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.

Can .art Domain Give the Art Business an Online Boost?

London’s Institute of Contemporary Art adopted the new .art suffix last week, a sign that the art and culture business may be coming to terms with its future in the digital realm. The ICA ditched its fusty ica.org.uk domain for the streamlined and descriptive ica.art, and the move may soon be followed at other prestigious art institutions around the world. (Read more from the Guardian.)

BHQFU on How to Run a Free Art School with the “Worst” Business Model

If there’s one thing that sets US education apart from education in other nations, it’s student debt. For art students with vague graduate degrees that don’t offer much job security, the cost of tuition has left many of them worse off after graduating than they were before becoming a student. What can be done? (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)

What Happens to Whitney Biennial Curators after the Show’s Over?

Inclusion in the Whitney Biennial—the influential and sometimes controversial snapshot of contemporary American art that takes place every two years—has launched or resuscitated many an artist’s career. But those tapped to do the selecting have experienced their own professional transformation, as this year’s organizers Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks may well discover. (Read more from Artsy Editorial.)

Trigger Warning: Academic Standards Apply

“I don’t like this whole idea of academic standards. Ever since I was in grade school, they’ve made me feel pressured and stressed out. I think academic standards are bullying. Whenever I deal with them, they bring back all these old bad memories. It’s like PTSD or something.” So declared a student from one of my courses at California State University, Fresno. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

New Travel Ban Still Sows Chaos and Confusion

A long-anticipated executive order restricting travelers from a half-dozen predominantly Muslim countries is likely to bring little certainty to American college campuses. The new order imposes a ninety-day ban on issuance of new visas, including student visas, to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Museums Chart a Response to Political Upheaval

As President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Inauguration Day approached, hundreds of artists, critics, and others asked American museums, galleries, and other institutions to close their doors in protest. They wanted museums to show that they are “places where resistant forms of thinking, seeing, feeling, and acting can be produced,” the organizers wrote in a petition for a J20 Art Strike. (Read more from the New York Times.)

When the Private Sector Funds the Arts

I recently wrote a piece defending the NEA, a grant-making organization that is somehow such a drag on the economy that it is now on the chopping block for the federal 2017 budget. This move makes perfect sense for Donald Trump the businessman, according to GOP enablers, because if the arts and so-called free expression are so worthy, the private sector will step in and fund them. (Read more from the Millions.)

US Embassy Art Scheme Should Survive Trump

The Trump administration is considering cutting federal funding for the arts, among other spending programs, to reduce domestic spending. However, one US cultural initiative appears to be secure—the State Department’s Art in Embassies program, which places works by US artists in embassies and ambassadorial homes around the world. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)