CAA News Today
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — August 12, 2015
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.
Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey
The results of the Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey lead to a range of conclusions, many of which are perhaps best addressed by museums on the local level, as local and regional demographics tend to differ considerably across the continent. The headline is unsurprising: utilizing the categories employed by the 2000 US Census, 72 percent of AAMD staff is Non-Hispanic White, and 28 percent belongs to historically underrepresented minorities. (Read more from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.)
Women Take the Lead in US Museum Jobs, but Minorities Are Still Underrepresented
American museums have made significant progress toward gender equality but little headway in building ethnically diverse staff, according to a report from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The average museum’s curatorial, education, conservation, and top administrative staff members are 84 percent white. The report, based on a survey administered to 181 museums, was the first comprehensive study of the ethnic and gender makeup of US museum employees. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
The Guerrilla Girls, after Three Decades, Still Rattling Art World Cages
After three decades as masked crusaders for gender and racial equality in the art world—and increasingly, everywhere else—the Guerrilla Girls have lately been enjoying a victory lap. Last year, the Whitney Museum of American Art acquired the group’s portfolio of eighty-eight posters and ephemera from 1985 to 2012, documenting the number of women and minorities represented in galleries and institutions, including the Whitney itself. (Read more from the New York Times.)
A Sobering Look at How AIDS Changed Art in America
In the most literal way, AIDS left its mark on the art world. Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres are just a few of the well-known artists who died from illnesses related to the virus. And as a result, some of the art from the late 1980s and 1990s reflected the fear, mourning, and misunderstandings surrounding the epidemic. Art AIDS America, an exhibition that’s temporarily up in West Hollywood and opening in full at the Tacoma Art Museum in October, looks at how AIDS inserted itself into the art world’s conversation. (Read more from Wired.)
What’s at Stake in the Artist’s Resale Right Debate?
During the Scull auction of 1973, in which the collector Robert C. Scull sold some fifty iconic works of Pop and Minimalist art for $2.2 million, Robert Rauschenberg, whose work was represented prominently among the lots but who earned nothing from their sale, showed up to heckle the collector. Footage from the Scull auction was played to a packed house at Artists Space in New York, which hosted a panel of arts professionals that addressed resale rights for artists. (Read more from Artsy.)
Is the Copyright Office Inflating the Need for Orphan Works Legislation?
The issues and concerns surrounding orphan works emerged from the Copyright Act of 1976 when copyright protection became automatic and registration became optional. The Copyright Office has noted in its most recent report, Orphan Works and Mass Digitization, that the inability to locate the owners of these copyrighted but not registered works is “perhaps the single greatest impediment to creating new works.” But is it? (Read more from Clancco.)
Facing Facts: Artists Need an Entrepreneurial Mindset, Part 2
The attention generated by my first essay on artist entrepreneurship made me elated and depressed simultaneously. It was obviously hitting a nerve of many in the live arts whose training gave them no foundation for how to actually make a living. Although many college and university faculty members came forward in the comment section to demonstrate that there are, in fact, programs that prepare students for the marketplace, there is still a disconnect for most artists between their creative practice and the pragmatic skill set necessary to make a go of it in the real world. (Read more from HowlRound.)
Instagram Takes on Growing Role in the Art Market
Anyone in the art market who was not already paying attention to the social-media platform Instagram had to sit up and take notice in late April after the actor Pierce Brosnan visited the showroom of Phillips auction house in London. Brosnan snapped a selfie in front of a work he admired: the Lockheed Lounge, a space-age aluminum chaise longue by the industrial designer Marc Newson. Then he added the words “let the bidding commence” and posted it to the 164,000 followers of his Instagram feed. (Read more from the New York Times.)
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — August 05, 2015
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.
Six Dos and Don’ts for Gallery Representation
The road to getting into a gallery can seem impossibly rocky with obstacles at every turn. How do you know if you’re choosing the right path and using the right approach? We chatted with a veteran gallery owner and turned to the experts for six important dos and don’ts to achieving gallery representation. (Read more from Artwork Archive.)
Why Do So Many Galleries Lose Money?
Management of Art Galleries, a slim, Day-Glo orange book, caused a furor when it was published in Germany last year. Written by a 31-year-old German entrepreneur, professor, and art adviser named Magnus Resch, the book argues that most galleries are undercapitalized and inefficient, but, with McKinseylike business strategies, the entire art market could be turned into a profit-generating machine. (Read more from Bloomberg.)
