CAA News Today
Career Services Guide for the Los Angeles Conference
posted by Christopher Howard — December 07, 2011
CAA has designed the Career Services Guide to inform job seekers and employers about placement activities at the 2012 Annual Conference in Los Angeles. The publication, available as a PDF, will help you navigate Career Services events and provides answers to frequently asked questions. Study this guide carefully so that you will know what to expect from conference interviewing and how best to prepare for a successful experience.
Job candidates can review the basics of the conference employment search. Read about the Candidate Center, your home base at the conference, as well as Orientation, an introduction to Career Services where you can ask questions. In addition, learn more about the Online Career Center, where you can search for position listings, post application materials, and arrange interviews. The publication includes tips for improving your CV, portfolio, and supplemental application materials.
Employers will find details in the guide for renting interview booths and tables as well as recommendations for posting jobs and conducting interviews at the conference. You can begin preparations now for Career Services through the Online Career Center or onsite at the Interviewer Center.
Printed copies of the Career Services Guide will be distributed onsite at Orientation and in the Candidate Center. All conference Career Services will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center. For more information about job searching, professional-development workshops, and more, visit the Career Services section of the conference website.
Recipients of CAA’s Meiss and Wyeth Publications Grants
posted by Christopher Howard — December 05, 2011
CAA has awarded grants to the publishers of thirteen books in art history and visual culture through two programs: the Millard Meiss Publication Fund and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant.
Meiss Grants Winners
This fall, CAA awarded grants to the publishers of eight books in art history and visual culture through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund. Thanks to the generous bequest of the late Prof. Millard Meiss, CAA gives these grants to support the publication of scholarly books in art history and related fields.
The eight grantees for fall 2011 are:
- Esra Akcan, Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey, and the Modern House, Duke University Press
- Helen Hills, The Matter of Miracles: Forms of Holiness in Baroque Naples, Manchester University Press
- Paul B. Jaskot, The Nazi Perpetrator and Postwar German Art, University of Minnesota Press
- Jacqueline Jung, The Gothic Screen: Sculpture, Space, and the Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, 1200–1400, Cambridge University Press
- Jinah Kim, Receptacle of the Sacred: Illustrated Manuscripts and the Buddhist Book Cult in South Asia, University of California Press
- Mary Quinlan-McGrath, Influences—From the Orb of the Universe to the Orb of the Eye: Astrology and Art in the Italian Renaissance, University of Chicago Press
- Hanna Rose Shell, Hide and Seek: Camouflage, Animal Skin, and the Media of Reconnaissance, Zone Books
- Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Northwest Coast Native Art: The History of an Idea, University of British Columbia Press
Books eligible for Meiss grants must already be under contract with a publisher and on a subject in the visual arts or art history. Authors must be current CAA members. Please review the application guidelines for more information. The deadline for the spring 2012 grant cycle is March 1, 2012.
Wyeth Grant Winners
CAA is pleased to announce five recipients of the annual Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant. Thanks to a second generous three-year grant from the Wyeth Foundation, these awards are given annually to publishers to support the publication of one or more book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of American art, visual studies, and related subjects.
Receiving 2011 grants are:
- Amanda Carlson and Robin Poynor, Africa in Florida: 500 Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State, University Press of Florida
- Mary Coffey, Mexican Muralism and the “Philanthropic Ogre”: How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture, Duke University Press
- Mónica Domínguez Torres, Military Ethos and Visual Culture in Post-Conquest Mexico, Ashgate
- Tatiana Flores, From Estridentismo to ¡30-30!: The Historical Avant-Gardes of Post-Revolutionary Mexico, Yale University Press
- Sue Rainey, Harry Fenn’s Career in Art: Creating a World on Paper, University of Massachusetts Press
For the purpose of this program, “American art” is defined as art created in the United States, Canada, and Mexico prior to 1970. Books eligible for a Wyeth grant must already be under contract with a publisher. Authors must be current CAA members. Please review the application guidelines for more information. The deadline for the 2012 grant cycle is October 1, 2012.
Finalists for the 2012 Morey and Barr Awards
posted by Christopher Howard — December 02, 2011
CAA is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2012 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award and the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award. The winners of both prizes, along with the recipients of ten other Awards for Distinction, will be announced in January and presented during a special ceremony in Los Angeles, in conjunction with the 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration.
