CAA News Today
IN MEMORIAM: Christopher M. S. Johns
posted by CAA — May 24, 2022
Christopher M.S. Johns, the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Professor of Fine Arts and professor of history of art and architecture, died at his home on May 8 after a long illness. He was 67.
Read more about Christopher’s life and work here.
IN MEMORIAM: Wilbur Niewald
posted by CAA — May 11, 2022
Wilbur Niewald, a longtime CAA member and artist, recently passed away at the age of 97. He was professor emeritus at the Kansas City Art Institute and a recipient of CAA’s Distinguished Teaching of Art Award in 1988.
Read more about Wilbur’s life and work here.
In Memoriam: Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes
posted by CAA — May 11, 2022
Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes unexpectedly passed away on March 30, 2022. A former member of CAA, Dr. Vendryes was most recently appointed as the incoming Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Dr. Vendryes Professor was in the Department of Performing and Fine Arts and Director of the Fine Arts Gallery at York College at the City University of New York (CUNY) and Professor of Art History for more than two decades. Additional information on the life and work of Dr. Vendryes can be found in the announcement Tufts University issues upon her appointment as Dean. That announcement can be found here.
Announcing the Terra Foundation for American Art Research Travel Grant Recipients for 2022
posted by CAA — May 09, 2022
We’re delighted to announce that twenty-four scholars have been awarded Terra Foundation for American Art Research Travel Grants in 2022.
These grants provide support to doctoral, postdoctoral, and senior scholars from both the US and outside the US for research topics dedicated to the art and visual culture of the United States prior to 1980.
The Terra Foundation prioritizes projects that interrogate and broaden definitions of American art and lends support for projects engaged in transforming or complicating how the story of American art is told. To expand histories of American art, we encourage projects that reflect a commitment to inclusive and equitable research and museum practice; generate new scholarship and interpretive frameworks; employ critical methodologies and innovative models; and/or engage diverse partners and audiences.
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH TRAVEL GRANTS FOR US-BASED SCHOLARS
Doctoral Scholars
Manon Gaudet, Yale University, “Beyond Landscape: Property and the Contested Ground of North American Visual Culture, 1900-1945”
Michaela Haffner, Yale University, “The Visual Culture of Naturopathic Cures & the Fashioning of White Wellness”
Annie Ochmanek, Columbia University, “Conceptualism and the Connexionist World: The Art of Eduardo Costa, Hannah Weiner, Christine Kozlov, and Stanley Brouwn”
Constanza Robles, Boston University, “Visualizing Alliances through Art and Architecture: Pan Americanism, Hispanismo and Latin Americanism in World Fairs, 1901-1929”
Lea Stephenson, University of Delaware, “’Wonderful Things’: Egyptomania, Empire, and the Senses, 1870-1922”
Postdoctoral & Senior Scholars
Maria Elena Buszek, University of Colorado, Denver, “Art of Noise: Feminist Art and Popular Music
John J. Curley, Wake Forest University, “Critical Distance: Black American Artists in Europe 1957-1968”
Emily Voelker & Erin Hyde Nolan, UNC Greensboro and Maine College of Art, “Reading Native American Portraits in Ottoman: Global Economies of Nineteenth-century Survey Photograph”
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH TRAVEL GRANTS TO THE UNITED STATES
Doctoral Scholars
Marion Belouard, University of Limoges, “Painting nature, exchanging knowledge. John James Audubon (1785-1851), a rare bird in Atlantic history?”
