CAA News Today
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — March 27, 2013
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.
Outside the Citadel, Social Practice Art Is Intended to Nurture
In Detroit a contemporary-art museum is completing a monument to an influential artist that will not feature his work but will instead provide food, haircuts, education programs, and other social services to the general public. In New York an art organization that commissions public installations has been dispatching a journalist to politically precarious places around the world where she enlists artists and activists—often one and the same—to write for a website that can read more like a policy journal than an art portal. And in St. Louis an art institution known primarily for its monumental Richard Serra sculpture is turning itself into a hub of social activism. If none of these projects sounds much like art, that is precisely the point. (Read more in the New York Times.)
The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio
J. Paul Robinson, chairman of the Purdue University faculty senate, walks the halls of a ten-story tower, pointing out a row of offices for administrators. “I have no idea what these people do,” says the biomedical engineering professor. Purdue has a $313,000-a-year acting provost and six vice and associate vice provosts, including a $198,000-a-year chief diversity officer. Among its sixteen deans and eleven vice presidents are a $253,000 marketing officer and a $433,000 business school chief. The average full professor at the public university in West Lafayette, Indiana, makes $125,000. The number of Purdue administrators has jumped 54 percent in the past decade—almost eight times the growth rate of tenured and tenure-track faculty. (Read more in Business Week.)
Let’s Do Lunch
In master’s programs, and especially at the doctoral level, graduate students depend on their advisers more than on anyone else in their careers. Students do more work for their adviser’s eyes than for anyone else’s, and the adviser’s approval is the key to the door that leads to the next place, whether full-time employment or more school. So an adviser’s criticism of a graduate student’s work can pierce deeper than the tiny hooks on a burr. And the adviser may not know it. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
The Gallery’s Glass Ceiling: Sexism Persists in the German Art World
The art world is typically seen as open and progressive, even radical. But artists and curators in Germany say that, despite slow progress, the art scene is still plagued by widespread sexism and a conservative, macho culture. (Read more in Spiegel Online.)
The Chapman Brothers on Life as Artists’ Assistants
“It was hard labor by any measure,” says Jake Chapman, recalling his and brother Dinos’s apprenticeship as assistants to Gilbert and George. “There was absolutely no creative input at all. They were very polite and it was interesting to hear them talking—as we did our daily penance.” What did the work involve? “Coloring in their prints. We colored in Gilbert and George’s penises for eight hours a day.” (Read more in the Guardian.)
Protect Rights of Artists in New Copyright Law
The head of the US Copyright Office has suggested that it may be time to start considering “the next great Copyright Act.” The last general revision to US copyright law passed in 1976 at the end of a process that took over twenty years. Since then, incredible technological advances have brought new opportunities and challenges to which copyright law has not been immune. In fact, with the advent of digital platforms and the internet, the centuries-old legal doctrine of copyright has perhaps faced more challenges than any other area of the law. (Read more in the Hill.)
Can Unions Save the Creative Class?
They’re just for hard hats. They peaked around the time Elvis was getting big. They killed Detroit. They’ve got nothing to do with you or me. They’re a special interest—and they hate our freedom. That’s the kind of noise you pick up in twenty-first-century America—in politics and popular culture alike—when you tune your station to the issue of trade unions. (Read more in Salon.)
Tackling Concerns of Independent Workers
Soon after landing a job at a Manhattan law firm nearly twenty years ago, Sara Horowitz was shocked to discover that it planned to treat her not as an employee, but as an independent contractor. Her status meant no health coverage, no pension plan, no paid vacation—nothing but a paycheck. She realized that she was part of a trend in which American employers relied increasingly on independent contractors, temporary workers, contract employees, and freelancers to cut costs. (Read more in the New York Times.)
National Humanities Alliance Annual Meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day
posted by CAA — March 26, 2013
Anne Collins Goodyear, curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, is the president of the CAA Board of Directors, and Hannah O’Reilly Malyn is CAA development associate.
