CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Register for Arts Advocacy Day

The 2012 election has made a dramatic impact on Congress, with more than eighty new members taking office in early January 2013. The next Congress will renew the focus on reducing the federal deficit and creating jobs, and it is imperative that arts advocates work together to craft a policy agenda that supports the nonprofit arts sector and arts education. (Read more from Americans for the Arts.)

Humanities Advocacy Day Registration

Registration for Humanities Advocacy Day and the annual meeting of the National Humanities Alliance will help you to connect with a growing network of humanities leaders, to communicate the value of the humanities to members of Congress, and to become a year-round advocate for the humanities. (Read more from the National Humanities Alliance.)

How Art History Is Failing at the Internet

The history of art as practiced in museums and the academy is sluggish in its embrace of the new technology. Of course we have technology in our galleries and classrooms and information on the web; of course we are exploiting social media to reach and grow our audiences, by tweeting about our books and articles, including links to our career accomplishments on Facebook, and chatting with our students online. But we aren’t conducting art-historical research differently. We aren’t working collaboratively and experimentally. (Read more at the Daily Dot.)

Grad School Confidential: How to Choose the Right Degree

Graduate school is hard. It’s also really expensive. But if you’re actually going to invest the time and money to do it, make it count for yourself. If you need a good graduate school to be able to do the things you want to do, aim high. You can go online and check the US News and World Report rankings, of course. And there are some damn good schools on that list. But if you choose a graduate school based on the institution’s reputation alone, you may find yourself in a discipline or among peers that simply don’t suit you. (Read more at Burnaway.)

More on Pedagogy in Arts Entrepreneurship

As I’ve been working on a pedagogical approach for emerging arts entrepreneurs, I’ve immersed myself in literature and resources on creative thinking and creative problem solving. What keeps striking me is the stark difference between creativity as applied in the development of complex ideas and the creative process in the making of art. The former lends itself, at least to a great degree, to techniques, processes, and formulae, while the making of art does not. One is rational, the other un-rational. (Read more at State of the Art.)

Shift in Heritage: Richard Serra Sculpture Has Uncertain Future

The closest thing southern Ontario has to Stonehenge is Shift, a sculpture by Richard Serra in a King City farmer’s field. Serra is a superstar artist whose work is worth millions of dollars, but Shift remains relatively obscure. Though many places would envy our big Serra, last month the Ontario Conservation Review Board decided not to support King Township’s request that Serra’s work be protected under the Ontario Heritage Act, so its future remains uncertain. (Read more at the Toronto Star.)

Dating and Job Hunting

Last January, I returned mentally and emotionally exhausted from the American Historical Association meeting. I had been lucky to have had a few interviews, and all I could do was refresh my email every few minutes, hoping for any updates. I toggled over to Facebook and quickly posted the status, “If the academic job market is like dating (and it totally is) I hope to be engaged by Valentine’s Day.” The likes and comments poured in from family and friends. (Read more at Inside Higher Ed.)

Masterpieces on Loan Leave MFA Walls Lacking

Visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this holiday season can see the celebrity and fashion photographs of Mario Testino. But if they wander off into the permanent collection galleries, they won’t find the museum’s most famous Renoir, Dance at Bougival. Nor will they see any of the museum’s five paintings by Cezanne, five of its six great paintings by Manet, its most distinctive Monet, or its two greatest van Goghs. Some of these works have been lent to serious and scholarly museum shows in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Agreeing to such loans is common practice and builds goodwill for when the museum asks to borrow for its own exhibitions. (Read more at the Boston Globe.)