Cora Chalaby, University College London, “Control Systems: Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Alma Thomas, and Howardena Pindell’s Orderly Abstractions”
Clara Johanna Lauffer, Central Institute for Art History, Munich, “Rewriting the ‘pictures generation’: the production of white masculinity in appropriation art”
Mylène Palluel, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, “The ‘Longue durée’ paradigm in 1960s American art and social sciences. Case studies in Minimal Art, Conceptual Art and Land Art”
Mona Schubert, University of Cologne, “Photographic Media at documenta in the 1970s and the US-American Art Scene”
Clara Royer, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, “Slow-Scan: the (geo)political turn of media arts (1960-1990)”
Yana Shtilman, Université de Paris, “Public image, private lives: Creating the image of the “New Negro” woman in the Harlem Renaissance (1920-1943)”
Achang Su, China Academy of Art, “The Identity Issues and Abstract Transformation in the works of Modern Chinese-American Artist George Chann from 1950s to 1960s”
Postdoctoral & Senior Scholars
Alice Butler, Courtauld Institute of Art, “The Perversions of Textile in Feminist Art”
Anne-Claire Faucquez, Université Paris 8, “The narrativization of colonial slavery in American museums: arts and representations” (collaborating with Androula Michael)
Roula Matar, École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Versailles, “James Johnson Sweeney’s Contribution to a Critical and Didactical Approach to Exhibition Installation”
Androula Michael, Université de Picardie Jules Verne – UFR des arts, “The narrativization of colonial slavery in American museums: arts and representations” (collaborating with Anne-Claire Faucquez)
Yvonne Schweizer, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, “Linking Mediatization and Mediation. Art Institutions as Media Producers since 1970”
Harry Weeks, Newcastle University, “The Artist’s Second Shift”
Andrew Witt, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, “Exile Modernism: Photography c. 1940”
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TERRA FOUNDATION RESEARCH TRAVEL GRANTS
Call for Proposals: Materiality and Mediation: Global Conversations
posted by CAA — May 02, 2022
Materiality and Mediation: Global Conversations
Tuesday, 4th October 2022.
A virtual symposium convened by the CAA, the Design History Society, and the International Association of Word and Image Studies
To what extent are materiality and mediation useful foci in the study of design, word and image? What happens when we bring them together? How do materiality and mediation work in tandem as productive subjects of enquiry? What are the local, regional and international variations in the ways these foci are understood and engaged by design historians and those working in word and image studies?
This global collaborative project brings together three intersecting constituencies—art and design, design history, word and image studies—to examine the ways in which materiality and mediation intersect.
- mediating the ethics and sustainability of extraction and deployment of materials
- sensoriality of materials and mediation
- mediation as material activism
- mediating intersections of materiality and form (natural/synthetic/digital matter; art/craft/design/film/photography; prose/poetry/drama)
- localizing/globalizing materials through mediation
- ‘raw and cooked’ materials
- mediating materialities of scale
- mediating immateriality
- mediating materials as signifiers of identity politics
- (Im)material media of mediation
- agency of materials
- dialogues and disputes between makers and mediators.
- a proposal title;
- an abstract of 250 words;
- a statement of relevance to the symposium theme, Materiality and Mediation: Global Conversations;
- and a one-page CV listing major publications.
Please send your proposal via email to the DHS Administrator, Jenna Allsopp, (designhistorysociety@gmail.com) by 12 midnight GMT on Tuesday June 14, 2022. Notifications of acceptance will be emailed on July 8, 2022.
The Design History Society and the International Association of Word and Image Studies are two of CAA’s affiliated societies. If you have an interest in joining CAA as an affiliated society, please visit this page.
Looking Back at a Year of Robust Humanities Advocacy
posted by CAA — April 25, 2022
By Alexandra Klein, National Humanities Alliance (NHA) Communications and Government Relations Manager
In early March, five months after Fiscal Year 2022 began, Congress finally passed a funding package for the year. The package included significant increases for federal humanities programs—most significantly, the largest increase we’ve seen in a decade for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This success followed a full year of robust humanities advocacy, much of which was supported by scholarly societies such as CAA. For example, thanks to their ability to mobilize their members, we were able to recruit advocates from all 50 states to participate in our 2021 Humanities Advocacy Day, which kicked off our advocacy for these FY 22 wins.
