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.

Life beyond Art School: What Next, Where Next, and How to Make It Happen

A recent symposium held in Glasgow and organized jointly by Glasgow School of Art and Q-Art saw fine-art staff, students, and industry professionals examine the role of art schools and how they prepare students for life after university. Laura Campbell reports on the issues raised and the possible solutions. (Read more from a-n.)

Black Bodies, White Cubes: The Problem with Contemporary Art’s Appropriation of Race

As new political movements like Black Lives Matter have gained influence, social practice has risen in stature and popularity. But a new wave of contemporary work influenced by racial injustices is decidedly more sensational. Artists have made systemic racism look sexy; galleries have made it desirable for collectors. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Who’s Going to Fix My Broken Art?

I shipped a ceramic sculpture across the country to a gallery for an important group show, and they said it was broken when they unpacked it—as in, shattered to pieces. I spent an absurd amount of time and money packing it up so that nothing would break. Is it wrong to ask the gallery to pay for the damage? (Read more from Burnaway.)

The Library of Last Resort

Responsibility for restoring the Library of Congress’s digital mandate has fallen to Carla Hayden. The job she has before her is to prepare the library to serve another century of US citizens that has become most accustomed to consuming information on the internet. (Read more from N+1.)

Rethinking Knowledge in the Internet Age

The internet started out as an assured tool for generating a well-informed citizenry. Over the past fifteen years, that optimism has given way to cynicism and fear—we have taught our children that the net is a swamp of lies spun by idiots and true believers and polluted by commercial entities whose sole aim is to have us click to the next ad-riddled page. (Read more from the Los Angeles Review of Books.)

Why Doing Something as Dull as Copyright Registration Gives You Stronger Rights

Like all things legal, copyright registration is boring and costs money—a standard electronic application costs $55. This is why the task tends to sit at the bottom of the never-ending to-do list that many creators make but never get through. (Read more from the Copyright Alliance.)

New Measures Initiated to Remedy the Surprising Pitfalls of Collecting Video Art

What are you actually buying when you purchase a work of video art? The answer isn’t quite what the uninitiated might expect. The tricky nature of video art has proven to be an unpleasant surprise for collectors in the past. (Read more from Artsy.)

Why Most Academics Will Always Be Bad Writers

For at least a generation, academics have elaborately and publicly denounced the ponderous pedantry of academic prose. So why haven’t these ponderous pedants improved, already? The critics would say the ponderous pedants are doing it on purpose. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)