Anne Collins Goodyear and Hannah O’Reilly Malyn attended a day of meetings and panel discussions presented by the National Humanities Alliance (NHA). This year’s annual event, held on March 18, 2013, in Washington, DC, addressed the practical need for continued support of humanities education and research and the importance of quantifying the benefits of such, as well as highlighting the Clemente Course in the Humanities program, an endeavor that illustrates the impact of humanities learning on people from all walks of life. These discussions helped prepare participants for Humanities Advocacy Day, taking place on Capitol Hill the following day.
CAA is a member of NHA, which advocates federal funding of the humanities. In addition to its annual meeting, NHA organizes Humanities Advocacy Day, which brings critical information to participants and prepares them for congressional visits to support the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Fulbright Program, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and numerous Department of Education programs in the humanities.
The day began with a keynote address by Christina Paxson, president of Brown University, whose talk centered around the question “Are the Humanities Worth It?” and touched on demonstrating the tangible benefits derived from studying the humanities. She discussed the significance of understanding other cultures as we progress toward globalization and a world society, especially the ways in which humanists can help people respond to the social changes brought on by technological advances. Paxson stressed that we must train people not just with the immediately necessary skills for employment, which devalue over time, but also with the creativity to work in a rapidly changing world. She also revealed that, contrary to popular belief, the average lifetime incomes of people with bachelor’s degrees in the humanities are not much lower than those of people with bachelor’s degrees in STEM subjects, and noted that people with humanities degrees are more likely to pursue higher education above the bachelor’s.
The keynote address was followed by a panel on making the case for federal humanities funding, which consisted of six individuals: Stephen Kidd, executive director of NHA; Esther Mackintosh, president of the Federation of State Humanities Councils; Ben Kershaw, assistant director of congressional relations at the American Alliance of Museums; Lee White, executive director of the National Coalition for History; Miriam Kazanjian, consultant for the Coalition for International Education; and Mollie Benz Flounlacker, associate vice president for federal relations at the Association for American Universities. Continuing in the same line as Paxson’s talk, the panelists described the different government programs concerned with the humanities and what tactics are most effective in arguing for their continued funding—namely economic impact, the importance of creative thinking skills and well-rounded job candidates, and how the humanities relate to core American values such as citizenship and civic understanding and participation. The overarching message was that to remain competitive in the global economy, America must produce workers who are well rounded, creative, and able to interact effectively with stakeholders abroad. Panelists noted that bipartisan support for the humanities does exist in Congress so long as the emphasis is on the value created for communities and taxpayers.
Over lunch, Karl Eikenbarry, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, spoke about how the humanities were brought home for him in his work abroad. His anecdotes affirmed the advantages of learning foreign languages and cultures and endorsed the effective use of soft and hard power in diplomatic situations. Cultural diplomacy through touring symphonies, he said, is a reminder of US good will that can mitigate displays of military strength.
In the afternoon, a panel was held on advocacy infrastructure. John Churchill, secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, talked about a demand for new strategies in advocacy, particularly the year-round involvement of advocates at the state and local levels to truly involve elected officials in the humanities in their communities. Churchill introduced the new Phi Beta Kappa’s National Advocacy Initiative, which will pursue this goal through regional events and local member “emissaries” for the humanities. This was followed by presentations by Robert Townsend, deputy director of the American Historical Association, and Carolyn Fuqua, program associate for humanities at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on recent studies and data regarding the humanities. They discussed the Humanities Indicators project, which compiles data on the humanities as a whole, and noted interesting statistics such as the fact that humanities majors score better than business majors on management program entrance exams.
The day concluded with a presentation on the Clemente Course program. This program offers humanities classes to underserved demographics such as incarcerated adults, people in economically disadvantaged communities, and immigrants. Past participants testified to how these courses, which offer college credit upon completion, changed their lives and their worldviews. Star Perry, a program graduate, spoke about how the program increased her self-value, improved her job prospects, and inspired her children to attend college. Moise Koffi, another graduate, shared how he came to the US as a manual laborer and, because of the Clemente Courses, has completed his PhD and is now an engineer and a professor. Senators Richard Durbin and Elizabeth Warren also gave a few words about the program and the humanities as a whole.