The Charles Rufus Morey Book Award honors an especially distinguished book in the history of art, published in any language between September 1, 2010, and August 31, 2011. The four finalists are:
- Michael W. Cole, Ambitious Form: Giambologna, Ammanati, and Danti in Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011)
- Rebecca Messbarger, The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010)
- Alexander Nagel, The Controversy of Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)
- Nina Rowe, The Jew, The Cathedral, and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
The Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for museum scholarship is presented to the author(s) of an especially distinguished catalogue in the history of art, published between September 1, 2010, and August 31, 2011, under the auspices of a museum, library, or collection. The three finalists are:
- Maryan W. Ainsworth, ed., Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance; The Complete Works (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, in association with Yale University Press, 2010)
- Suzanne Glover Lindsay, Daphne S. Barbour, and Shelley G. Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2010)
- Elizabeth Morrison and Anne D. Hedeman, Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250–1500(Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010)
The Barr jury has also shortlisted two catalogues for the second Barr Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, or Collections. The titles are:
- Roy Flukinger, The Gernsheim Collection (Austin: Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas Press, 2010)
- James T. Tice and James G. Harper, Giuseppe Vasi’s Rome: Lasting Impressions from the Age of the Grand Tour (Eugene: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, 2010)
The presentation of the 2012 Awards for Distinction will take place on Thursday afternoon, February 23, 12:30–2:00 PM, in West Hall Meeting Room 502AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center. The event is free and open to the public. For more information about CAA’s Awards for Distinction, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-392-4405.
NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman Is Convocation Speaker
posted by Christopher Howard — November 29, 2011
Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) since 2009, will deliver the keynote address at Convocation during CAA’s 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration. Convocation takes place on Wednesday evening, February 22, 2012, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, West Hall Meeting Room 502AB, Level 2. Scheduled from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, Convocation also includes a welcome from Linda Downs; CAA executive director, an address from Barbara Nesin, president of the CAA Board of Directors; remarks from Susan Hildreth of the Institute of Museum and Library Services; and the presentation of the CAA Centennial Awards.
Born and raised in Saint Louis, Missouri, Landesman pursued his undergraduate education at Colby College and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before earning a doctorate in dramatic literature at the Yale School of Drama. After completing his coursework, he stayed at the school for four years, working as an assistant professor.
Landesman’s ensuing career has been a hybrid of commercial and artistic enterprises. He left Yale in 1977 to start a private investment fund, which he ran until his appointment ten years later as president of Jujamcyn, a company that owns and operates five Broadway theaters. Before and after joining Jujamcyn, He produced Broadway shows, the most notable of which are Big River, Angels in America: Millenium Approaches, Angels in America: Perestroika, and The Producers, all of which won Tony Awards. In 2005, he purchased Jujamcyn and operated it until President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate him to lead the NEA. The United States Senate confirmed Landesman as the tenth NEA chairman on August 7, 2009.
Landesman has been active on numerous boards, including the Municipal Arts Society, the Times Square Alliance, the Actor’s Fund, and the Educational Foundation of America. He has also vigorously engaged the ongoing debate about arts policy, speaking at forums and writing numerous articles, focusing mainly on the relationship between the commercial and nonprofit sectors of the American theater. Over the years, he returned to the Yale School of Drama and the Yale Repertory Theatre to teach.
December 2011 Issue of The Art Bulletin
posted by Christopher Howard — November 22, 2011
The December 2011 issue of The Art Bulletin, the leading publication of international art-historical scholarship, features essays on the portraiture of nuns in colonial Mexico, the sociological context of Katsushika Hokusai’s famous print Under the Wave off Kanagawa, and Federico Zuccari’s painting The Encounter of Christ and Veronica on the Way to Calvary.
The December issue publishes four essays on diverse topics. For “Inventing the Exegetical Stained-Glass Window,” Conrad Rudolph studies the reintroduction of allegory in an art program established by Abbot Suger in the twelfth century for St-Denis in France, finding that it culminated in the construction of a new elite art for the literate layperson. In “Ancient Prototypes Reinstated,” Livia Stoenescu demonstrates the self-conscious medievialism in Zuccari’s painting The Encounter of Christ and Veronica on the Way to Calvary (1594) and the artist’s intention of inscribing its narrative within a Christocentric image. In “Clad in Flowers: Indigenous Arts and Knowledge in Colonial Mexican Convents,” James M. Córdova examines the flowery trappings depicted in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portraits of nuns in New Spain. For her essay, Christine M. E. Guth explores the sociocultural context of Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa (ca. 1830–33) to reveal it as a site for Japan’s shifting geopolitical circumstances between the 1790s and the 1860s.
