CAA News Today

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

When Art Offends (and Isn’t Understood)

Salem State University in Massachusetts invited artists to create works inspired by the US presidential election. Several paintings, created by critics of Donald Trump, were intended to draw attention to oppression. But minority students were offended—and the university shuttered the exhibition. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

The New Go-To Platform for Finding Artist Residencies

Anyone who has ever tried to find an artist residency knows it’s a difficult task. There are dozens of online aggregators of residency programs, but none claims to be comprehensive, most if not all websites are updated manually, and artists are hard-pressed to narrow down the multitude of opportunities to reflect their personal needs and preferences. (Read more from Artsy.)

How to Fix the Art World, Part 2

Last August ARTnews embarked on an epic project: finding out what inhabitants of the art world think is wrong with their world and how they would fix it. In the ensuing months the magazine spoke with more than fifty individuals—artists and curators, critics and historians, art dealers and an art-fair director—to gather a range of perspectives. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Help Desk: Solo No-No

I’m updating my CV and visited a friend’s website to clarify the details of a collaborative piece we worked on a few years ago. While looking for that project, I came across a different listing that we also shared: a two-person exhibition that he has billed as a solo exhibition. How do I deal with this? (Read more from Daily Serving.)

The Factory of Fakes

A digitally recorded copy, Adam Lowe argues, can be both a lode of “forensically accurate information” and a vehicle for provoking a “deep emotional response.” Because an artwork can be scanned without physical contact, the facsimile process makes traditional conservation efforts—from repainting to varnishing—seem like an exalted form of graffiti. (Read more from the New Yorker.)

It Is Pretty Easy to Get Art Experts to Fall for Fakes

The world of modern art is often viewed as irrational and perplexing by outsiders and insiders alike. Last fall, for example, an Italian art museum displayed an unusual installation, consisting of strewn-about champagne bottles, cigarette butts, and confetti, but cleaners at the gallery threw it all away, mistaking it for the leftover detritus of a party held at the museum the night before. (Read more from New York Magazine.)

MFAs Are Expensive—Here Are Eight Art-School Alternatives

Higher education is in a state of crisis. Student debt is skyrocketing, and those looking for master’s degrees pay ever-higher sums to institutions that frequently underpay the adjunct faculty they employ as teachers. For those in the arts, whether or not an MFA is worth the investment of time and money is perpetually vexing. (Read more from Artsy.)

DIY Syllabus: How to Move Beyond the Transactional

We all know that a syllabus must convey information and set an open and inviting tone. But no matter how skillfully and engagingly it does those things, a syllabus must move beyond the basics and embody the actual substance of the course to be truly effective. (Read more from Vitae.)