CAA News Today
Shaun Leonardo in Conversation with Dawit Petros During CAA114 Annual Artist Interviews
posted by CAA — January 22, 2026
Photograph by Argenis Apolinario
Shaun Leonardo will be in conversation with Dawit Petros during the CAA 114th Annual Conference Annual Artist Interviews!
Shaun Leonardo’s multidisciplinary work negotiates societal expectations of manhood, usually through the definitions surrounding black and brown masculinities, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and experience of failure. His performance practice is participatory and invested in a process of embodiment.
Leonardo’s fifteen-plus-year career as an artist and arts administrator has centered on community engagement, public programming, and experimental pedagogy. From 2016 to 2024, Leonardo played a pivotal role at Recess, co-directing its evolution as a socially engaged arts organization and launching the Assembly diversion program. Based in Brooklyn, Leonardo received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and is a recipient of support from Creative Capital, Guggenheim Social Practice, Art for Justice, and A Blade of Grass. His work has been shown at the Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, the New Museum, and Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, and has been profiled in The New York Times and on CNN. He is Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens.
The CAA114 Annual Artist Interviews featuring Shaun Leonardo and Joyce Kozloff will be held on Friday, February 20, 4:30–7:00 p.m. CT at the Hilton Chicago. This event will also be livestreamed via YouTube.
Register now for the CAA 114th Annual Conference, February 18–21 in Chicago!
Call For Respondents: CAA Copyright + Fair Use Survey
posted by CAA — January 22, 2026
Ten years ago, CAA published the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, providing our community with clear, practical guidance on invoking fair use in scholarship, teaching, artmaking, museum practice, and archival access. This groundbreaking resource emerged from extensive research funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and it has been widely endorsed by organizations across the visual arts and cultural heritage fields. The Code of Best Practices has empowered countless scholars, educators, artists, curators, and archivists to confidently make fair use of copyrighted materials in their work—advancing knowledge, creativity, and public access to visual culture.
A decade later, the landscape has shifted dramatically. New technologies, evolving institutional practices, and emerging legal questions—particularly around artificial intelligence and digital platforms—demand that we revisit and refresh this vital resource. The CAA Committee on Intellectual Property is committed to ensuring that an updated publication reflects the real-world experiences, challenges, and needs of the association’s members working across all sectors of the visual arts. Your responses to this survey will directly inform the revision process, will help the committee identify where the current Code of Best Practices has been most useful, where gaps exist, and what new guidance our community needs. Fair use remains essential to the work we do—and your participation ensures that the next iteration will serve our community as effectively as the first.
Joyce Kozloff in Conversation with Nancy Princenthal During CAA114 Annual Artist Interviews
posted by CAA — January 09, 2026
Photograph by Carolyn Yarnell
Joyce Kozloff will be in conversation with Nancy Princenthal during the CAA 114th Annual Conference Annual Artist Interviews!
Joyce Kozloff has been an activist in the feminist art movement on both coasts since 1970 and was a member of the Pattern and Decoration movement in the ’70s. Cartography and mapping have been important foundations of her work since 1990 and are structures through which she explores the range of human knowledge and the imposition of imperial will.After a sustained commitment to public art throughout the 1980s and ’90s, she returned to a studio practice that encompasses painting, sculpture, installations, printmaking, and photography. Two glass mosaic and ceramic tile public works—Parkside Portals (2018) for the MTA Art and Design Program, and Memory and Time (2021) for the General Services Administration (GSA). Her work is included in public collections such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Jewish Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art. The survey Joyce Kozloff: Contested Territories is on view at the Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York, through April 2026. She has been represented by the DC Moore Gallery in New York since 1995.
The CAA114 Annual Artist Interviews will be held on Friday, February 20, 4:30–7:00 p.m. CT at the Hilton Chicago. This event will also be livestreamed via YouTube.
Register now for the CAA 114th Annual Conference, February 18–21 in Chicago!
CAA 2026 Board of Directors Election: Vote Now!
posted by CAA — December 11, 2025
As a CAA member, voting is the best way to shape the future of your professional association. Thank you for taking the time to vote!
The CAA Board of Directors is comprised of professionals in the visual arts who are elected annually by the membership to serve four-year terms or (for emerging professionals) two-year terms. The Board is charged with the long-term financial stability and strategic direction of CAA in partnership with the Executive Director; it is also the Association’s governing body. The Board sets policy regarding all aspects of CAA activities, including publishing, the Annual Conference, awards and fellowships, advocacy, and committee procedures. For more information, please read the CAA by-laws section on Nominations, Elections, and Appointments.
MEET THE CANDIDATES
The 2025–26 Nominating Committee has selected the following candidates for election to the CAA Board of Directors. Click the names of the candidates below to read their personal statements and CVs before casting your vote.