In the Reviews section, two writers consider three books on the history of Asian art. Douglas Osto explores Buddhist visual culture through Andy Rotman’s Thus Have I Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Indian Buddhism and Cynthea J. Bogel’s With a Single Glance: Buddhist Icon and Early Mikkyō Vison, and Melanie Trede evaluates Alicia Volk’s In Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugorō and Japanese Modern Art. Bissera V. Pentcheva considers acoustics and architecture in Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti’s Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Music, Acoustics, while Étienne P. H. Jollet reviews Frank Fehrenbach’s study of Roman Baroque fountains, Compendia Mundi: Gianlorenzo Berninis “Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi” (1648–51) und Nicola Salvis “Fontana di Trevi” (1732–62). Gregory Batchen offers a take on national histories of photography through two recent books: Maria Golia’s Photography and Egypt and Karen Strassler’s Refracted Visions: Popular Photography and National Modernity in Java.
Please see the full table of contents for December to learn more. CAA sends The Art Bulletin to all institutional members and to those individuals who choose to receive the journal as a benefit of their membership.
The next issue of The Art Bulletin, to be published in March 2012, will include essays on the Zen monk painter Sesshū Tōyō, the art of Henri Fuseli, the “biography” of a statute sculpted in or near the Lagoon region of Ivory Coast. The issue also inaugurates a new feature, “Regarding Art and Art History,” comprising field notes on the topic of anthropomorphism by various authors and a critical essay on the interview format, followed by a conversation between Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philip Ursprung.
Recent Deaths in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — November 09, 2011
In its semimonthly roundup of obituaries, CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, curators, collectors, and other men and women whose work has had a significant impact on the visual arts. Of special note is a text from Patricia Mainardi on Filiz Burhan for CAA.
- Julie Apap, a ceramicist who lived, worked, and taught art in Malta, died on March 16, 2011. She was 62 years old
- Martha Brincklow, the founder of the International Studies Program at Saint Petersburg College in Florida who led students on tours of the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, and Tate Gallery, died on January 14, 2011. She was 95
- Filiz Burhan, a long-time professor of art history at the American University in Paris whose work opened new directions in the study of Symbolism, died on May 23, 2011, at 60 years of age. Patricia Mainardi has written a special text on her for CAA
- Robert Fluhr, an artist who taught for thirty years in the Philadelphian high schools and led sculpture classes for the blind and visually impaired at the Allens Lane Art Center, died on June 20, 2011. He was 84
- Hoda Garnett, an Egyptian-born news photographer who began her career in the US Navy in the 1950s and whose work appeared in Life magazine, died on October 13, 2011. She was 84 years old
- Beatrice Gersh, an arts patron in Los Angeles who was instrumental in founding the Museum of Contemporary Art in her city, died on October 9, 2011, at age 87
- Frank B. Gettings, who spent thirty years as a curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, died on August 4, 2011. He was 80 years old
- Shifra Goldman, a political activist and a pioneering scholar of Latin American and Chicano art who taught for twenty years in southern Californian institutions, died on September 11, 2011. She was 85
- Addie James, a folk artist based in North Carolina who created colorful paintings of family life in the South, died on July 17, 2011. She was 67
- Szeto Keung, a Chinese American artist based in New York who showed his mixed-media work extensively in Taiwan and Hong Kong, died on September 5, 2011. He was 62
- Friedrich Kittler, a German media theorist who taught internationally, most recently at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, died on October 18, 2011, at age 68
- Mathieu Lefèvre, a Canadian artist who lived and worked in Brooklyn, died on October 18, 2011. He was 30
- Robert Loughlin, an artist and scavenger who advised collectors in modern design and furniture, including Andy Warhol, died on September 27, 2011. He was 62 years old
- Ruth Mellinkoff, a historian of medieval art and an author of cookbooks, died on Febuary 26, 2011. She was 86 years old
- James More, a Scottish design-studio manager and an emeritus professor of design at Northumbria University in England, died on September 27, 2011, at age 65
- William Mostyn-Owen, an artist historian who specialized in the Italian Renaissance and served as Bernard Berenson’s bibliographer, died on May 2, 2011. He was 81 years old
- Sadamasa Motonaga, a Japanese painter who began his career in the Gutai movement, died on October 3, 2011. He was 88
- Werner Muensterberger, a psychoanalyst, art historian, and collector of African art, died on March 6, 2011. He had reached the age of 98
- John Neuhart, an American designer who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and who, with his wife Marilyn, was a colleague of Ray and Charles Eames, died on September 19, 2011. He was 82