In addition to many other engagements with members of Congress and their staff throughout the year, we followed Humanities Advocacy Day with two congressional briefings to highlight the impact of NEH funding.
The first briefing, held in September 2021, discussed NEH funding for diverse histories and civics in K–12 education. Since 2018, NHA has worked with over 20 NEH-funded professional development programs for K-12 educators to survey their impacts, and this briefing was an opportunity for congressional staff to hear about the data we’ve collected. At the briefing, we shared that 100 percent of respondents to a post-program survey reported experiencing professional growth as a result of the program they attended and 98 percent of respondents said they would recommend participating in an NEH workshop to a colleague. Staffers also heard directly from project directors about how these programs—which covered a range of topics including Native American histories, the Mississippi Delta, the Transcontinental Railroad, and Japanese American internment—offer crucial professional development to our nation’s educators, illuminate diverse histories, and support civic education in our nation’s classrooms.
The second briefing, held in November 2021, showcased how NEH funding for public humanities discussions enriches our communities by highlighting the example of the NEH-funded “Freedom Stories: Unearthing the Black Heritage of Appalachia the International Storytelling Center (ISC) in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Those involved in the project spoke about how it built space for dialogue and learning, and about how the discussions offered participants the chance to explore our rich histories and come together across differences. Thanks to a partnership with NHA to document the impact of the program, we were able to highlight that 82 percent of participants in the “Freedom Stories” program agreed that they “feel more confident taking part in thoughtful discussions about race” as a result of the program, and 93 percent felt motivated to “listen to the stories of people whose backgrounds are different from [their] own.”
After a long year of advocacy and several continuing resolutions that kept government funding at FY 21 levels past the beginning of FY 22, we were particularly pleased to see Congress approve a $12.5 million funding increase for the NEH in March, bringing its FY 22 budget to $180 million.
Our other priorities also saw increases. These included an increase of $2.5 million for Title VI, which brought its funding to $71.9 million, and an increase of $1 million for Fulbright-Hays, which brought its funding to $9.8 million. The Institute of Museum and Library Services received $268 million, an $11 million increase for the agency overall. While there was an increase for both the Office of Museum Services and the administration budget, the funding to carry out the Library Services and Technology Act remained level. The National Archives and Records Administration received $388 million, an $11 million increase. And NHPRC received $7 million, a half a million dollar increase.
There was one disappointment that came with these numbers. Nearly across the board, these final numbers were significantly lower than the numbers that the House and Senate originally proposed for our priorities. This was, however, the case for nearly all domestic spending.
As we turn our attention to FY 2023, we are hopeful we can build on the level of support we saw in the initial FY 2022 bills to secure additional increases in the coming year. The FY 23 process is off to a good start with the administration proposing another round of robust increases for several humanities priorities, which we will be working to make a reality as Congress drafts its yearly appropriations bills.
Nominations Open for CAA Juries
posted by CAA — April 21, 2022
CAA invites nominations and self-nominations for individuals to serve on our Awards for Distinction, Publication Grant, Fellowship, and Travel and Support Grant juries. Terms begin July 2022.
Candidates must possess expertise appropriate to the jury’s work and be current CAA members. They should not hold a position on a CAA committee or editorial board beyond May 31, 2022. CAA’s president and vice president for committees appoint jury members for service. Materials are due to CAA by June 1, 2022.
Amanda Williams speaks at Convocation at CAA’s 108th Annual Conference in Chicago
AWARDS FOR DISTINCTION JURIES
CAA has vacancies in the following juries for the annual Awards for Distinction for three years (2022–2025). Terms begin in July 2022.
- The Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award/Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions for museum scholarship (3 vacancies)
- Charles Rufus Morey Book Award for non-catalogue books in the history of art (2 vacancies)
- Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism (1 vacancy)
- Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize for Art Bulletin articles (2 vacancies)
- The CAA/American Institute for Conservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation (2 vacancies)
- Jury for the Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work, Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Distinguished Teaching of Art Award (1 vacancy)
- Jury for the Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art (3 vacancies)
- Distinguished Feminist Awards for Scholars and Artists (1 vacancy)
PUBLICATION GRANT JURIES
CAA has vacancies on our Publication Grant juries for three years (2022–2025). Terms begin in July 2022.
