CAA News Today

 

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries

The Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) asks for your support in reaching 3,800 listserv members! Join the most active academic museum and gallery discussion board on the web and get answers to your questions about student engagement, faculty partnerships, and more. Visit us online.

Association of Print Scholars

The Association of Print Scholars (APS) recently celebrated its second anniversary, and the organization continues to grow through the dedicated work of its officers and members. According to its by-laws, APS must elect two officers biannually. In the coming weeks, online voting will take place for the positions of vice president and treasurer. Officers will also appoint a website coordinator.

The International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) and APS collaboratively presented a panel discussion on the market for contemporary prints. The event marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the IFPDA Print Fair, the largest and most celebrated art fair dedicated to fine prints. “Publishing the Contemporary: The State of Printmaking Today” took place on Saturday, November 5, 2016, in the Board of Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory. The print specialist and critic Sarah Kirk Hanley moderated the conversation.

APS will host its affiliated-society panel at CAA’s 2017 Annual Conference in New York. “Collaborative Printmaking” is scheduled for Friday, February 17 at 3:30 PM in the Petit Trianon, 3rd Floor. Chaired by Jasper van Putten from Harvard University, the panel brings together a diverse group of print scholars and artists to explore the wide-ranging impact of collaboration in printmaking across cultures and times—from the European Middle Ages and colonial Peru to contemporary Johannesburg and Chicago. Speakers include: Suzanne Boorsch, Yale University Art Gallery; Emily C. Floyd, Tulane University; Kim Berman, University of Johannesburg; and Kate McQuillen, Independent Visual Artist. Please stay tuned for further updates on APS’s session, reception, and print-related activities.

APS members might enjoy reading the recent issue of Art in Print, which includes the National Gallery of Art curator Peter Parshall’s APS Inaugural Lecture, as well as responses from scholars and APS members.

Feminist Art Project

The Feminist Art Project has announced a call for submissions for “Bodies, Borders, Homes.” We live in a world of migratory population flows, resurgent nationalisms, and state-sanctioned violence. The next issue of Rejoinder web journal will explore the theme of bodies and borders in the context of these geopolitical phenomena. We invite submissions that focus on how the relationship between borders and bodies shapes our understandings of selfhood, exile, and home. Writing (including essays, commentary, criticism, fiction, and poetry) and artwork should address these relationships from feminist, queer, and social justice–inspired perspectives. We particularly welcome contributions at the intersection of scholarship and activism. For manuscript preparation details, please see our website. Rejoinder is published by the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University, in partnership with the Feminist Art Project, Rutgers University. Please send completed written work (2,000–2,500 words max), JPEGs of artwork, and short bios to the editor, Sarah Tobias, by December 9, 2016.

Italian Art Society

Next year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Italian Art Society (IAS). To celebrate this milestone, the organization has initiated both membership and fundraising campaigns that will run through the end of 2016. Please encourage colleagues, students, friends, and aficionados working on or appreciative of Italian art, architecture, and visual culture to join IAS. We are encouraging our members to offer gift memberships to emerging scholars, contingent faculty, and independent scholars. Membership options begin at $20 for graduate students and include three other membership levels ($30 regular; $60 patron, and $100 institution/benefactor). New or newly renewed lapsed memberships paid by December 31, 2016, are valid until January 1, 2018.

IAS has also launched an anniversary-specific campaign to celebrate the growth and longevity of the organization. We ask members and others to consider donations in permutations of three and/or thirty ($3, $30, $300, 2 x $30, 30 x $2) to support IAS’s mission, programs, grants, charitable activities, and publications. Thus far we have raised nearly $2,000 in this fall’s fundraising campaign. During CAA’s annual meeting next February, IAS will host a gala reception to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary at the beautiful New York restaurant Il Gattopardo (13–15 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019, less than a block from CAA’s conference headquarters, the New York Hilton Midtown). At the event we will honor several early presidents of IAS. The early history of the society may be found on our website.

Next year’s IAS/Kress Lecture will take place in Bologna in the Aula Magna of the former monastery of Santa Cristina, which now houses the Arts Department of the University of Bologna. Proposals to present the eighth annual IAS/Kress Lecture, on a topic related to Bologna or its environs, will be due in early January.