- Malcolm H. Preston, an art critic and historian who taught for many years at Hofstra University, died on July 10, 2011, at age 91. He was also a figurative and landscape painter
- Richard Randell, a sculptor and filmmaker who taught art at Stanford University, died on May 25, 2011, at the age of 81. He also helped found the World of Languages, which preserved and studied disappearing Kenyan and Tanzanian song, poetry, and dance
- Jehangir Sabavala, a pioneering artist in postcolonial India whose work was always at odds with popular contemporaneous styles, died on September 2, 2011. He was 89
- Pamela Hemenway Simpson, a historian of art and architecture at Washington and Lee University who served as president of the Southeastern College Art Conference, died on October 4, 2011, at the age of 65
- Bernard Smith, a renowned Australian intellectual and author whose academic leadership helped form the discipline of art history in his country, died on September 2, 2011. He was 94 years old
- Ronald Thomason, a Texan sculptor, designer, and teacher, died on August 4, 2011, on his 80th birthday
- Jacques Vilain, a French curator at the Musée Rodin in Paris who later became its director, died on September 23, 2011
- Richard DeLos Wells, a professor of art, art history, and American studies at Brigham Young University in Hawai‘i, died on July 26, 2011, at the age of 63
Read all past obituaries in the arts in CAA News, which include special texts written for CAA. Please send links to published obituaries to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor, for the December listing.
Anne Collins Goodyear Is CAA President Elect
posted by Christopher Howard — November 08, 2011
Anne Collins Goodyear, associate curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, has been elected president of the CAA Board of Directors for a two-year term, beginning May 2012. A member of the board since 2006, Goodyear has served as vice president for external affairs (2007–9), vice president for publications (2009–11) and vice president for Annual Conference (2011–12). She succeeds Barbara Nesin of the Art Institute of Atlanta, who has led the board since May 2010.
Goodyear writes, “CAA sets a standard for professional excellence and best practices that is not only enjoyed by our membership, but which resonates far beyond. In an era of increasing financial constraints and expanding channels for outreach, the association must continue to aspire to balancing nimbleness with the reflection that goes along with responsible judgment. These are challenges I would enjoy addressing in tandem with CAA staff, fellow board members, and the membership at large.”
Goodyear began work at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, in 2001 and was promoted from assistant to associate curator in 2009. Her recent exhibitions include Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture, organized with James W. McManus (2009), and Reflections/Refractions: Self-Portraiture in the Twentieth Century, collaborating with Wendy Wick Reaves (2009). Both exhibitions were accompanied by scholarly catalogues of the same title. Goodyear has also helped organize six installations for the museum’s ongoing Portraiture Now series, initiated in 2006. Additionally, she has taught a graduate seminar in American art at George Washington University since 2008.
Goodyear earned her MA and PhD in art history from the University of Texas at Austin, after receiving a BA in the history of art and architecture and French civilization at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She has published essays in the scholarly journals American Art and Leonardo and contributed chapters to several exhibition catalogues and edited volumes, including Unexpected Reflections (2010), The Political Economy of Art: Creating the Modern Nation of Culture (2008), Cold War Modern: Art and Design in a Divided World (2008), and Photography Theory (2007).
Within CAA, Goodyear served on the Museum Committee, chaired the Education Committee, and participated on the Task Force on Practical Publications, the Task Force on Editorial Safeguards, the Strategic Plan Steering Committee, and the Centennial Task Force, among other groups. Equally active outside the organization, she has chaired the Washington, DC, chapter of ArtTable since 2010 and currently leads the Smithsonian Network Review Committee, which oversees programming for the institution’s documentaries and other videos. As chair of the Smithsonian’s Material Culture Forum, she facilitated interdisciplinary programing for scholars in the nation’s capital.
Goodyear continues, “I have been a member of CAA since my years as a graduate student. During that time, I had the opportunity to see firsthand John Clarke’s clear passion for and enjoyment of his service on the CAA board and his role as president. Dr. Clarke’s enthusiasm for CAA touched each of the students with whom he worked. I would ultimately seek to bring a similar level of engagement and commitment to the role of president, and would seek to inspire future leaders to become further engaged with the organization to render it as adaptive and responsive as possible to the diverse emerging needs of emerging and established professionals in the visual arts.”