BOARD OF DIRECTOR CANDIDATES (FOUR-YEAR TERM, 2026–30)
Researcher and Director, Museum Studies
Rosas Museum (Narcao, Italy)
Professor of Painting
Auburn University (Auburn, AL)
Assistant Professor of Photography, Parsons School of Design
The New School (New York, NY)
Dean, School of Art and Design
Fashion Institute of Technology (New York, NY)
Assistant Dean, Curriculum and Learning, Parsons School of Design
The New School (New York, NY)
Librarian, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs
New York Public Library (New York, NY)
EMERGING PROFESSIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTOR CANDIDATES (TWO-YEAR TERM, 2026–28)
Director of Learning & Engagement
Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY)
PhD Candidate in Art History
The Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA)
Part-Time Design Faculty, Parsons School of Design
The New School (New York, NY)
PhD Candidate in Art History and Visual Culture
Duke University (Durham, NC)
Marketing and Communications Coordinator
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX)
CAA members must cast their votes online. The deadline for voting is 5:00 p.m. CT on Thursday, February 19, 2026.
Elected individuals will be announced at the CAA Annual Business Meeting on Friday, February 20, 1:00–2:00 p.m. CT.
Questions? Contact info@collegeart.org with the subject line “Board of Directors Election.”
Notice of the CAA 114th Annual Business Meeting
posted by CAA — December 10, 2025
CAA Annual Business Meeting
Friday, February 20, 2026
1 p.m. CT
The 114th Annual Business Meeting of the members of the College Art Association will be called to order at 1 p.m. CT on Friday, February 20, 2026, at the Hilton Chicago. Access to this meeting is included in paid registration and no-cost registration. Once registered, please log into the online conference schedule to view more details about this meeting. CAA President, Dr. Denise Baxter, will preside.
AGENDA
- Welcome + Call to Order – Denise Baxter, CAA President
- Executive Director Report – Meme Omogbai, CAA Executive Director + CEO
- Approval of 113th Annual Business Meeting Minutes [ACTION ITEM]
- Old/New Business
- Board Member Election Results – Denise Baxter, CAA President
- Adjourn
BOARD VOTING
The Board of Directors slate has been announced as of December 11, 2025, along with an online voting form. Please submit your voting form for the 2026 election no later than 5 p.m. CT on Thursday, February 19th, 2026.
Next Meeting – 2027
The 115th Annual Business Meeting of the College Art Association will be held on February 5, 2027, at the New York Hilton Midtown.
Eddie Chambers Named CAA114 Distinguished Scholar
posted by CAA — November 13, 2025
Photograph by Hakeem Adewumi
The Distinguished Scholar Session at the 114th CAA Annual Conference will recognize the career of Eddie Chambers, including his professional experience as an artist and curator, and celebrate his ongoing legacy of critical engagement, mentorship, and advocacy for Black British and African diaspora artists within the global field of art history.
Chambers is Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously, he held the David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professorship in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a Visiting Professor at Emory University, Atlanta. In addition to his notable academic career, he has been professionally involved in the visual arts for four decades as an artist, art critic, and curator. He earned his PhD at Goldsmiths College University of London.
His broad areas of scholarship are the art and art history of the African diaspora. Chambers has written several books, including Run Through the Jungle: Selected Writings by Eddie Chambers (Institute of International Visual Arts, 1999); Things Done Change: The Cultural Politics of Recent Black Artists in Britain (Rodopi Editions, 2012); Black Artists in British Art: A History Since the 1950s (I. B. Tauris, 2014); Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain (I. B. Tauris, 2017); World is Africa: Writings on Diaspora Art (Bloomsbury, 2021). His other writing has been published widely in Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Panorama, and elsewhere.
Chambers has worked with many artists over the course of several decades, including Eugene Palmer, Cybil Charlier, Frank Bowling, Denzil Forrester, Barbara Walker, and Alberta Whittle.
Following two terms as a field editor for caa.reviews, he was Editor-in-Chief of CAA’s Art Journal until July 2024. Chambers is the editor of the just-published Routledge Companion to African Diaspora Art History.
Chambers’s career and his impact on the field will be celebrated with presentations and a dialogue with scholars and colleagues:
Session Panelists:
Cherise Smith, University of Texas at Austin
John Tyson, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Katherine Gregory, Wake Forest University
Richard Hylton, Tyler School, Temple University and Reviews Editor, Art Journal
Register now for the CAA 114th Annual Conference, February 18–21, 2026 in Chicago!
The CAA114 Distinguished Scholar Session will be held on Thursday, February 19, 4:30–6:30 p.m. CT at the Hilton Chicago. This event will also be livestreamed via YouTube.
Call for Submissions: Services to Artists Committee Exhibition During CAA114
posted by CAA — October 30, 2025
Resistance and change often begin in art.
—Ursula Le Guin
The CAA Services to Artists Committee (SAC) is now accepting submissions for Parallel Worlds, an exhibition during the CAA 114th Annual Conference in Chicago.
Since the nineteenth century, science fiction has provided conceptual spaces for questioning and criticizing our world and imagining alternative futures. As notable futurist Stuart Candy states in The Futures of Everyday Life, what is “central to the present future studies is not an effort to ‘predict’ the future . . . but the effort to sketch ‘alternative futures.’” In other words, creativity and imagination are needed to better prepare for the unknown.
