CAA News Today

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

Almost One Third of Solo Shows in US Museums Go to Artists Represented by Just Five Galleries

Nearly one third of the major solo exhibitions held in American museums between 2007 and 2013 featured artists represented by just five galleries, according to new research. The Art Newspaper analyzed nearly 600 exhibitions submitted by 68 museums for its annual attendance-figures survey and found that 30 percent of prominent solo shows featured artists represented by Gagosian, Pace, Marian Goodman, David Zwirner, and Hauser and Wirth. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

How to Navigate the Art World

The art world can feel like that first time you walk into a high-end luxury store: everything is out of your reach, you’re not quite sure where to start, and there are a whole lot of venomous people judging your every move. Enter Roger White, author of the delicious new book The Contemporaries: Travels in the 21st Century Art World. Astute and conversational, White’s writing unveils the current state of the art academy, the studio, and the art market through the careers of the artists Dana Schutz, Mary Walling Blackburn, and Stephen Kaltenbach. (Read more from the Daily Beast.)

Artists, Not Judges, Should Decide Fair Use

This piece will focus on two implications of the Cariou and Sconnie Nation analyses: (1) the inherently factual nature of “fair use” analysis; and (2) fair use as an affirmative defense. “Fair use” started as a judge-made remedy to technically correct legal conclusions that led to absurd results, a practice commonly known as “equity.” Generally, and in the case of “fair use,” equity requires a court to make a significant factual investigation so as to demonstrate why the technical law should not apply. (Read more from the Center for Art Law.)

White Lies? Fibs? Tall Tales? Just Tell the Truth

Certainly, there are a lot of things that you might be reluctant to tell the truth about that don’t seem so terrible, such as one’s age. It may be embarrassing for some artists to be older and starting out, or to have not ever sold any work or to not have academic degrees in studio art or to not have any real exhibition history. (Read more from the Huffington Post.)

How the Tax Code Hurts Artists

With tax day looming, you can practically hear the cries of creative professionals across the country. That’s because the tax code hits many right where it hurts, by penalizing them for the distinctive way they make money. The biggest offender is still the alternative minimum tax, despite the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which brought long-overdue reform. (Read more from the New York Times.)

English-Only PhDs

What does it mean to be a doctor of philosophy in the sciences? What skills do we expect PhDs to possess? One thing you have to leave off that list: the ability to read or communicate in a language other than English. Nearly all US doctoral programs in the sciences have dropped their foreign-language requirement. (Read more from Vitae.)

An Illustrated Guide to Arthur Danto’s “The End of Art”

In an obituary for the New York Times, Ken Johnson described Arthur Danto as “one of the most widely read art critics of the Postmodern era.” Danto, both a critic and a professor of philosophy, is celebrated for his accessible and affable prose. Despite this, his best-known essay, “The End of Art,” continues to be cited more than it is understood. What was Danto’s argument? Is art really over? And if so, what are the implications for art history and art making? (Read more from Hyperallergic.)

AHTR Reports on AP Art History (Part II)

The second of two-part series on AP Art History, this post examines the revised curriculum for art history that will go into effect later this year, its intended outcomes, and its relevance to art historians at all educational levels. The post also identifies new resources developed specifically for the new curriculum, as well as others that are appropriate for both secondary and university-level instruction in art history. (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)