The CAA board chooses its next president from among the elected directors in the fall of the current president’s final year of service, providing a period in which the next president can learn the responsibilities of the office and prepare for his or her term. For more information on CAA and the Board of Directors, please contact Vanessa Jalet, CAA executive assistant.
A full report on the October board meeting is forthcoming later this month.
CAA Welcomes New Staff Members
posted by Christopher Howard — November 07, 2011
CAA warmly welcomes three full-time and one part-time employees who have joined CAA since summer 2011. Two new staffers work in the Publications Department, and two more in the Membership, Development, and Marketing Department.
Hannah O’Reilly Malyn became CAA development associate, a new position, in October. Previously, she assisted the development and marketing associate at Hester Street Collaborative while completing her master’s degree in visual arts administration at New York University, where her thesis explored the advent of populist audience development tactics in art museums. Before attending NYU, she earned a dual BA in economics/business and studio art from Kalamazoo College in Michigan. As an artist, Malyn is mostly interested in the human form; her undergraduate senior solo exhibition, Re-Conceptions: Women in Art, explored the role of women in the art world through a series of watercolor figure studies. She also works in oil and charcoal.
Nancy Nguyen is CAA’s new institutional membership assistant, where she is the primary contact for all institutional members. She succeeds Helen Bayer, who was promoted to marketing and communications associate. Nguyen recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in history. Prior to joining CAA in October, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a visitor assistant. During her undergraduate career, she was the public programs assistant at the Harry Ransom Center while interning in the departments of marketing and public relations at several Austin museums and arts organizations, such as the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Mexic-Arte Museum, and Landmarks Public Art Program.
Joining CAA as editorial assistant is Alyssa Pavley, who graduated with a BA from New York University this past May, majoring in art history with a minor in creative writing, concentrating in fiction. Before coming to CAA in August, Pavley served as an intern at two magazines, Art in America and Art + Auction, and at the Judd Foundation and Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, all in New York. Her writings and reviews have been published at thefanzine.com and Artinfo.com and in Art + Auction.
Erika Nelson has been directories data collections coordinator since June, succeeding Cecilia Juan, who departed in the spring. Nelson earned a BA in art history and communication at the College of Saint Benedict in Saint Joseph, Minnesota, and will receive her MA in art history from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, in February. Her thesis, “You Are What You Eat: Catholic Cannibalism and Cultural Consumption in the Codex Espangliensis.” examines the influence of both martyrs and Mickey Mouse on contemporary Mexican society. Nelson hopes to pursue her PhD in modern Latin American art in the coming year. Previously, Nelson perfected her data-entry skills through positions at Fordham University and Mutualart.com and developed her communication skills through a teaching assistantship at Brooklyn College and an internship at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minnesota.
November Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — October 27, 2011
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
Leading off the CWA Picks for November 2011 are two concurrent but unique exhibitions—at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut and the Leubsdorf Gallery at Hunter College in New York—by the artist, poet, and performer Patti Smith, known for her 1975 album Horses and her collaborations and friendship with the late Robert Mapplethorpe. Next, the committee highlights the second annual Feminist Art History Conference, taking place November 4–6 at American University in Washington, DC. Papers will cover a wide range of topics in art history, from medieval times to the present. Surveys of work by Francesca Woodman and Sherri Levine round out the November selections.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Patti Smith, Arthur Rimbaud’s Utensils, Musée Rimbaud, Charleville, 2005, unique Polaroid, 4¼ x 3¼ in. (artwork © Patti Smith; photograph provided by the artist, Robert Miller Gallery, and the Wadsworth Atheneum)
Open House at CAA’s New Office
posted by Christopher Howard — October 07, 2011
CAA invites members to attend a special Open House of the organization’s new office on Saturday, October 22, 2011, from 12:00 to 2:00 PM. The office is located at 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004.
Many CAA staffers will be on hand to give informal tours of the office and to answer questions about day-to-day work. Members of the Board of Directors, in town for its fall meeting taking place the next day, can talk to you about the larger issues CAA is facing.
The new office, which CAA has called home since July, is located in a rich historical district near Wall Street, Bowling Green, Battery Park, and Trinity Church. The National Museum of the American Indian and Arturo Di Modica’s famous bronze sculpture of the Charging Bull are both a stone’s throw away, and Zuccotti Park and Occupy Wall Street are a few blocks to the north.
Light refreshments will be served. A photo ID is required to enter the building. Please RSVP for the Open House by Thursday, October 20, 2011.