With this exhibition, SAC aims to draw attention to parallel worlds, temporal shifts, and alternative futures. Addressing a legacy of different communities and building on critical movements such as Afrofuturism, Indigenous Futurism, Queer Futurisms, Post-Humanist Futurism, Crip Futurism, Eco-Solar Punk Futurism, Speculative Futurism, and AI Futurism, we hope to collectively imagine beyond our current reality.
Art can serve as a mode of critique, resistance, and speculation to address and disrupt our deeply rooted colonial history. SAC invites submissions that challenge dominant narratives and provide a critical repositioning of identity, environment, technology, and time. SAC is especially interested in work that responds to the current social and cultural climates while offering new, creative, revolutionary visions for all futures.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
Please combine into one pdf:
- Artist statement (up to 200 words)
- Biography (up to 150 words)
- CV
- Website (if applicable)
- Corresponding image list (image number, title, medium, dimensions, date)
- Handling, framing, and hanging descriptions
- Technology/equipment requirements
- Accessibility requirements
Portfolio of 10–15 images:
- Each image must be sized to 1 MB
- Title format: 01_Last name_Title_Medium_Dimensions_Date
Incomplete applications will not be accepted.
Please Note:
- Entry is free, but all accepted artists must join CAA as an individual member to show their work.
- If selected, artists are responsible for arranging timely delivery (Wednesday, February 18) and pickup of artwork (Saturday, February 21) to the gallery in Chicago at their own expense during conference week.
- All work must be ready to be presented or hung equipped with D-rings or picture wire. Framing of the work and presentation details needs to be agreed upon in consultation with the curator.
- Any technology related to the work may need to be provided by the artist.
- Each artist is required to gallery sit for at least one shift during the exhibition and is strongly encouraged to attend the Thursday night reception.
Submit now via email to SAC!
Deadline: December 5
Elyse Longair, Cryopreservation Birth Chamber, 2020; Elyse Longair, Man in Capsule, 2022 (images provided by the artist)
CAA and the National Coalition Against Censorship Release Joint Letter to the President of Pepperdine University
posted by CAA — October 27, 2025
CAA and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) have released a joint letter to Pepperdine University’s president calling for the reinstallation of two censored art installations, removed from the Hold My Hand in Yours exhibition for “overly political content.” The University argued that the works—until recently on view at the university’s Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art—placed their nonprofit status at risk. The exhibition has since been shut down by the university, and Andrea Gyorody, the museum’s director, has resigned.
CAA and NCAC stand firm in the belief that “. . . virtually every artwork on a topical subject can be interpreted as expressing a political position. Crucially, the exhibition of an object in a University museum does not mean that the University endorses the ideas it expresses any more than teaching a text in a classroom means that this text expresses the position of the University.”
CAA and NCAC call for reopening of the exhibition, a statement affirming the value of freedom of expression, and the development of guidelines for the exhibition of art on campus. Read the full joint letter here on NCAC’s website.
CAA Statement On the Dismantling of Free Speech and Freedom of Expression
posted by CAA — October 24, 2025
The College Art Association fervently opposes the systemic dismantling of free speech, censorship, and retaliation for various forms of expression in US-based cultural institutions, universities, and the press.
The most recent wave of censorship, suppression, and retaliation threatens every element of our mission and touches every single one of our constituencies—professors, curators, students, art makers, and other visual arts professionals.
CAA believes censorship fundamentally undermines scholarship and artistic expression, and that expression, along with public discourse and dissent, is powerful and necessary in a free society. Losing those freedoms will irreparably alter defining elements of our culture.
CAA unambiguously supports artistic and scholarly expression and believes in the principle that they must remain free from censorship and suppression. The arts and the academy are vital places of new and transformational ideas and a collective commitment to these principles has never been more urgent.
Faheem Majeed to give CAA114 Convocation Keynote Address
posted by CAA — October 23, 2025
Photograph: Michael Sullivan
We are delighted to announce Faheem Majeed as the 2026 Convocation keynote speaker at the organization’s 114th Annual Conference in Chicago.
Majeed is an artist, curator, educator, and nonprofit administrator whose work focuses on institutional critique and centers collaboration as a tool to engage communities in meaningful dialogue. He received his BFA from Howard University and an MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago, where he is currently an assistant professor of art. He is the recipient of the Field and MacArthur Foundations’ Leaders for a New Chicago award, the Joyce Award, and the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors grant, and has been recognized as a Harpo Foundation awardee. Majeed served as the executive director of the South Side Community Art Center from 2005 to 2011 and is the founder and co-director of the Floating Museum, an arts collective and nonprofit that creates new models to explore relationships between art, community, architecture, and public institutions. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Centre Pompidou, the Highline, and the Hyde Park Art Center. Majeed’s sculpture highlights marginalized objects, histories, people, and places them into powerful narratives that challenge and recontextualize their value while fostering dialogue and broader social change.
CAA114 Convocation will be held on Wednesday, February 18, 6:00–7:30 p.m. CT. at the Hilton Chicago. The event will also be livestreamed via YouTube.
Register now for the CAA 114th Annual Conference, February 18–21, 2026!