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.

Dealing Direct: Do Artists Really Need Galleries?

When Haunch of Venison closed in 2013, the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos was left without a gallery in London or New York—the two cities where Haunch, which was bought by Christie’s in 2007, had spaces. Since her gallery closed, Vasconcelos’s career has been on an upward trajectory: she has represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale, unveiled public sculptures in Porto and Lisbon, and produced several new works for a retrospective at the Manchester Art Gallery. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Value/Labor/Arts: A Primer

“When is it okay to work for free? Is it acceptable as long as you’re working with—or for—another artist? What is an artistic service?” These are some of the questions raised by Shannon Jackson, director of the Arts Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, in her introduction to Art Practical’s latest issue, Valuing Labor. (Read more from Daily Serving.)

The Best Prospective Law Students Read Homer (and Study Art History)

Several years ago, Michael Nieswiadomy released a paper on the LSAT scores of economics majors. I thought I’d make some inquiries with LSAC for some data on this subject to follow up. Applicants to law schools who have degrees in classics placed first, and art-history majors came fourth. (Read more from Excess of Democracy.)

Low Expectations, High Stakes

More than half the nation’s most vulnerable college students are in courses taught by part-time, adjunct faculty members who lack the job security, credentials, and experience of full-time professors—as well as the campus support their full-time peers receive. Community colleges rely on part-time, “contingent” instructors to teach 58 percent of their courses, according to a new report. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Team-Based Learning for Art Historians

Recently two professors participated in a workshop on team-based learning at Brooklyn College, a process in which students are divided into permanent teams for the semester and work during class on activities based on readings. Team-based learning was developed by professors working with business and marketing majors in large lecture classes. While claims that students reportedly read and engage more are attractive, can this model be applied to an art-history class? (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)

Precocious Professionalism: An Academic Epidemic?

The job crisis facing young American PhDs today has an analogue in one earlier historical period: the situation of newly minted lawyers and physicians in early-nineteenth-century France. After the French Revolution abolished the guilds, regulation of recruitment ceased in not only artisanal crafts and mercantile trades but also faculties of law and medicine. As the number of law and medical students soared, employment prospects correspondingly diminished. (Read more from Perspectives on History.)

Insurer Solicits Offers for DIA Artwork; Several Billion-Dollar Bids Received

A group of major Detroit creditors said four investors have made tentative billion-dollar bids for the Detroit Institute of Arts—or key portions of its collection—in a move aimed at undercutting the city’s competing proposal to give the museum to a nonprofit in exchange for $816 million in outside funding that would help reduce pension cuts. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)

How to Avoid a Digital Boom and Bust

The Microsoft Corporation donated more than $1.5 million worth of software to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to upgrade its computer systems and help the museum put more of its collection online. Meanwhile, the Art Institute of Chicago will soon launch an app that transforms visitors’ smartphones into pocket-sized curators. Like many digital projects, the Art Institute’s app and the MFA Boston’s upgrades received a green light only because of external funding. But some experts worry about what will happen if and when grants for digital development diminish. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)