic)
Survey: The Impact of Negative Supervisory Behaviors on the Graduate Student Experience
Are you a former graduate student who had negative encounters with supervisors during your studies? Share your experience in this anonymous survey about advisor-graduate student relationships. (via Twitter)
Artists Reflect on How Stonewall Changed Art
On Stonewall’s 50th anniversary, artists, writers, and activists share how that moment affected queer life in New York City, and their own creative practices. (Artsy)
New in caa.reviews
posted Jun 21, 2019
Emilie Boone reviews the catalogue I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100, by Wil Haygood, Carole Genshaft, Nannette V. Maciejunes, Anastasia Kinigopoulo, and Drew Sawyer. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Aneta Georgievska-Shine covers the exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Farshid Emami discusses the book Persian Art: Collecting the Arts of Iran for the V&A by Moya Carey. Read the full review at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jun 19, 2019
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Artist Andrea Bowers Apologizes Over Tone-Deaf #MeToo Piece at Art Basel
“While I believe Bowers’s work is well-intentioned, to use women’s names and stories—and in Helen [Donahue]’s case, photographs of her face—without their consent in a work about consent strikes me as irresponsible at best.” – Deirdre Coyle (The Cut)
Hong Kong Pavilion at Venice Biennale Closes Amid Extradition Bill Protests
Artists and cultural workers have been among the most vocal critics of the draft law. (South China Morning Post)
Petition Filed to Create First Union for Guggenheim Museum Staff
The pay scales of workers at prestigious museums are gaining increasing attention. (New York Times)
Fifteen Young LGBTQ Artists Driving Contemporary Art Forward
Fifteen artists share the ideas behind their work and their most recent artistic endeavors. (Artsy)
Tate Britain Hangs a Diverse Display of Women Artists Out of Its Permanent Collection
The collection of sixty women artists from the museum’s permanent collection tackles the tricky terrain of museum representation. (Hyperallergic)
CAA Announces Inaugural Recipients of the Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions
posted Jun 19, 2019
2018 CAA Annual Conference. Photo: Rafael Cardenas
In fall 2018, we announced CAA had received an anonymous gift of $1 million to fund travel for art history faculty and their students to special exhibitions related to their classwork. The generous gift established the Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions.
The jury for the Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions met in May 2019 to select the first group of recipients as part of the gift.
The awardees are:
Catherine Girard, Eastern Washington University
Class: Topics in Art History: Manet Inside Out
Exhibition: Manet and Modern Beauty at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Luis Gordo Peláez, California State University Fresno
Class: Arts of the Colonial Andes
Exhibition: Art & Empire: The Golden Age of Spain at The San Diego Museum of Art
Alison Miller, University of the South
Class: Japanese Print Culture
Exhibition: Yoshitoshi: Spirit and Spectacle at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rachel Stephens, University of Alabama
Class: American Portraiture
Exhibition: Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now at the Birmingham Museum of Art
“We’re delighted to announce the inaugural recipients of the Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions, a groundbreaking CAA program designed specifically to enhance students’ first-hand knowledge of works of art,” said Hunter O’Hanian, CAA’s executive director. “The new Fund places a spotlight on the critical work art history scholars are doing to grow the field, with CAA as the go-to organization supporting and advancing their work.”
The Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions supports travel, lodging, and research efforts by art history students and faculty in conjunction with special museum exhibitions in the United States and throughout the world. Awards are made exclusively to support travel to exhibitions that directly correspond to the class content, and exhibitions on all artists, periods, and areas of art history are eligible.
Applications for the second round of grants will be accepted by CAA beginning in fall 2019. Deadlines and details can be found on the Travel Grants page.