The following day, Malyn represented CAA while visiting the offices of seven members of congress, traveling with a group of New York professionals that included advocates from the Modern Language Association, Cornell University, Columbia University, and Queensborough Community College, City University of New York. (As a federal employee, Goodyear is not eligible to participate in such visits.) Together, the group met with five congressional staffers to discuss the importance of continued humanities funding. Advocates also thanked longtime supporters for their ongoing efforts and encouraged newly elected officials to join the Congressional Humanities Caucus. Malyn also visited the offices of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) to update them on CAA’s work on fair use (i.e., its task force and conference session) and to distribute copies of CAA’s letter regarding the use of orphan works.
Propose a Paper or Presentation for the 2014 Annual Conference
posted by Lauren Stark — March 26, 2013
The 2014 Call for Participation for the 102nd Annual Conference, taking place February 12–15, 2014, in Chicago, describes many of next year’s programs sessions. CAA and the session chairs invite your participation: please follow the instructions in the booklet to submit a proposal for a paper or presentation. This publication also includes a call for Poster Session proposals and describes the seven Open Forms sessions.
Listing more than 120 panels, the 2014 Call for Participation will soon mail to all individual and institutional members; you can also download a PDF of the twenty-seven-page document from the CAA website immediately.
The deadline for proposals of papers and presentations for the Chicago conference has been extended to Monday, May 13, 2013.
In addition to dozens of wide-ranging panels on art history, studio art, contemporary issues, and professional and educational practices, CAA conference attendees can expect participation from many area schools, museums, galleries, and other institutions. The Hilton Chicago on South Michigan Avenue (in the Loop) is the conference headquarters, holding most sessions, Career Services, the Book and Trade Fair, ARTspace, special events, and more. Deadline extended: May 13, 2013.
Contact
For more information about proposals of papers and presentations for the 2014 Annual Conference, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-392-4405.
Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Humanities
posted by CAA — March 26, 2013
The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) sent the following email on March 26, 2013.
Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Humanities
Dear Humanities Advocate,
With the sequester now in effect, the budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities is slated to be cut by approximately $60 million over the next ten years. Title VI potentially stands to lose an additional $36 million from its already decimated budget over the same span. Other federal funding for the humanities will be cut by similarly significant amounts. Now is the time to urge your elected officials to replace the sequester with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that will preserve crucial investments in humanities programs.
Act now to preserve humanities funding. Tell your Member of Congress to replace the sequester with a long-term, balanced approach to deficit reduction.
Click here to write to your representative and senators today!
Sincerely,
Stephen Kidd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
My Trip to New York (Thanks to CAA and the Getty Foundation)
posted by Karen von Veh — March 22, 2013
Early last year, in my role as president of the South African Visual Arts Historians (SAVAH), I was asked by Professor Federico Freschi (at the University of Johannesburg) to send out a call for participants to apply for a travel grant to attend the CAA Annual Conference in New York in February 2013. After mailing the request to SAVAH members, I read through the requirements and found that it was an extraordinarily generous grant for which one only needed to be a full-time practicing art historian residing in a country not well represented in CAA membership. The grant, which was funded by the Getty Foundation, was aimed at encouraging dialogue between art historians from around the globe and included a year’s membership to CAA.
As a lucky recipient I was one of twenty people heading for the icy snow-laden New York in February and arrived on the first morning that JFK airport was opened again after being closed for two days due to blizzards. My first activity in New York was to head for Central Park and enjoy the novelty of walking in the deep snow.
The day before the CAA conference, travel-grant recipients had a preconference gathering where we met the other grantees and gave five-minute presentations to introduce ourselves. This allowed us to get to know each other and identify like minds and areas of collaboration, so from the first meeting there was already a networking frenzy taking place. The grantees reminded me of the League of Nations, with people from various African countries, South American countries, India, Pakistan, China, Haiti, Korea, Iceland, and several Eastern European countries (and I have probably missed a few). There was a lot of lively discussion every time we met, and we got on very well with each other as a group. It was wonderful to meet so many diverse people who shared a passion for the development and teaching of art history.