Japan Art History Forum

The Japan Art History Forum (JAHP) has announced two recent developments. First, the Japanese Art Society of America (JASA) will provide funding in support of the Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize. JASA will award $1,000 to the 2016 prize winner and has committed to provide a $1,000 award for the prize winner in each of the next four years, for a total of $5,000. Established in 2003 in memory of the distinguished art historian Chino Kaori, the Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize is awarded annually to a graduate student who has written an outstanding essay on a topic in the study of Japanese art history or visual culture. The award recognizes excellence in scholarship, with several past prize-winning essays later published in peer-reviewed journals. More information, including a list of past winners, can be found on the JAHF website. The prize continues to be supported by the University of Hawai‘i Press, which provides $400 in books from the press’s catalogue.

Second, former curatorial interns at the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in Hanford, California, have created the Clark Center Graduate Travel Grant, which will award $500 annually to a graduate student of Japanese art wishing to visit a public or private collection of Japanese art for the purpose of in-person, hands-on research. The grant was created in commemoration of the closing of the Clark Center and in recognition of and heartfelt gratitude for the experience the Clarks and the center provided to the former interns and to many more young and emerging scholars in the field.

In June 2015, the Clark Center closed its doors after twenty years of offering exceptional exhibitions and programs for visitors from the local community in California’s Central Valley as well as Japanese art specialists from across the country and around the world. From its inception, the Clark Center also hosted an unparalleled curatorial internship program, which graduated a total of nineteen interns with valuable hands-on experience handling and caring for artworks, planning exhibitions, and working with the public. Bill and Libby Clark, founders of the center, not only created this rare opportunity for young scholars in the field; they also opened their home to us and welcomed us as part of their family. Seed money for this fund has been donated by the past interns of the Clark Center, and additional contributions to the fund are welcome on an ongoing basis. Donations to the Clark Center Graduate Travel Grant program can be made by visiting the JAHF website.

National Council of Arts Administrators

The forty-fourth annual conference of the National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA) convened September 28–October 1, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The organization is indebted to Hester Stinnett of Tyler School of Art at Temple University for organizing a truly exceptional conference. Featured speakers included Sean Kelley, senior vice president and director of public programming at Eastern State Penitentiary; Pepon Osorio, artist and Tyler professor; Greg Anderson, sociologist and dean of Temple University’s College of Education; and Blake Bradford, director of the Lincoln University-Barnes Foundation Museum.

The membership elected three new board members: Joe Poshek (Irvine Valley College); Jeni Mokren (State University of New York, New Paltz); and Peter Chametzky (University of South Carolina). They join returning directors Leslie Bellavance (Kendall College of Art and Design, Secretary), Lynne Allen (Boston University), Elissa Armstrong (Virginia Commonwealth University, President), Cathy Pagani (University of Alabama, Treasurer), Tom Berding (Michigan State University), Nan Goggin (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), A. Blake Pearce (Valdosta State University), David LaPolombara (Ohio University), Michael Fels (Elon University), Andrea Eis (Oakland University, Past Treasurer) and Amy Hauft (University of Texas at Austin, Past President). Special thanks to Steve Bliss (Savannah College of Art and Design), Cora Lynn Deibler (University of Connecticut) and Jim Hopfensperger (Western Michigan University) for their excellent service and who rotated off the board this year.

Activities at the 2017 CAA Annual Conference include the annual NCAA reception (Thursday, February 16, 7:00–9:00 PM) and an NCAA-CAA affiliate session, “Entrepreneurship as Research, Teaching, Learning, or Service,” a fast-paced series of presentations on leadership (Thursday, February 16, 5:30–7:00 PM). NCAA welcomes new and current members, and all interested parties.