Leading Art Publications in the US Join Forces
ARTnews and Art in America, two of the largest and most widely read art magazines in the US, are merging. Artnews SA—which operates ARTnews, the Polish magazine Art and Business, and the online art market research outlet Skate’s—has acquired Brant Publications’ entire art publishing portfolio, including Art in America. In exchange, Brant Publications, owned by the collector and newsprint magnate Peter Brant, has become the majority shareholder of Artnews SA. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Read “Popular” Scholarly Books
If all goes as planned, there’s a fascinating book about Diderot in your future—and one about the history of photographic detection and another one about the economics of addiction. The Public Scholar program, a major new initiative from the NEH, is designed to promote the publication of scholarly nonfiction books for a general audience, and the first round of grants has just been announced: a total of $1.7 million to 36 writers across a broad collection of disciplines. (Read more from the Washington Post.)
Libraries Are the Future of Manufacturing in the United States
Public libraries are becoming a one-stop shop for manufacturing in the digital age. Because libraries are investing in machines like 3D printers, someday soon everyone with access to a public library could become an inventor or create something. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)
Looking at How Performers Are Paid for Performance Art
On the heels of protesters descending upon the Guggenheim Museum in May, calling for improved conditions for the workers who will build a future branch of the museum in Abu Dhabi, the artists Gerard and Kelly have partnered with the Guggenheim to hammer out fair labor standards for themselves and the other performers in Timelining, part of Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim. (Read more from the New York Times.)
That “Useless” Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket
Stewart Butterfield, Slack Technologies’ cofounder and CEO, proudly holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada’s University of Victoria and a master’s degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science. “Studying philosophy taught me two things,” says Butterfield. “I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings.” (Read more from Forbes.)
An Ignored Conflict of Interest
Conflicts of interest are inherent in faculty control over curriculum. When not addressed, these conflicts can result in faculty behavior that is neither in the best interest of their students nor of their colleges and universities. Our proposed approach for mitigating such conflicts involves shared governance, with faculty and administrators facing, and mitigating, potential conflicts together. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Summer 2015 Recipients of the Meiss/Mellon Author’s Book Award
posted by Christopher Howard — August 03, 2015
CAA has announced the five recipients of the Meiss/Mellon Author’s Book Award for summer 2015. Thanks to a grant of $60,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CAA is supporting the work of emerging authors who are publishing monographs on the history of art and related subjects.
The five Meiss/Mellon grantees for summer 2015 are:
- Elise Archias, The Concrete Body—Rainer, Schneemann, Acconci, Yale University Press
- Molly Brunson, Russian Realisms: Literature and Painting, 1840–1890, Northern Illinois University Press
- Jeehee Hong, Theater of the Dead: A Social Turn in Chinese Funerary Art, 1000–1400, University of Hawai‘i Press
- Susan Rosenberg, Trisha Brown: Choreography as Visual Art (1962–1987), Wesleyan University Press
- Christina Bryan Rosenberger, Drawing the Line: The Early Works of Agnes Martin, University of California Press
The purpose of the Meiss/Mellon subventions is to reduce the financial burden that authors carry when acquiring images for publication, including licensing and reproduction fees for both print and online publications.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — July 29, 2015
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.
Questions to Ask before Applying to an Artist Opportunity
Breaking into the art world is a difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be. To be a successful artist, you must be determined, hardworking, and passionate about your field of work. It also helps to understand how the art world does business: how to find the opportunity that is the best fit for you, how to avoid predatory scams, and how to build your résumé for the future. (Read more from the New York Foundation for the Arts.)
Before Applying to an Artist Opportunity: Beware the Ides of Arts
One of the biggest problems facing artists today is the multitude of scams and schemes, especially those on the internet. And no, it’s not just the foreign princes looking to transfer money. Every artist wants to be discovered and make it big, but that doesn’t mean you should hastily leap into opportunity without looking first. (Read more from the New York Foundation for the Arts.)
Is It Okay to Haggle with an Art Gallery?
There’s a painting that I’d like to purchase from a smaller gallery here in town, but it’s out of my budget. Not by much, but in order to buy it, the price needs to come down. Can I try to negotiate with the gallery? I come from the business side of things, so that’s a normal practice for my realm, but I don’t want to anger anyone, or seem rude. (Read more from Burnaway.)