The CAA conference was huge and frenetic with many parallel sessions, so one had to choose the papers very carefully. I heard some wonderful presentations by Amelia Jones, Griselda Pollock, and Whitney Chadwick (among others) in a feminist session that was packed to the hilt, with people sitting on the floor and lining the walls. As part of conference attendance, everyone had free access to many galleries and museums in New York for the duration of the conference, so there was much rushing to see exhibitions between listening to papers.
I was also lucky enough to be invited (with the other African delegates) to the opening of El Anatsui’s glorious exhibition, Gravity and Grace, at the Brooklyn Museum, where the artist made an appearance as well. For this and other wonderful visits (such as a private tour of the African collection at the Metropolitan Museum) I must thank Jean Borgatti, who was assigned as host to two of the African delegates but was kind enough to include all the visitors from Africa in her plans. At the end of the conference, we had a final “debriefing” session where we could state what worked and what didn’t. From my point of view, the entire event was splendidly arranged and I cannot fault anything, although on a purely personal note I would have enjoyed more time with the group as a whole.
After the conference we were invited by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute to visit their museum and research center in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Most of the group were able to extend their visit for the extra three days required for this trip, and we were bussed off to Williamstown, where we stayed at the delightful Williams Inn. At the Clark we were given a tour of the library, the print archives, and the museum, and joined in discussions of possible future projects for the Clark’s Research and Academic Programs to pursue. We were also taken to one of the biggest art spaces I have ever seen: the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (or MASS MoCA), which had a room large enough (one football field long) to display Xu Bing’s enormous flying Phoenix.
After returning to New York, most travel-grant recipients returned to their countries, while I and a few others were able to stay another few days (in my case until the weekend—two more days) to make the most of the city. I spent this time literally running from one gallery to another to try and fit them all in before leaving. New York is amazingly rich in terms of what it has to offer culturally, and I feel this trip was altogether an enriching experience—from the intellectual stimulation and visual excitement to the wonderful people I met. This affords great networking opportunities such as reciprocal arrangements between institutions (student or staff exchanges) and invitations to conferences or ongoing discussions about the state of art history on a global scale (via email, of course). As a direct result of this trip I have already been invited to speak at a global conference in Slovakia this September, and am making arrangements for exchange programs with other institutions.
First image: Me (the “Michelin Man”) in Central Park.
Second image: The “African Contingent” admiring El Anatsui at the Met.
Third image: Our group at the final “debriefing” in New York.
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
posted by CAA — March 21, 2013
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) sent the following email on March 21, 2013. FAIC supports conservation education, research, and outreach activities that increase understanding of our global cultural heritage.
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) has completed work at the Cultural Recovery Center (CRC) in Brooklyn, NY after serving a community of artists and organizations in dire need of assistance. The CRC offered space and help at no cost to owners of artworks damaged as a result of Superstorm Sandy. Volunteer assistance and work space was provided to museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, galleries, collectors, and artists. While full conservation treatment was not covered, guidance and assistance in the cleaning and stabilization of art and cultural materials was.
23 members of the AIC Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) contributed 128 days of professional volunteer services in New York and New Jersey. At least 34 additional conservators from the region also volunteered. At the CRC, volunteers worked with nineteen artists on hundreds of items, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, textiles, and multi-media works. Many of the works were at risk because of toxic deposits and potential mold growth.
