CAA News Today

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries

You’ve probably heard the rumors, but now it’s official: the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) will hold its annual conference in Eugene, Oregon, June 22–26, 2017. “Why Museums Matter: The Teaching Museum Today” will be hosted by the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The program will begin at 5:30 PM on Thursday, June 22, and offer tracks for: professional development (emerging and seasoned professionals); governance, best practices, and administration; curricular connections and new teaching and training models; relevance, diversity, and engagement; renovations and new facilities; and more. AAMG will post a call for proposals in early September, along with registration and hotel information.

American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works

The Weissman Preservation Center at Harvard Library and the Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) will present a multidisciplinary, two-day symposium called “Salted Paper Prints: Process and Purpose.” The program will focus on the preservation, characterization, use, and interpretation of the salt print process, now over 175 years old. Scholarly presentations will include the technical history of the salt print process (both positive and negative images), historical applications of the process for copying and disseminating information, and innovative materials analysis. While many salt prints have survived as beautifully preserved images with rich tonal ranges, they can also be prone to fading and color shifts. New conservation research has assisted our understanding of these fragile items, and renewed interest in the historical and artistic aspects of salt prints has paralleled this preservation research.

Papers are currently being accepted to present at the symposium. Applicants are encouraged to submit abstracts or drafts of three hundred words or less, along with a brief bio or CV. The symposium will include individual presentations of no more than twenty minutes in length and panel discussions on an applicable topic—submissions for both formats are welcome. Preference will be given to recent collaborative research that uses scientific and art-historical evidence to shed light on the preservation of salt prints, their technical evolution and identification, and the cultural impact of this seminal photographic process. Visit the call for papers page on the AIC website for more details. Abstracts must be submitted by December 16, 2016. The symposium will take place September 14–15, 2017, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Association of Historians of American Art

The Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) invites you to attend its fourth biennial symposium, to be held October 6–8, 2016, in Fort Worth, Texas. Online registration is now open. To learn more about the schedule, obtain hotel information, and register, visit www.ahaaonline.org/?page=2016Symposium. The registration fee is $40, and the event is only open to current AHAA members. If you are not yet a member, please consider joining this scholarly community. Membership rates start at $35.

AHAA is also proud to announce a third issue of its online journal, Panorama, which includes a roundtable devoted to pedagogical approaches (featuring the work of Jules Prown), a special section on “Art and Invention,” an article on Kara Walker, new Research Notes, book and exhibition reviews, and responses to the question “Is American art history conservative?” AHAA is grateful for the efforts of Panorama staff, editors, and contributors, and for the support of our readers. As always, the association invites your input and contributions.

AHAA looks forward to gathering in New York for the 2017 CAA Annual Conference. The annual business meeting will take place noon–1:30 PM on Friday, February 17. The AHAA-sponsored scholarly session will be “The Gustatory Turn in American Art” (date/time TBA).

In the coming year, several board terms will expire. AHAA wishes to thank board members who have served the organization and to welcome nominations and self-nominations for the open positions, each with three-year terms. These include three appointed positions (membership coordinator, secretary, and web coordinator) and two elected positions (treasurer and cochair). The cochair alternates annually between academic and museum professionals; this year we invite candidates from the academy. Please contact AHAA at info@ahaaonline.org or chair@ahaaonline.org if you are interested in the position or wish to nominate a colleague.

Foundation in Art: Theory and Education

Celebrating its fiftieth year of first principles educational leadership, the KCAI’s Foundation Department will host FATE’s sixteenth biennial conference, “To the Core and Beyond,” to take place April 5–8, 2017, in Kansas City, Missouri. Registration for the conference is now open. Leading voices in fundamental art and design instruction will gather at the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza. Early-bird registration is open until September 30, 2016. Conference registration includes breakfast and lunch (April 6–8). For conference registration and more information, please visit http://www.foundations-art.org/conferences.