Grant Dispute Throws an Unwritten Rule of Academic Poaching out the Window
Among research universities a longstanding gentlemen’s agreement has held that a scientist who moves from one institution to another is allowed to carry any grant support along to his or her new home. Now, with universities counting every dollar, that bit of protocol may become a quaint courtesy of days gone by. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Saying Yes
While it’s true that new hires need to learn to say no so they don’t get overwhelmed and fall behind on their scholarship, it’s also important to decide which opportunities to accept or decline. What are the offers worth saying yes to? When might saying no really be declining a valuable opportunity? Are there ways that saying yes to certain opportunities might help to advance, rather than take time away from, your own research agenda? (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Where Does Innovative Teaching Come From?
There’s a long-standing tradition of informal sharing of pedagogical innovation among K–12 teachers and a whole line of research on this phenomenon, which is known as teacher leadership. The same type of informal faculty leadership exists in higher education as well, but there is very little research on this topic, according to Pete Turner, education faculty member and director of the Teacher Education Institute at Estrella Mountain Community College. (Read more from Faculty Focus.)
Why Collect Artist’s Books and Zines?
The Brooklyn-based publisher Blonde Art Books recently organized its third annual Bushwick Art Book and Zine Fair (BABZ), a three-day event featuring a few dozen independent publishers, alongside workshops and performances. The presence of something like BABZ is not particularly surprising: a market for do-it-yourself printed matter still exists, whether at art-book fairs, at stores like Printed Matter, or in university library collections. What drives collectors to keep these venues running? What, or who, fuels the market? (Read more from Artslant.)
In Conversation: Peter Schjeldahl with Jarrett Earnest
In the pantheon of art writers, Peter Schjeldahl holds a special place as one of the greatest living critics. As an art critic for the New Yorker since 1998, he is alive to the nuanced movements of his own feelings, which he charts over the course of each review. This summer he met with the Rail’s Jarrett Earnest to discuss the interconnections between seeing, feeling, and writing. (Read more from the Brooklyn Rail.)
Smarthistory Seeks Short Essays
posted by Christopher Howard — July 27, 2015
Smarthistory is working to provide essays and videos on the 250 objects that are part of the new AP art-history curriculum, launching fall 2015. We have eighteen objects left ranging from prehistoric to contemporary work. If you are interested in contributing a brief introductory essay on one of these, please drop us an email: drszucker@gmail.com and beth.harris@gmail.com.
Here’s what missing (images can be found on this list):
- Apollo 11 Cave Stones (State Museum Namibia)
- Running horned woman, 6000–4000 BCE, Algeria
- Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux, France, 15,000–13,000 BCE
- Anthropomorphic stele (El-Maakir-Qaryat al-Kaafa), fourth millennium BCE (Riyadh)
- Terracotta fragment, Lapita, Solomon Islands, Reef Islands, 1000 BCE (University of Auckland
- Michel Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000), 1994 (MNZM/Museum of New Zealand)
- Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 1997
- Magdalena Abakanowicz, Androgyne III, 1985, burlap, resin, wood, nails, and string (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- Portrait mask (Mblo), Baule peoples (Côte d’Ivoire), late nineteenth or early twentieth century
- Lukasa (memory board), Mbudye Society, Luba peoples, (DR Congo), ca. nineteenth or early twentieth century
- Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace, Kamakura Period, Japan, ca. 1250–1300 CE (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
- Ambum Stone, Papua New Guinea, ca. 1500 BCE (National Gallery of Australia)
- Nan Madol, Pohnpei, Micronesia, Saudeleur Dynasty. ca. 700–1600 CE
- ‘Ahu ‘ula (feather cape), Hawaiian, late eighteenth century
- Tamati Waka Nene, Gottfried Lindauer, 1890 CE, oil on canvas
- Malagan display and mask, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, ca. twentieth century (University Museum, Pennsylvania)
We are also looking for contributions from art historians on other broadly taught topics.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — July 22, 2015
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.
Great Colleges to Work For 2015
This special issue features results of the Chronicle’s eighth annual Great Colleges to Work For survey, based on responses from nearly 44,000 campus employees. The survey found that at colleges recognized for a strong workplace culture, employees were more likely to feel acknowledged, supported, well informed by their leaders, and engaged in a common mission. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
UK Copyright Amendment Provokes Controversy in the Art and Design World
The British government has recently moved to repeal section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Removing this section would increase the copyright duration for artistic designs—as opposed to traditional artistic works—from twenty-five years from the year the designs were first marketed to the more common term of life of the author plus seventy years. The new arrangement has stirred up controversy in the process. (Read more from Center for Art Law.)
