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.

Summer Art Pilgrimages

Artists and curators—including Doug Aitken, Taner Ceylan, Tacita Dean, Flavin Judd, and Lisa Yuskavage—tell us about the journeys they have embarked on, or hope to make, to see something special. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.) 

How Dutch Art School Students Survived Their Thesis Shows 

Students from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, a renowned Dutch visual arts and design college based in Amsterdam, have just turned in their graduation work and their thesis shows, so we thought it was the perfect opportunity to look back at the tricks, tips, and clever ways they were able to circumvent the strict regime of their school. (Read more from Creators.)

On Carl Andre, Ana Mendieta, and the Cult of the Male Genius

After a five-year worldwide tour, the sculptor Carl Andre’s major retrospective has reached its final stop at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. MOCA has appeared to make minor fanfare on its behalf. There has been little to no advertising of the show. The opening wasn’t well attended. (Read more from the Los Angeles Review of Books.)

Medievalists Try to Diversify the Field

The room for the 9:00 AM keynote lecture, “The Mediterranean Other and the Other Mediterranean: Perspective of Alterity in the Middle Ages,” at the annual International Medieval Congress wasn’t crowded. Most attendees—more than 2,400 of them, from fifty-six countries—were still arriving or recovering from jet lag. When the introductions began, one person noticed that all of the speakers discussing “otherness” were white, European men. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Brad Troemel Accuses Fashion Designer of Ripping Off His Art

A few looks from the Vika Gazinskaya Spring 2018 ready-to-wear collection appear to take direct inspiration from the work of Brad Troemel—without permission, acknowledgement, or arrangement. Through a few posts on Instagram, Troemel alleges that the dresses directly lift designs and imagery from paintings he showed in New York last November. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Why NCAC Objects to “Restore Campus Free Speech” Bills

NCAC recently sent a letter to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper urging him to veto a bill dubbed as a measure to “restore” and “preserve” free speech on state college campuses. But why would an organization devoted to free expression object to an effort to safeguard free speech at universities? (Read more from the National Coalition against Censorship.)

Why Collaborative Curating Makes Sense for a Divided Political Era

In the wake of election of Donald Trump, artists and curators have been wrestling with the idea of how to respond creatively, through their practice, to the current charged political climate. Such is the challenge that curators Amanda Hunt and Eric Crosby have explicitly given themselves with their exhibition 20/20, opening at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. (Read more from Artnet News.)

Advancing Participation in the Survey

Without some demonstration of career utility, courses like art history serve as just another core requirement to be endured, rather than valued. While challenging, this situation also presents art historians with the opportunity to present the history of art as something relevant, practical, and helpful to otherwise disinterested students. (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)