The Center for Cultural Recovery was operated by The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC), in cooperation with a consortium of organizations:
- Alliance for Response New York City
- Heritage Preservation
- New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
- New York Regional Association for Conservation
- Industry City at Bush Terminal
- Smithsonian Institution
Initial funding for the response and recovery efforts, including initial costs for the Center, was provided by a leadership gift to FAIC from Sotheby’s. A grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allowed the Center to remain open through March 8. Industry City at Bush Terminal provided the space rent-free. Rapid Refile set up containment tents and air scrubbers to prevent the spread of mold from incoming objects to cleaned objects. Collector Systems provided free use of its web-based collection management system. The Smithsonian Institution and a grant to Heritage Preservation from the New York Community Trust, as well as support from TALAS, enabled purchase of supplies. The Center was also outfitted with supplies from Materials for the Arts, a creative reuse program managed by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional donations to FAIC came from PINTA, The Modern & Contemporary Latin American Art Show; Tru Vue; Aon Huntington Block Insurance; Aon Foundation; members of AIC; and others. The American Museum of Natural History and MoMA also provided key in-kind support for recovery efforts and establishment of the CRC.
As the need for conservation continues, those with damaged pieces are encouraged to use AIC’s Find A Conservator tool available for free on the AIC website: www.conservation-us.org/findaconservator. The tool provides a systematic, consistent method of obtaining current information to identify and locate professional conservation services from all across the United States and abroad. It allows users to address a wide range of conservation problems, whether the needs are long-range or short-term and whether the collection consists of thousands of valuable historic artifacts, one priceless work of art, or items of great personal value.
CAA Seeks Award Jury Members
posted by Lauren Stark — March 20, 2013
CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for individuals to serve on nine of the twelve juries for the annual Awards for Distinction for three years (2013–16). Terms begin in May 2013; award years are 2014–16. CAA’s twelve awards honor artists, art historians, authors, curators, critics, and teachers whose accomplishments transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large.
Candidates must possess expertise appropriate to the jury’s work and be current CAA members. They should not be serving on another CAA committee or editorial board. CAA’s president and vice president for committees appoint jury members for service.
The following jury vacancies will be filled this spring:
- Charles Rufus Morey Book Award: 4 members
- Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award: 3 members
- Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize: 2 members
- Frank Jewett Mather Award: 1 member
- Art Journal Award: 2 members
- Distinguished Teaching of Art Award: 2 members
- Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement: 1 member
- Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art: 2 members
- CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation: 2 members
Nominations and self-nominations should include a brief statement (no more than 150 words) outlining the individual’s qualifications and experience and an abbreviated CV (no more than two pages). Please send all materials by email to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs; submissions must be sent as Microsoft Word attachments. Deadline: April 26, 2013.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — March 20, 2013
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.
Biotechnology as Art Form
It’s natural that some artists spend as much time in the lab as they do in the studio. Over the last three decades, in fact, artists have cultivated human tissue, bred frogs, assembled DNA profiles, and used modified bacteria as electrical transmitters. Bio-art—as this type of work is called—has also begun to surface in museums and avant-garde art festivals, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth in Australia. (Read more in ARTnews.)
What Do University Presses Do?
A book published by the University of Minnesota Press, begun as the author’s dissertation, had been discussed in the New Yorker. This journey, from dissertation to published book and beyond, provides a counter narrative to the rhetoric about scholarly publishers these days, rhetoric which paints us as parasites sucking profit and capital out of the work of scholars, structured around a “conflict” between publishers, libraries, and scholars often oversimplified into a binary. Publishers are interested in profit. Libraries and scholars are not. (Read more in the University of Minnesota Press Blog.)
What Do Cats Have to Do with It? Welcome to LACMA’s New Collections Website
Two years ago, we launched an experiment: an online image library where we made 2,000 high-resolution images of artworks that the museum deemed to be in the public domain available for download without any restrictions. This week, we’ve exceeded ourselves with the launch of our new collections website, giving away ten times the number of images we offered in the initial image library. Nearly 20,000 high-quality images of art from our collection are available to download and use as you see fit (that’s about a quarter of all the art represented on the site). (Read more in Unframed.)