Help Desk: Selling Out
Recently a design firm approached me about a project that involves artists painting on small refrigerators from which energy drinks will be sold. There will be a gallery exhibition of these fridges before they are distributed to various retail outlets in major cities around the country. The pay is pretty good, though not what I would ideally get for a painting of that size. Will I be committing an ethical transgression if I participate in this promotion? (Read more from Daily Serving.)
Peter J. Cohen Trumpets the Art of Amateur Photography
Waiting for a companion at a Chelsea flea market in New York in the early 1990s, Peter J. Cohen thumbed through a bin of bygone snapshots, torn out of discarded family albums. He didn’t know what attracted him to the images—he’d never been interested in vintage photography and wasn’t the type to reach for a camera to document his own life—but, on a whim, he purchased five of them for $8. When he got home and inspected the photographs more closely, he knew right away that he wanted to return to the flea market to buy more. (Read more from the Boston Globe.)
You Can’t Hurry Greatness
In 1990, the psychologist John Hayes proposed the “ten-year rule,” arguing that even someone with enormous creative potential needs to spend a decade working on his or her craft before producing work of lasting merit. In a newly published paper, Richard Hass of Philadelphia University and Robert Weisberg of Temple University reevaluate this rule by looking at the careers of some of America’s most enduringly popular artists: five composers from the Great American Songbook era. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)
Mentoring as a Tenure Criterion
Purdue University, like most colleges and universities, evaluates faculty members up for tenure on their accomplishments in research, teaching, and service. Like most research universities, research has tended to be prominent. But university administrators recently told the Purdue board of plans to make significant changes in those criteria. Coming first will be an expectation that faculty members are active mentors to undergraduates, especially to at-risk students. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Museums’ Disturbing Transformation: Relentless Commercialization
For-profit art dealers are organizing shows for nonprofit museums. Museum professionals are organizing shows for commercial art fairs and galleries. Museum collections are being monetized, rented out for profit to other museums and private corporations. Corporations are co-organizing museum shows. In fact, so commonplace is the boundary-blurring that few any longer notice. (Read more from the Los Angeles Times.)
Modeling the Behavior We Expect in Class
We should be thinking about social learning theory in the context of the college classroom. Although so-called observational learning now has widespread acceptance and a fair amount has been written about the benefits of modeling in the grade-school classroom, there is surprisingly little out there on the topic for college instructors. (Read more from Vitae.)
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — July 15, 2015
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.
Trigger Warning Diffused
Students at Crafton Hills College who sign up for a course on the graphic novel next year will encounter works such as Fun Home and Persepolis without being first warned on the syllabus that they might be offended. That’s the way it has been at the college, but officials at the California community college said in June that a trigger warning would be added to the syllabus after one student and her parents complained about those two novels as well as two others. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Speaking for the “Quitters” and “Failures”
In the eyes of many academics, as Leonard Cassuto recently pointed out, I am considered a failure because I did not earn a doctorate. Meanwhile, American universities are awarding more doctorates than ever. And yet I have something most of those newly minted PhDs will never have: a full-time, tenured teaching job. (Read more from Chronicle of Higher Education.)
The Booming World of Architecture That Only Exists in Pixels
There’s a long tradition of great architects never building a single thing. They’re called paper architects, because their work is purely two-dimensional. But today, you might look for them working somewhere else: video-game design and three-dimensional visualization. An architectural visualization artist named Ronen Bekerman has been at the center of that shift. (Read more from Gizmodo.)
Help Desk: How to Lob a Pitch
How do I pitch an art article to an editor? I have begun a writing practice that is not reviewing art as much as just reflecting on art, science, and visual culture in essay-length posts. I would love to share them but don’t even know where to start. (Read more from Daily Serving.)
Art Critics Need to Get Serious If They Want to Thrive Online
Amazon announced last month that it would change its payment structure for independent writers who publish directly on the online retailer’s different Kindle platforms, giving out royalties according to the number of pages read by Kindle users, rather than per book downloaded. A per-page payscale privileges a certain kind of writing, one that relies on cliffhangers and withholding information, but this attitude fails to echo the complexities, possibilities, and variety of web-based publishing platforms. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Collector Fights for African Art
Sindika Dokolo, a Congolese businessman and art collector, is on a crusade to force Western museums, art dealers, and auction houses to return Africa’s art, particularly works that might have been removed illegally during the colonial era. “Works that used to be clearly in African museums must absolutely return to Africa,” Dokolo said. “There are works that disappeared from Africa and are now circulating on the world market based on obvious lies about how they got there.” (Read more from the New York Times.)
