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.

Six Dos and Don’ts for Gallery Representation

The road to getting into a gallery can seem impossibly rocky with obstacles at every turn. How do you know if you’re choosing the right path and using the right approach? We chatted with a veteran gallery owner and turned to the experts for six important dos and don’ts to achieving gallery representation. (Read more from Artwork Archive.)

Why Do So Many Galleries Lose Money?

Management of Art Galleries, a slim, Day-Glo orange book, caused a furor when it was published in Germany last year. Written by a 31-year-old German entrepreneur, professor, and art adviser named Magnus Resch, the book argues that most galleries are undercapitalized and inefficient, but, with McKinseylike business strategies, the entire art market could be turned into a profit-generating machine. (Read more from Bloomberg.)

Leading Art Publications in the US Join Forces

ARTnews and Art in America, two of the largest and most widely read art magazines in the US, are merging. Artnews SA—which operates ARTnews, the Polish magazine Art and Business, and the online art market research outlet Skate’s—has acquired Brant Publications’ entire art publishing portfolio, including Art in America. In exchange, Brant Publications, owned by the collector and newsprint magnate Peter Brant, has become the majority shareholder of Artnews SA. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Read “Popular” Scholarly Books

If all goes as planned, there’s a fascinating book about Diderot in your future—and one about the history of photographic detection and another one about the economics of addiction. The Public Scholar program, a major new initiative from the NEH, is designed to promote the publication of scholarly nonfiction books for a general audience, and the first round of grants has just been announced: a total of $1.7 million to 36 writers across a broad collection of disciplines. (Read more from the Washington Post.)

Libraries Are the Future of Manufacturing in the United States

Public libraries are becoming a one-stop shop for manufacturing in the digital age. Because libraries are investing in machines like 3D printers, someday soon everyone with access to a public library could become an inventor or create something. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)

Looking at How Performers Are Paid for Performance Art

On the heels of protesters descending upon the Guggenheim Museum in May, calling for improved conditions for the workers who will build a future branch of the museum in Abu Dhabi, the artists Gerard and Kelly have partnered with the Guggenheim to hammer out fair labor standards for themselves and the other performers in Timelining, part of Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim. (Read more from the New York Times.)

That “Useless” Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket

Stewart Butterfield, Slack Technologies’ cofounder and CEO, proudly holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada’s University of Victoria and a master’s degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science. “Studying philosophy taught me two things,” says Butterfield. “I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings.” (Read more from Forbes.)

An Ignored Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest are inherent in faculty control over curriculum. When not addressed, these conflicts can result in faculty behavior that is neither in the best interest of their students nor of their colleges and universities. Our proposed approach for mitigating such conflicts involves shared governance, with faculty and administrators facing, and mitigating, potential conflicts together. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)