What to Do with Artist’s Work after Death Can Be Vexing
Since the Oakland artist Thomas “Glen” Whittaker died last month, his longtime companion, Marcy Pitts, has faced the daunting task of deciding what to do with about thirty-five paintings and other works he left behind. More specifically, she has wrestled with how to catalog, value, transport, store, and market the works, some of which are several feet wide. At the forefront of Pitts’s mind is a desire to earn Whittaker, who was 62, recognition for his work. (Read more in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
Pre-Tenure Leadership
As the dean of a college whose faculty includes many assistant professors, I am frequently asked for advice on how much service they should undertake. The twin horns of their dilemma? They know that service counts for less than teaching or research in annual and promotion evaluations … but they also know that demonstrating leadership potential through community engagement is important. (Read more in Inside Higher Ed.)
Things I Didn’t Learn in Graduate School
For more than thirty years now, I have benefited in my professional practice in student affairs from having attended some terrific graduate programs. It’s important to say that explicitly, upfront, as I’m about to focus on the things I didn’t learn in graduate school. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Help Desk: Lazy Art Critic
An art critic who writes for local newspaper recently approached me to review a recent show I installed at a local gallery. He is essentially asking me to provide him with my thoughts on my work and, after reading several of his articles, it seems as if he will just quote me at length rather than provide an actual review of my work. Should I indulge him in my eagerness to gain press attention or decline in hopes of a future proposal from a more attentive critic? (Read more in Daily Serving.)
Art without Market, Art without Education: Political Economy of Art
Since the early days of modernism, artists have faced a peculiar dilemma with regard to the economy surrounding their work. By breaking from older artistic formations such as medieval artisan guilds, bohemian artists of the nineteenth century distanced themselves from the vulgar sphere of day-to-day commerce in favor of an idealized conception of art and authorship. While on the one hand this allowed for a certain rejection of normative bourgeois life, it also required that artists entrust their livelihoods to middlemen—to private agents or state organizations. While a concern with labor and fair compensation in the arts, exemplified by such recent initiatives as W.A.G.E. or earlier efforts such as the Art Workers Coalition, has been an important part of artistic discourse, so far it has focused primarily on public critique as a means to shame and reform institutions into developing a more fair system of compensation for “content providers.” It seems to me that we need to move beyond the critique of art institutions if we want to improve the relationship between artists and the economy surrounding their work. (Read more in e-flux Journal.)
Recent Deaths in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — March 20, 2013
In its regular roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, architects, photographers, and others whose work has significantly influenced the visual arts. The beginning of 2013 was marked by the loss of the artist Richard Artschwager and the critics Ada Louise Huxtable and Thomas McEvilley. Two longtime CAA members, Paul B. Arnold and Carl N. Schmalz Jr., also died recently.
- Paul B. Arnold, emeritus professor of fine arts at Oberlin College, died on July 2, 2012, at the age of 93. A CAA member since 1945 and president of the Board of Directors from 1986 to 1988, Arnold was an artist who began his career working in watercolor but later focused on printmaking
- Richard Artschwager, an American painter and sculptor who emerged during the Pop era but whose work embraced diverse media, passed away on February 9, 2013. He was 89 years old
- Bonni Benrubi, a photography dealer based in New York, died on November 29, 2012, at the age of 59. She was among the first gallery owners to specialize exclusively in modern and contemporary photography
- Daniel Blue, a Chicago-based sculptor who worked in metal, was found dead on January 2, 2013. He was 55 years old
- Simon Cerigo, an art dealer, curator, collector, and avid attendee of gallery openings in New York, died on January 20, 2013, at age 60. He operated an eponymous gallery in the East Village from 1985 to 1987
- Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, a Nigerian painter and illustrator based in the United Kingdom, passed away on December 17, 2012. She was 60 years old
- Thomas Cornell, an artist and longtime professor at Bowdoin College in Maine, died on December 7, 2012, at the age of 75. He helped to establish the Visual Arts Department at his school in 1962
- Burhan Doğançay, a Turkish artist who had lived in New York since the 1960s, died on January 16, 2013, at age 83. The Istanbul Modern Art Museum held a large survey of his abstract works of urban walls last year