- Millard Meiss Publication Fund (2 vacancies)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIP JURIES
CAA has vacancies on our Professional Development Fellowship juries for three years (2022–2025). Terms begin in July 2022.
- Professional Development Fellowship in Art History (2 vacancies)
TRAVEL/SUPPORT GRANT JURIES
CAA has vacancies on our jury for three years (2022–2025). Terms begin in July 2022.
- CAA Support Grant in Memory of Archibald Cason Edwards, Senior, and Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards (2 vacancies)
- Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions (2 vacancies)
HOW TO APPLY
Nominations and self-nominations should include a brief statement (no more than 150 words) outlining the individual’s qualifications and experience and a CV (an abbreviated CV no more than two pages may be submitted). Please send all materials by email to Cali Buckley: cbuckley@collegeart.org. Nominations must be sent as a Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF attachment.
For questions about jury service and responsibilities, contact info@collegeart.org.
Deadline: June 1, 2022
Global Conversations: Mentoring Beyond the Classroom
posted by CAA — April 21, 2022
Filmed at the National Museum of Mexican Art, this program features a discussion about mentoring between two Chicago-based artists, Rubén Aguirre and Dan Ramirez, mediated by Cesáreo Moreno, Director and Curator of the National Museum of Mexican Art. Their conversation takes place inside the Aguirre’s exhibition Tectonic Reflections, open at the National Museum of Mexican Art until July 24. This program was a part of the session, “Mentoring Beyond the Classroom: The Continuing Relationship Over Time,” at CAA’s 2022 Annual Conference in February, chaired by Richard Serrano, a member of CAA’s Services to Artists Committee.
CWA Picks: March/April 2022
posted by CAA — April 21, 2022
The March and April “picks” include exhibitions that encourage viewers to reframe familiar historical narratives and hierarchies. The content explored by these artists ranges from political icons to advertising and myth; and their approaches weave together tradition with experimentation. The works in these exhibitions move between the past and the present, providing a perspective tied to both individual and collective memory.
Angela Davis — Seize the Time
September 08, 2021 – June 15, 2022
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University
This exhibition is inspired by an archive in Oakland, California, collected and curated by Lisbet Tellefsen and includes contemporary works focused on the political icon, Angela Davis. The exhibit provides a rich and layered portrait of a public figure, whose image, for decades, has been associated with revolution, anti-racism, and social justice.
De: Lata, works by Bibiana Suarez
March 2022
National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture, Chicago, IL
Puerto Rican artist Bibiana Suárez’s colorful paintings of image and text are directly inspired by her observations of food labels. The title of the show is a play on words that points toward her motivations and includes the verb delatar (to be a bore) and the noun lata (can). Suarez is interested in exploring the often-misleading representations of contemporary Latinas and the marketing of Latino culture through food and advertising.
Harmonia Rosales: Entwined
January 19, 2022 – May 1, 2022
Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara
This exhibition presents work by the Afro-Cuban American artist Harmonia Rosales. Rosales’ paintings pull from Greek and Yoruba mythologies and encourage viewers to question historical representations of women.
Agency: Feminist Art and Power
January 22, 2022 – June 5, 2022
Museum of Sonoma County
Agency: Feminist Art and Power is an exhibition curated by Karen M. Gutfreund and presented in collaboration with the Feminist Art Project. The twenty-eight exhibiting womxn artists represent a diverse range of perspectives and experiences. The work explores notions of freedom, race and identity.
Hear Me Roar: Women Photographers
August 23, 2021 – May 27, 2022
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
Hear Me Roar: Women Photographers is a series of exhibitions organized in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first class of undergraduate women at Lehigh University. Each exhibit highlights the work of women photographers currently found in the University’s collection.
