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.

Show and Tell: The Dos and Don’ts of Studio Visits

The reasons for a studio visit are many and varied: a curator is trolling for an exhibition, an artist wants to show new work to a collector or a critic, a dealer is interested in representing the art, or a group of art lovers simply wants to see how an artist puts it all together. Whatever the pretext, certain elemental rules of care and courtesy can make the visit a success for both parties. (Read more in ARTnews.)

Should Artists Show Their Work in Vanity Galleries?

In a recent interview, I was asked where I saw the art-gallery business going in the next ten years. This is a very interesting question and could have resulted in an hour-long conversation on its own. Because I only had a few minutes to reply, I pointed to three crucial trends for the future of the business. For the third trend I predicted that we would see a rise in the number of art galleries charging a fee to show and sell artwork. (Read more in Red Dot Blog.)

NEA Report Says Arts Attendance in the US Continues to Slide

The number of people who attended an art show or a performing-arts event in the United States continues to slide, according to a report released by the National Endowment for the Arts. Theater took the biggest hit among the cultural categories, with attendance for musicals and plays off significantly. In 2012, approximately 33 percent of American adults, or 78 million individuals, visited an art museum or gallery or attended at least one performing-arts event. That’s down from the last time the NEA conducted its survey in 2008, when 34.6 percent adults attended arts events. (Read more in the Los Angeles Times.)

US Arts Funding Hit a Record Low in 2011

Government arts funding in the United States reached a record low in 2011, according to most recent edition of the National Arts Index, published by the nonprofit organization Americans for the Arts. Nevertheless, increased public engagement and positive economic forecasts suggest that the industry is slowly rebounding from the 2008 recession. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)

When Tenure-Track Faculty Take On the Problem of Adjunctification

I am part of an unofficial group of tenured faculty at a state institution that relies on many non-tenure-track faculty, but we are not the tenured faculty Ivan Evans refers to in his piece “When the Adjunct Faculty Are the Tenure-Track’s Untouchables.” When we went on the market, getting a tenure-track job already meant you were the one person standing in the rubble-strewn city of your profession. There was no denying the corpses. (Read more in Social Science Space.)

Don’t Be That Dude: Handy Tips for the Male Academic

There is a plethora of research on the causes of hostile environments for women in academia, and on why we have an underrepresentation of women in many fields. There are support groups for women, societies entirely devoted to women academics (broadly and field specific), workshops for women in academia, and countless articles and blogs devoted to the topic. These initiatives are important, but here’s the thing: gender equality has to be a collaborative venture. (Read more in Tenure, She Wrote.)

Three Teaching Styles

The most effective teachers vary their styles depending on the nature of the subject matter, the phase of the course, and other factors. By so doing, they encourage and inspire students to do their best at all times throughout the semester. It is helpful to think of teaching styles according to the three Ds: directing, discussing, and delegating. (Read more in Faculty Focus.)

Constant Conservators: Wear-and-Tear Experts Protect Works at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

In her training as a fine-arts conservator, Ingrid Seyb learned to recognize the enemies of paintings, sculptures, and other priceless works of art: temperatures, humidity, neglect, time’s passage, clumsy repairs, high-heeled shoes—the list seemed endless. As one of sixteen conservators at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, dealing with such menaces was all in a day’s work. (Read more in the Republic.)