- Tejas Englesmith, a former assistant director for Whitechapel Gallery in London during the 1960s who later settled in Houston, died on February 7, 2013. He was 71. Englesmith also served as a curator for the Jewish Museum and director of the Leo Castelli Gallery
- Leonard Flomenhaft, a lawyer and stockbroker who opened Flomenhaft Gallery in New York with his wife Eleanor, passed away on February 8, 2013. He was 90 years old
- Antonio Frasconi, a master woodcut artist from Uruguay who settled in Norwalk, Connecticut, died on January 8, 2013, at age 93
- Clarke Henderson Garnsey, professor emeritus of art history and former chair of the Department of Art at the University of Texas at El Paso, died on March 10, 2012. He was 98
- Raukura “Ralph” Hotere, a leading abstract artist from New Zealand who showed his work internationally, died on February 24, 2013, at the age of 81
- Ada Louise Huxtable, a celebrated architectural critic for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, died on January 7, 2013, at age 91. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for her writing
- George Kokines, an abstract artist based in Chicago, died on November 26, 2012. He was 82. Kokines had taught at several schools, including Northwestern University
- Balthazar Korab, a leading architectural photographer who captured buildings by Eero Saarinen on film, died on January 15, 2013. He was 86 years old
- Udo Kultermann, an internationally recognized scholar who taught for nearly thirty years at Washington University in Saint Louis, passed away on February 9, 2013. He was 85. CAA has published a special obituary on Kultermann
- Farideh Lashai, an Iranian artist known for her lyrical abstract painting and multimedia installations, died on February 24, 2013, at age 68. She helped found and was a member of the Neda Group, a collective of twelve female Iranian artists, in the late 1990s
- Alden Mason, a painter who lived and worked in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, died on February 6, 2013. He was 93 years old
- Thomas McEvilley, a poet, scholar, and art critic based in New York, died on March 2, 2013. He was 73. Among his numerous books are Art and Otherness: Crisis in Cultural Identity (1992), Sculpture in the Age of Doubt (1999), and The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (2002)
- Melanie Michailidis, a postdoctoral fellow in art history and archaeology at Washington University in Saint Louis, died on February 1, 2013. She was 46 years old
- Carl N. Schmalz Jr., an artist and art historian who taught for decades at Bowdoin College and Amherst College, died on February 22, 2013, at age 86. CAA has published a special obituary on Schmalz, who had been a CAA member since 1951
- William F. Stern, a Houston architect who was a principal at Stern and Bucek Architects, died on March 1, 2013, at the age of 66. He also served as an adjunct associate professor of architectural history at the University of Houston
- Michelle Walker, a former dancer and a Californian arts administrator, was found dead on January 29, 2013, at age 53. She had served as director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission from 1992 to 2006
- Casey Williams, a Houston photographer known for his “found abstractions,” passed away on January 1, 2013. He was 65
- Bernard A. Zuckerman, an Atlanta businessman and philanthropist, died on February 22, 2013, at age 91. Kennesaw State University is scheduled to open the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art in September of this year
Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries, or your completed texts, to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the next list.
Udo Kultermann: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — March 19, 2013
The following obituary was prepared by the family of the deceased and edited by CAA.
Udo Kultermann
Udo Kultermann, an internationally recognized scholar and Ruth and Norman Moore Professor Emeritus of Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in Saint Louis, died on February 9, 2013, in New York. He was 85 years old.
Born in Germany in 1927, Kultermann received his PhD from the University of Münster and served as the director of the City Art Museum in Leverkusen. He came to the United States in 1967, where he taught at Washington University for over thirty years. Kultermann wrote more than thirty-five books on a wide range of subjects—many of which have been translated into various languages—and published numerous articles in scholarly journals worldwide. His book The History of Art History (1993) is among his most original and cited works.
Kultermann’s specialty was twentieth-century architecture, with a groundbreaking focus on Africa and the Middle East. His interests also included European art and architecture as well as contemporary American art. Recognizing the importance of female performance artists, Kultermann was one of the first art historians to write about them. After retiring from Washington University, he and his wife, Judith Kultermann, moved to New York, where she still resides.
Read more about Kultermann in the Washington University Newsroom.