Featured artists include: Holly Andres, Kristin Capp, Sandra Eleta, Donna Ferrato, Florence Meyer Homolka, Jeanine Michna-Bales, Lydia Panas, Joyce Tenneson, Eugenia Vargas-Pereira, and Jennifer Williams.
To Know the Fire: Pueblo Women Potters and the Shaping of History
September 3, 2022
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
To Know the Fire includes a selection of earthenware vessels from the Pueblo communities of New Mexico and Arizona generously gifted to KAM by the late George Ogura. The art of pottery making was a skill handed down through generations of women and continues today. It is also a practice steeped in collaboration and shared resources. Many of the pieces included in the show are dated between the 1930s and 1980s by artists from the acclaimed Nampeyo (Hopi-Tewa Pueblo), Navasie (Hopi Pueblo), Lewis (Acoma Pueblo), and Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) families. A selection of more recent miniature vessels also demonstrates the potters’ virtuosity, producing exquisitely detailed, minute replicas.
Sharon Norwood: The Root of the Matter
February 3, 2002 – May 28, 2022
Washington and Lee University, Lexington VA
This exhibition features the work of Sharon Norwood, who explores the conceptual role of line and its relationship to the body and race. Norwood’s practice involves a range of approaches including ceramics, drawings, paintings, installations, and video. The alterations the artist makes to found objects encourages viewers to expand their view of historical narratives.
Opener 34: Ruby Sky Stiler—New Patterns
January 29, 2022 – May 15, 2022
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
Ruby Sky Stiler’s work is deeply connected to the past, while still grounded in the contemporary. From Greco-Roman sculpture to iPhone photographs, Stiler weaves content and material, breaking down time and temporal hierarchies and allowing viewers to oscillate between the past and the
present. The exhibit includes a site-specific mural for the Tang Teaching Museum, as well relief paintings, and large-scale sculpture.
Women, Surrealism, and Abstraction
August 25, 2020 – May 7, 2022
Utah State University, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, Utah
Women, Surrealism, and Abstraction is an exhibit consisting of work found in the Museum collection and highlights the often-overlooked female, surrealist artists of the 20th century. The exhibit expands our understanding of Surrealism by including a range of mediums beyond painting and sculpture from photography and printmaking to fiber arts.
Womanhouse
February 18, 2022 – April 2, 2022
4859 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
This exhibition, organized by LAND and Anat Ebgi Gallery celebrates the 50th anniversary of Womanhouse. Through a series of performances, film screenings, and archival materials, this exhibition shares the history, trajectory and current influence of Womanhouse and west coast Feminist Art.
CAA ANNOUNCES 2022 RECIPIENTS OF THE ART HISTORY FUND FOR TRAVEL TO SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
posted by CAA — April 14, 2022
Grantee Rachel Stephens with her students from the University of Alabama at the Birmingham Museum of Art for the exhibition “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now” on on June 12, 2019.
CAA’s Art History Fund for Travel to Special Exhibitions is designed to award instructors of qualifying undergraduate and graduate art history classes funds to cover the costs (travel, accommodations, and admission fees) associated with students and instructors attending museum special exhibitions throughout the United States and worldwide.
The awardees for 2022 are:
Terri Geis, New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Course: “International Surrealisms”
Exhibition: Surrealism Beyond Borders, Tate London
Christopher Heuer, University of Rochester, NY
Course: “Pilgrimage/Exhibition/Biennale”
Exhibition: 59th Annual Venice Biennale, 2022, Theme: “The Milk of Dreams”
Allison Stagg, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
Course: “19th Century American and German Landscape Painting: Gendered Connections”
Exhibition: Women, Art, and Land: Reframing the Hudson River School at the Thomas Cole Historic Site, Catskill, NY
Applications for the next round of grants will be accepted by CAA beginning in fall 2022.