A Done Deal, Obama to Create Basin and Range Monument
A vast sweep of rural Nevada marked by lonely desert valleys, craggy mountain ranges, and ancient and modern art will become the newest addition to the nation’s inventory of protected landscapes. President Barack Obama will sign a proclamation designating the Basin and Range National Monument on 704,000 acres of Lincoln and Nye counties in Nevada, the White House announced. The artist Michael Heizer has spent decades creating a massive earthen sculpture, called City, in the midst of the newly protected area. (Read more from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.)
Is Adjuncting the “Kiss of Death”?
Numerous commentators have observed that being an adjunct, as a recent essay put it, “actually seems to decrease your chances of securing a tenure-track position.” Some have even gone so far as to label adjuncting a career destroyer, the proverbial “kiss of death.” But is it really? (Read more from Vitae.)
CAA’s Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews Will Now Rely on the Doctrine of Fair Use in Publishing Copyrighted Material
posted by Christopher Howard — July 13, 2015
In a fundamental change in scholarly publishing practice, the College Art Association has announced new standard contracts with contributors to its lead journals. These new contracts encourage scholars and artists contributing to its journals to employ fair use for third-party works in copyright (such as images and quoted text) according to the principles and limitations outlined in CAA’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts. This is in contrast to previous contracts for the CAA journals, which (like other standard contracts in the field) required contributors to obtain permissions for most illustrations and other third-party works. By adhering to the principles of fair use in this new policy, CAA leads the way for other scholarly publications and presses to similarly embrace the doctrine of fair use.
In its new author agreements, CAA states that after careful review of the Code the author must determine whether or not fair use may be invoked. If the conclusion is in the affirmative, CAA will publish without requiring third-party permission; in addition, the agreements state that the author need not indemnify CAA for claims of copyright infringement with respect to the use of a third-party work which he or she has determined is a fair use. The author’s signature on the document certifies that she or he has read the Code and considered the limitations of fair use as outlined in an addendum to the agreement. Authors will still need to obtain permission for third-party works that are not utilized under fair use.
In announcing the new policy, Linda Downs, executive director of CAA, stated “CAA is enormously proud to be a leader in the reliance on fair use in its publications. The decision is the result of two years of research in the field, consolidating the opinions of professionals throughout the visual arts community as well as legal experts into a straightforward set of principles and limitations that make it much easier to use copyrighted materials in our work. As of today, CAA journal authors are no longer required to seek permission for use of all third-party images and texts for their articles if they review the best practices code in each instance and demonstrate that their use complies with its principles and limitations. Any risk that might occur in utilizing fair use will be borne by CAA, not the authors.”
The new contracts are available in the Publications section of the CAA website.
CAA’s Fair Use Code Receives Important New Endorsements
posted by Christopher Howard — July 13, 2015
Only months after its release, major visual arts organizations continue to endorse CAA’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts. The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) each voted in April to endorse CAA’s set of principles regarding best practices in the fair use of copyrighted materials. In June, the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and Association of Research Libraries (ARL) also voted to endorse.
Founded in 1940, the Society of Architectural Historians is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes the study, interpretation and conservation of architecture, design, landscapes, and urbanism worldwide. SAH serves a network of local, national and international institutions and individuals who, by vocation or avocation, focus on the built environment and its role in shaping contemporary life. SAH promotes meaningful public engagement with the history of the built environment through advocacy efforts, print and online publications, and local, national, and international programs.
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association, is the higher education association for librarians, committed to advancing learning and transforming scholarship. Founded in 1940 and representing nearly 11,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals, ACRL is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching, and research. As Mary Ellen K. Davis, executive director of ACRL, stated: “The Code will serve as a valuable open-access resource for our higher education stakeholders.” Both organizations are disseminating the Code to their members.
The mission of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) is to foster excellence in art and design librarianship and image management. Founded in 1972, it has a membership of 1,000 that includes architecture and art librarians, visual resources professionals, artists, curators, educators, publishers, students, and others throughout North America interested in visual arts information. In a written statement, the ARLIS board wrote, “The ARLIS/NA Executive Board endorses the College Art Association’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, an important document that will advance visual arts scholarship and creative practice in this digital age. The Code is a strong step away from a permissions culture that hinders many members of the larger community.”
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of the leading research libraries in the US and Canada. Comprising more than 125 libraries at comprehensive, research-intensive institutions, its mission is to shape and influence forces affecting the future of research libraries in the process of scholarly communication. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations.[3]
Groups that previously have endorsed the Code include the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and the American Library Association (ALA).
