CAA News Today

CAA will highlight intellectual property and copyright in two back-to-back sessions at the 2011 Annual Conference. First, CAA’s Committee on Intellectual Property will host an informal, participatory session on the rapidly changing world of copyright as it affects the work of contemporary artists and scholars. A second panel, part of the regular conference program, will trace the evolution of intellectual property since ancient times. Both sessions will take place on Friday, February 11, 2011, at the Hilton New York, the conference headquarters hotel. The first will be held in Petit Trianon, Third Floor (12:30–2:00 PM); and the second moves to Gramercy A, Second Floor (2:30–5:00 PM).

For the committee-sponsored “Copyright, CAA, and the Next Century,” the session cochairs—Ken Cavalier, an art historian and lawyer based in British Columbia, and Christine Sundt, editor of Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation—will facilitate discussion about today’s critical issues. Open to the public, the session allows attendees to speak freely on issues they think CAA should address, or that are starting to brew regarding copyright in the United States and Canada. Cavalier and Jeffrey Cunard, CAA’s counsel, will serve as legal experts and guides, and committee members will be on hand to answer questions. CAA is especially interested in how it can improve coverage of intellectual-property issues on its website, in its conference sessions, and in outreach efforts, as well as how the organization can define its leadership role (and work with other groups) to advocate copyright legislation that benefits the artistic community.

For the program session, “Intellectual Property in the Visual Arts, Antiquity through Early Modern,” Beth Holman, an independent scholar and the session’s chair, will shift the focus from print and print privileges to shed light on other strategies of asserting and protecting intellectual property. Kristen Seaman of Kennesaw State University will talk about “Ancient Greek Theories of Authorship and the Creation of Art History,” and Giancarla Periti of the University of Toronto will speak on “Authorship and Early Modern Manuscript Collections of Antiquarian Artifacts.” Moving forward chronologically, C. Jean Campbell of Emory University will discuss “Working Knowledge: Ownership and the Representation of Inventive Capacity in Early Renaissance Art,” and Alexandra Hoare of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts will address “‘Né tocchi mai da nessuno’: Salvator Rosa’s Contribution to Seventeenth-Century Concepts of Intellectual Property.” Ken Cavalier will serve as the session’s discussant.