CAA News Today

The CAA Board of Directors convened in New York on Saturday and Sunday, October 27–28, 2012, for its fall meetings. The following report from Anne Collins Goodyear, CAA board president, and Linda Downs, CAA executive director and chief executive officer, summarizes the discussion and the results of the meetings.

As the hurricane of the century approached the northeastern coast during the weekend of October 27, CAA hosted its annual fall meetings for the Board of Directors, the editorial boards of all three journals, and the Publications Committee, all held in New York. The board also gathered for its biannual retreat. All agendas were covered despite the pending storm. One board member found herself stranded in New York, where she rode out Sandy, but all others were able to get home before its arrival. The staff and offices did not fare as well. Many CAA employees were without power for several days, and ten days passed before electricity, heat, telephones, and internet were restored at the office located in Lower Manhattan. Those staff members who did have power donated their time, equipment, chothing, and funds to help the hundreds of thousands in the area who needed assistance. CAA is up and running again with the hope that we will not see another storm like the one that devastated the region. Fortunately, CAA’s website, which relies on servers outside the New York region, was not affected.

The board retreat provided an opportunity for the Directors to focus on critical issues in the visual arts field and the association. This year the focus was on three important areas—the development of a copublications arrangement for CAA’s journals, which will enable the transition from print to online journals; open access for caa.reviews; and the development of a fair use code of best practices in the visual arts for creative work and scholarly publishing.

CAA’s consultant on the transition to online journals, Raym Crow of the Chain Bridge Group, presented his analyses of The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews and his recommendations. The analyses are based on a survey distributed to members in April 2012 to determine the value of the journals and interest in an online format. The analyses included an extensive financial projection of resources needed over the next five years for print and online journals. Crow also provided business models to support caa.reviews on an open access basis. The discussion at the retreat as well as at the editorial board meetings reviewed the analyses and the resolution, adopted by the Board of Directors, to distribute a request for proposal (RFP) to potential publishing partners and to pursue the distribution of caa.reviews on an open access basis next year.

As announced earlier in CAA News, CAA is now pursuing research into the fair use of copyrighted materials by artists, scholars, and curators, thanks to funding from the Kress Foundation (see http://bit.ly/QGktD9). To this end, the board heard from Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, American University, and Patricia Aufderheide, Professor, School of Communications and Director of the Center for Social Media, American University, who are lead investigators on CAA’s project to develop a code of fair use for creative work and scholarly publications made possible through a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Jaszi and Aufderheide described their research methodology, which focuses on consensus-building within a field to develop codes of fair use. Their method has resulted in fair use codes for many other academic fields such as documentary filmmaking, dance, and research libraries. (See: www.centerforsocialmedia.org.)

Jaszi and Aufderheide divided the Board and staff into two groups to gather information about situations where copyright issues occur in the creation of artwork and in scholarly research and publication. Over the next two months they will interview CAA members—art historians, artists, museum curators, visual resources personnel, publishers, image rights holders, CAA Affiliated Society members, and many others—to establish an issues report for the visual arts field. The objective is to reach consensus on best practices of fair use for creative work and scholarly publishing in the visual arts.

Jaszi and Aufderheide will report on a regular basis to the CAA Task Force on Fair Use, which is cochaired by Jeffrey Cunard, CAA Counsel and Managing Partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; and Gretchen Wagner, a member of the CAA Committee on Intellectual Property and General Counsel for ARTstor. Members of the Task Force include: Anne Collins Goodyear (CAA President and Associate Curator, Prints and Drawings, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution); Linda Downs (CAA Executive Director and CEO); Suzanne Preston Blier (CAA Board Member and Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University); DeWitt Godfrey (CAA Vice President for Committees and Director, Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, Colgate University); Randall C. Griffin (ex-officio as CAA Vice President for Publications, Professor, Division of Art History, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University); Paul Jaskot (CAA Past President and Professor of History of Art and Architecture, DePaul University); Patricia McDonnell (CAA Vice President for External Affairs and Director, Wichita Art Museum); Charles Wright (CAA Board Member and Chair, Department of Art, Western Illinois University).

The Board’s Audit Committee reviewed the annual audit and it was accepted by the Board. The 2012 CAA Audit will be presented at the Annual Members’ Business Meeting at the Annual Conference on Friday, February 15, 2013.

The Finance and Budget Committee heard a presentation by CAA’s investment manager, Domenic Colasacco of Boston Trust. The investments have followed the association’s investment policies and are continuing to recover from the economic recession of 2008.

The Board approved a resolution presented by President Goodyear to establish a Task Force for CAA’s 2015–2020 Strategic Plan. The current plan will conclude June 30, 2014. We anticipate that the next strategic plan will begin immediately after that, at the beginning of CAA’s 2015 Fiscal Year.

Deputy Director, Michael Fahlund, and Karol Ann Lawson, Chair, CAA Museum Committee, presented a resolution to support the Museum Best Practices for Managing Controversy. This statement was initiated by the National Coalition Against Censorship and representatives from the Association of Art Museum Directors, Association of Art Museum Curators, and American Alliance of Museums. Fahlund discussed the need for the guidelines given the increase in art museum controversies. Lawson indicated the support of these guidelines by the CAA Museum Committee. The resolution was adopted by the board.

Two associations were welcomed to CAA’s Affiliated Societies bringing the total number of affiliates to seventy-eight: the American Society of Appraisers: Personal Property Committee and the European Postwar and Contemporary Art Forum. See: www.collegeart.org/affiliated.

The Vice President for Committees, DeWitt Godfrey, and the CAA Chair of the Professional Practices Committee, Jim Hopfensberger, presented resolutions to adopt the following guidelines: Artist Résumé: Recommended Conventions (written in 1999); Visual Artist Curriculum Vitae: Recommended Conventions (written in 1999); and Revised Standards for Professional Placement (formerly revised in 1992). All three resolutions were approved and are available at: www.collegeart.org/guidelines.

The Vice President for Publications, Randall Griffin, presented the Resolution to Provide Online Journals Through a Copublisher. This resolution affirms that a Request for Proposals will be developed by the CAA consultant, Raym Crow, in cooperation with an Advisory Group, the staff, and CAA Counsel and be reviewed by the Publications Committee and approved by the board. It also states that caa.reviews will be provided on an open access basis beginning in the fall of 2013 supported by ads and/or click through purchases of books. The resolution was approved.