Public Art Dialogue

Public Art Dialogue (PAD) has announced the 2017 winner of its annual award for lifetime achievement in the field of public art. The artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles will be honored with an award reception during the CAA Annual Conference in New York, taking place February 15–18, 2017. PAD’s awards ceremony will take place at the Queens Museum. For more information, please see http://publicartdialogue.org/news

Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture

The Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) has welcomed several new members, including three institutions: St. Petersburg Arts Project, the Getty Research Institute, and ARTMargins. The organization has also received its first donation to establish the Maya Semina Graduate Student Travel Grant. Several SHERA members are participating in the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies convention, taking place November 17–20, 2016, in Washington, DC. The SHERA membership meeting will take place on Friday, November 18, 6:15–7:45 PM at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park.

At the CAA Annual Conference in February 2017, SHERA will host two emerging-scholar sessions and a membership meeting. “Emerging Scholars: Politics and the Collective in East European and Russian Art, Part I” will take place on Wednesday, February 15, 10:30 AM–NOON, and “Emerging Scholars: Russian Artists and International Communities, Part II” will transpire on Friday, February 17, 8:30–10:00 AM. The SHERA membership meeting will happen on Friday, February 17, 5:30–7:00 PM. All events will take place in the conference hotel.

Visual Resources Association

The Visual Resources Association (VRA) expresses gratitude to CAA and its membership for the distribution of the VRA Professional Status survey in fall 2015. VRA is pleased to announce the completion and availability of the VRA 2015-16 Professional Status Task Force Report on Professional Status. This report provides extremely valuable information about the landscape of the profession and the needs of colleagues working within a variety of visual-resource and related environments. Almost half of the 446 survey respondents identified themselves as non-VRA members, which is a good indication of how support from an organization like CAA increased the survey’s reach and our understanding of the professional status and needs of our colleagues working across related fields. Thanks again to all affiliated-society members who assisted in this important work. Please do not hesitate to contact the VRA board with questions about the report by sending a message to board@vraweb.org.

VRA has once again been included in the important Cross-Pollinator collaboration with Digital Library Federation/Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (DLF-GLAM). Through the cross-pollinator grant last year, Andrea Schuler from Tufts University attended the DLF meeting; Meagan Duever of the University of Georgia attended the VRA-ARLIS/NA joint conference in Seattle. Since this year’s grant was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the grant can support eight new travel awards to foster collaboration among museum and digital library communities. Four $1,000 fellowships will be offered to non-DLF-affiliated GLAM professionals to attend the 2016 DLF Forum, and four DLF-affiliated practitioners will receive a $1,000 award plus free registration to attend one of the upcoming conferences of the following partnering organizations: the American Institute for Conservation; the Art Libraries Society of North America; the Museum Computer Network; and VRA.

Women’s Caucus for Art

The Women’s Caucus for Art will present its 2017 Lifetime Achievement Awards to Mary Schmidt Campbell, Audrey Flack, Martha Rosler, and Charlene Teters on Saturday, February 18, 2017, at the New York Institute of Technology in midtown Manhattan. CAA members are invited to attend the ticketed VIP Awards celebration from 6:00 to 7:30 PM that precedes the public awards presentation at 8:00 PM. The WCA Lifetime Achievement Awards were first presented in 1979 to Isabel Bishop, Selma Burke, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Like those women, this year’s awardees have made significant contributions to the visual arts. The art historian Mary Schmidt Campbell is president of Spellman College. The work of the photorealist painter and sculptor Audrey Flack is in major museum collections. Martha Rosler is a nationally known video, text, and performance artist, as well as a frequent contributor to Artforum. Charlene Teters is academic dean at the Institute of American Indian Arts as well as an artist, writer, and activist. The 2017 President’s Award for Art and Activism will be presented to the feminist curator and educator Kat Griefen.

The Lifetime Achievement Awards are the culminating event at WCA’s annual conference (held during CAA, February 16–18) that includes a Thursday evening reception for the exhibition Wage On! Women, Art, and Money at Ceres Gallery in Chelsea, professional workshops, caucus sessions, and other opportunities for networking. WCA’s affiliated-society panel on “Maternal Art and Activism” with cochairs Rachel Buller and Margo Hobbs will take place on Friday, February 17 at 10:30 AM in the Rendezvous Ballroom. Be sure to visit WCA in the CAA Book and Trade Fair, too. Early bird tickets are available for the awards VIP reception until January 7, 2017.