These endorsements come in addition to early support for the Code from the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), both of which have recommended it to their members. In a letter to CAA, Susan Taylor, president of AAMD, and Christine Anagnos, its executive director, wrote: “AAMD believes the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts is an excellent contribution to the field and a great point of departure for best practices in the fair use of copyrighted materials…. AAMD believes this document has the potential to be a valuable aid to all professionals in the visual arts and will recommend it to our membership.”
CAA welcomes other endorsements, and encourages organizations in the field to recommend the Code to members. CAA representatives are happy to address questions and to make educational presentations. To make arrangements for a presentation, whether by webinar, conference call, or in person, please contact me at jlanday@collegeart.org. The Code and supporting materials are available at www.collegeart.org/fair-use.
The creation of CAA’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — July 08, 2015
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.
I’m Paid Less Than My Colleagues. Help!
I’m in the biological sciences at an R1 school and am a relatively new full professor. Recently, I was shown the mean salary for all faculty at this rank within my department. To my surprise, my salary was about 20 percent less than this number. Meanwhile the mean salary for full professors in my department is approximately 6 percent lower than the average provided by the Chronicle’s latest salary report for my university. (Read more from Vitae.)
Havana’s Vital Biennial Was Trumped by a Stifled Voice
The Havana Biennial raised the right questions in a society that continues to define itself, despite a creeping capitalist economy, as seriously socialist. How can a vital art be made for sharing rather than for private ownership? Who is allowed to decide what is art and what is not? And how, in a period that almost everyone acknowledges to be one of transition, do you create an art in progress, an art that can exist in the public realm and reflect the present, without being prematurely monumental? (Read more from the New York Times.)
Against Students
What do I mean by “against students”? By using this expression I am trying to describe a series of speech acts that consistently position students, or at least specific kinds of students, as a threat to education, free speech, civilization, even life itself. In speaking against students, these speech acts also speak for more or less explicitly articulated sets of values: freedom, reason, education, democracy. Students are failing to reproduce the required norms of conduct. (Read more from the New Inquiry.)
Heartbroken: Seventy-Two USC Alumni Write in Support of Withdrawn MFA Students
More than six-dozen alumni of the Roski School of Art and Design at USC published an open letter supporting the class of MFA students that withdrew from the university in May to protest changes in curriculum, faculty, and funding. “As alumni of the University of Southern California Roski School of Art and Design’s Master of Fine Arts Program,” reads the letter, “we are dismayed to hear that Dean Erica Muhl’s actions and lack of support for the Program have caused the entire graduating class of 2016 to withdraw.” (Read more from the Los Angeles Times.)
Art Teachers “Paid the Same as McDonald’s Workers”
As President Obama announced plans to extend overtime pay to more US workers, many artists and nonprofit organizations are pushing for wage increases, including Andrea Bowers, an artist and senior lecturer at the Otis College of Art and Design. “Faculty are making the same amount as McDonald’s workers,” she says. Instructors are paid per course with a semester-long fee, but this hovers around minimum wage, if the number of hours spent on the course is taken into consideration. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
What Startups Can Learn from the Art Market
Although the denizens of Art Basel and the participants in Y Combinator may protest, the process of making art today is essentially identical to the process of making startups. Both the gallery and the incubator are singular spaces specifically designed to do the same thing: maximize volatility and promote creativity within a network of makers, gatekeepers, investors, marketers, and ultimately consumers. Guiding the players at the center is the Curator-Patron—the art dealer or the angel investor/venture capitalist. (Read more from Fast Company.)
The Fine Art of Forgery
In the radiant blue chamber of the ZPrinter 850, a skull is born. An inkjet arm moves across a bed of gypsum powder, depositing a layer of liquid that binds the powder together in the shape of a cranial cross-section. Then the arm sweeps across again, brushing on another thin layer of powder, followed by another layer of liquid, indistinguishable from the first, its imprint as abstract as a coffee stain on a napkin. Watching this process is akin to watching a movie with a slide projector—it’s slow. But after twelve hours and 1,500 layers, a technician will reach into the dust and pull out an impeccably structured replica of a hominid skull. (Read more from the Atlantic.)
Older and on the Market
Searching for employment tends to make people anxious about the ways in which they are different from the typical candidate. One such factor is age, especially if you are older than average on the market. I heard from two readers who had such concerns. One wrote: “A growing number of us earn PhDs post-40, post-50. I’m 58. I’ve been told pointblank not to even think of applying for conventional teaching positions.” (Read more from Vitae.)