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.

Median Salaries of Tenured and Tenure-Track Professors at Four-Year Colleges, 2014–15

The median base salaries of tenured and tenure-track professors at four-year colleges increased by 2 percent in 2014—a rate of salary growth that was down a tenth of a percent from the previous year, according to the results of an annual survey from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Help Desk: Put the Artist First

In the role of writer and curator, I find myself playing bureaucratic middleman between artists and the public, or between artists and institutions. When I get an idea for an exhibition or written feature, the appropriate order of things often gets confusing for me. Should I first approach the artists with the idea, to make sure they are willing and able to participate, or should I discuss the project with the institution or publication, to be sure it gets green-lit? (Read more from Daily Serving.)

Museums Turn to Technology to Boost Attendance by Millennials

Art museum attendance dipped 5 percent from 2002 to 2012, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. Museumgoers 75 and older were the only age group to increase over that period. The guardians of posterity must be concerned about the future, no matter how long the lines may be. Curators worry most about millennials. How do static galleries of canvas and artifact engage a generation raised on the reactive pleasures of right swipes and hyperlinks? How do you sell Goya when Game of Thrones is a click away? (Read more from the New York Times.)

Taking Note: More Resources for Arts Data-Miners

The nation’s museums and libraries are taking prodigious steps to bring their most prized collections of artistic and cultural heritage online. But what about the data concerning those institutions? If we increasingly have the chance to view a painting, piece of sculpture, or rare manuscript from any location, then how easy is it to access basic stats about those items, to run them through analysis without cumbersome software, and to create visualizations that can be shared on multiple platforms? (Read more from the National Endowment for the Arts.)

Dimensions: Expanded Measures of Textiles

The contributions to this issue of Art Practical explore making and process in several ways—through elemental fibers, woven structures, and cloth’s capacity to hold color. Sonya Clark employs the most elemental of fibers—hair—in her essay, while Rebecca Gates’s exploratory text reveals how certain artists employ the warp and weft of a woven textile to create works that are simultaneously aural and visual experiences. (Read more from Art Practical.)

Museums Unite in Campaign to Save Massive Land Art Project

American museums—including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Walker Art Center—are campaigning for the conservation of Basin and Range, the stretch of the land surrounding Michael Heizer’s City. Michael Govan, director of LACMA, said, “The extraordinary Basin and Range landscape by itself is worth protecting. Michael Heizer’s art must be protected too. Together, the environment and the artwork comprise one of the nation’s greatest natural and artistic treasures.” (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

A Report on AP Art History (Part I)

The College Board has released a significant revision of the curriculum for Advanced Placement (AP) Art History that goes into effect in 2015–16. This presents the opportunity to encourage greater exchange between secondary and university educators who have developed innovative teaching methods that can be effective at any level of art-historical study. (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)

How to Improve the Job Search Process, from the Perspective of a Candidate

Job openings are both a blessing and a curse. Search committees spend their time and energy reading through applications, selecting candidates, and making choices. But, no matter the stress that current faculty members are under, the applicants are under more. Each of us applicants is applying for dozens of jobs, possibly year after year. (Read more from Tenure, She Wrote.)