CAA News Today

The American Academy in Rome in Italy has received a 2011 grant from the Graham Foundation, intended to help present and produce publications, exhibitions, films, initiatives in new media, and other programs.

South view of the Michigan Avenue façade of the Art Institute of Chicago (photograph provided by the Art Institute of Chicago)

The Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois has been awarded a 2011 grant from the Graham Foundation, intended to help present and produce publications, exhibitions, films, initiatives in new media, and other programs.

The Brooklyn Museum in New York has won a 2011 National Medal for Museum and Library Service from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency. Four other museums and five libraries also received medals, chosen from the institute’s director, Susan Hildreth, following a call for nominations.

The California Institute of the Arts in Valencia has been named America’s Number 1 College for Students in the Arts in a report recently released by Newsweek and the Daily Beast.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Quebec, has earned a 2011 grant from the Graham Foundation, intended to assist the presentation and production of publications, exhibitions, films, initiatives in new media, and other programs.

The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has published the entire archive of past Center reports from 1980–81 to the present. These thirty-one reports contain information about the center’s fellowships, meetings, research, and publications, as well as research reports by fellows in residence for each academic year.

The Frick Art Reference Library, based at the Frick Collection in New York, has announced that research database records in its Photoarchiv created since 1996, and all future records created for the existing collection and for new acquisitions, are now accessible via the New York Art Resources Consortium’s online catalogue, Arcade. The records offer detailed historical documentation for the works of art, including basic information about the artist, title, medium, dimensions, date, and owner of the work, as well as former attributions, provenance, variant titles, records of exhibition and condition history, and biographical information about portrait subjects.

Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore has launched the Baltimore Art and Justice Project, the first project of its kind in the United States to identify, amplify, and connect arts-based practitioners advancing the cause of social justice in a particular city. The project, in partnership with a citywide advisory committee, kicked off with a two-year, $150,000 grant from the Open Society Foundations in New York.

Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore will offer two new graduate programs in 2012: an master of professional studies in information visualization and a master of arts in critical studies. In addition, the college will expand its undergraduate offerings in the fall with new concentrations in game arts, sound art, and sustainability and social practice.

Dana Seidel has been named director of the the Rutgers Center for Digital Filmmaking (photograph by Enrique Alvarez Fanjul)

The Mason Gross School of the Arts and the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, have established an education and professional hub for filmmaking. Directed by Dena Seidel, the Rutgers Center for Digital Filmmaking will offer a seven-course certificate program, beginning in spring 2012, and will also house the Rutgers Film Bureau.

Parsons the New School for Design in New York has announced a new master of arts in design studies, to begin in fall 2012. Based in the School of Art and Design History and Theory, the program will shape a new generation of thinkers to critically address historical, philosophical, and social issues related to design practices, products, and discourses. It is geared toward those seeking to pursue a career in design research, writing, curating, consulting, or criticism, as well as designers seeking to incorporate design research into their practice.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania has received a 2011 grant from the Graham Foundation, intended to help present and produce publications, exhibitions, films, initiatives in new media, and other program.

The School of Visual Arts in New York will begin offering a master of arts in critical theory and the arts in fall 2012. Chaired by Robert Hullot-Kentor and based on the Frankfurt School of Social Research, the program will bring together leading minds in philosophy, sociology, and art criticism to examine critical theory in relation to contemporary culture and the arts.

The University of Virginia Art Museum in Charlottesville has received a four-year, $315,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a new, full-time academic curator who will aid and expand the museum’s curatorial and academic programming mission as a teaching museum. The curator will also play an essential role in developing initiatives that integrate the museum with innovation in the humanities across the university.

Anonymous (Mexican), Mother and Child, 100 BC–AD 200, earthenware, white slip with black and red paint, 37.2 x 30.9 x 23.2 cm. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of John G. Bourne, 2009 (photograph provided by the Walters Art Museum)

The Walters Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, has been awarded a $4 million bequest from the estate of John Bourne of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to endow a center for the study, conservation, interpretation, and display of the arts of the ancient Americas. The funds accompany Bourne’s donation of seventy works of art, as well as 230 additional planned gifts.

Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library has received the gift of $3 million from a museum trustee, John L. McGraw and his wife Marjorie, to endow its director of museum collections, a post held by Linda S. Eaton. The endowment of the position—named the John L. and Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections—ensures that this vital aspect of Winterthur’s operations will be funded permanently into the future and reflects the institution’s commitment to the exceptional scholarship, publications, and exhibitions for which it is known.