FATE has improved Silver and Gold Institutional Sponsorship levels this year and now offers a new biennial Retiree Faculty Individual Membership! See http://www.foundations-art.org/membership for more information. Also coming up is the FATE regional conference, “Technology Integration into Design Foundations Tech Swap,” which meets on Saturday, November 5, 2016, 10:00 AM–3:00 PM at the University of North Texas. The $20 cost includes coffee, muffins, and lunch (vegetarian option available). For more details, send an email to the event’s coordinator, Deanna Ooley, or visit http://www.foundations-art.org/regional.

FATE’s affiliated-society session at CAA’s 2017 Annual Conference, titled “Using the F-Word for Good, Not Evil: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better,” meets on Thursday, February 16, 10:30 AM–noon in the Madison Suite, Second Floor, New York Hilton Midtown. How do we, as teachers, ignite courage and curiosity in students to explore and jump past their fears of failing? Discoveries occur when we allow tinkering, investigation, and getting things “wrong”—colossal failures hold surprising connections, connotations, and fruitful risks. That’s where the good stuff lives. “Don’t give up!” (see Miranda July). “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better” (see Samuel Beckett). This FATE session will proactively frame failure (pep talks), continue inquiries (experiments), and describe what to do when things go off the rails (glean the good). Speakers will present discussions starters, brainstorming, projects, ways of critiquing, pedagogy, and practice.

Italian Art Society

Last month the Italian Art Society sponsored two sessions at the annual meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC) in Bruges, Belgium. “Co-petition: Testing the Boundaries of Cooperation and Competition” was organized by Alexis Culotta (American Academy of Art, Chicago), and “The Holy Republic of Venice,” was organized by Allison Sherman (Queen’s University) and Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli (Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York). Along with the Historians of Netherlandish Art and the Flemish Research Centre for the Arts in the Burgundian Netherlands, IAS sponsored a special event at the Groeningemuseum in Bruges. Anne Van Oosterwijk, assistant curator of old master paintings at the museum, lectured on sixteenth-century painters’ workshops and practices in Bruges; the lecture was followed by a gala reception.

IAS has announced the upcoming deadlines for two travel awards: the IAS Conference Travel Grant for Modern Topics (deadline: October 1, 2016) provides a minimum of $500 to subsidize transoceanic travel to present in an IAS-sponsored session on the art or architecture of Italy from the early nineteenth century to the present. The deadline for the IAS Travel Grant for Graduate Students and Emerging Scholars, which funds travel to any conference at which IAS has a presence, is November 1, 2016.

IAS is pleased to announce that Karen Lloyd (Stony Brook University) has joined the executive board as acting vice president for program coordination.

Society of Architectural Historians

An SAH Study Day “Louis Kahn in San Diego and La Jolla,” organized by the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), will take place on November 4, 2016. William Whitaker, curator and collections manager of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and Jochen Eisenbrand, chief curator of the Vitra Design Museum, will lead a special preview tour of their exhibition Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture at the San Diego Museum of Art, the first retrospective of Louis Kahn’s work in two decades. After lunch, participants will get a behind-the-scenes tour of Kahn’s renowned Salk Institute for Biological Studies with Whitaker, Tim Ball, director of facilities at the Salk Institute, and Claire Grezemkovsky, associate director of foundation relations. Sara Lardinois of the Getty Conservation Institute will be on hand to discuss Kahn’s designs of the teak window walls, which are currently under conservation by the Getty. A Study Program Fellowship will be available for a graduate student or emerging professional to participate in this Study Day. Registration opens on September 13.

SAH will present its 2016 Awards for Architectural Excellence at its seventh annual awards gala on Friday, November 4, 2016, at the Racquet Club of Chicago. Honorees include the philanthropist Richard H. Driehaus (for architectural stewardship); Sarah Herda, director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and coartistic director of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (for public engagement with the built environment); and Peter Landon, founder and principal of Landon Bone Baker Architects (for design, planning, and sustainability). The awards represent a unique gathering of architectural practice and academic study, honoring the contributions of individual projects to the built environment. Gala proceeds benefit the society’s educational mission and the ongoing restoration of SAH’s headquarters, the Landmark Charnley-Persky House. Tickets are available at sah.org/gala.