CAA News Today
Call for Video of Performance Works for Times, Interludes, and Action at the 2011 Conference
posted by Christopher Howard — August 25, 2010
The first decade of the twenty-first century has given rise to new possibilities, new questions, and new challenges. With continued globalization and technological innovation, new platforms for human interaction and exchange have emerged. Simultaneously, we have witnessed an increase in terrorism, an energy crisis, and global economic instability. These problems have generated heated political debate about how we should best prepare for the future. Can we continue to employ the same solutions that worked in the past, or must we fundamentally change the way that we understand and approach these issues? How will this decade be remembered in the future?
To commemorate the tenth anniversary of ARTspace and the Centennial of CAA, the Services to Artists Committee invites artists to submit action-based works that respond in some way to the first decade of this new millennium. These performance works, to be collectively presented as Times, Interludes, and Action, will be displayed in the form of video documentation in the ARTspace Media Lounge at the 2011 Annual Conference in New York.
To be considered, please submit the video that you would like to include; or you may submit a written proposal for a work not completed, along with a portfolio. Please also send your artist statement, résumé, and contact information.
Email submissions limited to three or fewer works are preferred. Video may be sent either as a small email attachment (5 MB or less) or as a link to a website. Please send your submission to both Jeffrey Bird and Joseph Meiser. If an emailed submission is not possible, you can send a CD or DVD along with hard copies of your documents to: Joseph Meiser, Dept. of Art and Art History, Art Bldg., Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837. Deadline for emailed proposals: October 1, 2010. Mailed items must be postmarked by September 24, 2010.
Society of Architectural Historians and CAA at the Four Seasons in New York
posted by Christopher Howard — August 20, 2010
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) invites CAA members to gather at the Four Seasons in midtown Manhattan next month for conversation about the restaurant’s historical developments. This free event takes place on Saturday, September 25, 2010, at 9:00 PM.
The gathering concludes a tour day in which SAH members will have spent studying the work of Richard Kelly, who was responsible for the interior and exterior lighting of the Seagram Building and the Four Seasons. Joining the group will be Belmont Freeman, the restaurant’s current restoration architect, and Dietrich Neumann, the tour leader, past SAH president, and editor of the forthcoming book, The Structure of Light: Richard Kelly and the Illumination of Modern Architecture. (The tour is sold out.)
The Four Seasons opened in 1959 to breathless headlines about the “world’s costliest restaurant,” which took an unprecedented $4.5 million to build. Occupying a monumental space on the first floor of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, the restaurant was designed by Philip Johnson in collaboration with a stellar cast of artists, including Kelly, William Pahlman (interior designer to Restaurant Associates), Karl Linn (landscape architect), and Garth Huxtable (industrial designer). In addition, Kelly created the sculptures that hover over the Bar Room, Marie Nichols made the shimmering aluminum chain window shades, and Treitel-Gratz fabricated the Mies-designed Brno and Barcelona chairs (this being before Knoll put them into production.) Blue-chip art, including a stage backdrop painted by Pablo Picasso, adorned the walls.
During his lifetime Johnson kept close control over the maintenance, alteration, and periodic refurbishment of the restaurant, which the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission named an interior landmark in 1989 and which recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Four years after Johnson’s death in 2005, the owners decided that the Four Seasons needed a new house architect to design and direct urgently needed restorations and, as Phyllis Lambert phrased it in her brief in support of the work, to “monitor and safeguard the architectural and artistic patrimony” of the establishment. Freeman was selected for this role. Since December 2008, Belmont Freeman Architects (BFA) and a team of consultants have been immersed in researching the history, design, and construction of the restaurant, and in designing and managing its phased restoration.
The Four Seasons is not a museum but a busy working restaurant. As such, its renovation is subject to particular functional, logistical, and economic exigencies. Since the restaurant cannot close for renovation, work is planned as a series of surgical interventions that can be performed off hours. After completing an assessment of existing conditions, BFA compiled and ranked discrete restoration subprojects by priority. While the main dining rooms have been admirably maintained over the years, ancillary spaces—entrance, lobby, restrooms, coat check, stairs, bar—have suffered fifty years of abuse and are in urgent need of renovation. Another important object of attention is the lighting: the historical importance of Kelly’s pioneering lighting design is equal to—and inseparable from—that of the architecture. BFA is working with lighting designer WALD Studio and with Edison Price, manufacturers of the original fixtures, on this restoration program.
There is no charge to attend this cash-bar event. On entering the Four Seasons, say you are with the Society of Architectural Historians group. Have questions or need additional information? Please contact Kathy Sturm, SAH director of programs, at 312-543-7243.
New Faces for CAA Journals
posted by Christopher Howard — August 03, 2010
New appointments have been made to the editorial boards of two of CAA’s three scholarly journals.
Sheryl Reiss, lecturer in art history at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, has been appointed the next editor-in-chief of caa.reviews, succeeding Lucy Oakley of the Grey Art Gallery at New York University. Reiss will begin her three-year term on July 1, 2011, with the preceding year as editor designate. Reiss had previously served on the caa.reviews Editorial Board from 2001 to 2005, and was also a field editor for books on early modern art in southern Europe.
Joining the caa.reviews Editorial Board for the next four years is Conrad Rudolph of the University of California, Riverside. In addition, five new field editors for books and related media have been chosen this year: Christopher Heuer of Princeton University in New Jersey will assign reviews in northern European art, and Tomoko Sakomura of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania will do likewise for Japanese art. Marika Sardar of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is field editor for books on Islamic art, Yekaterina Barbash of the Brooklyn Museum in New York will commission reviews on Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern art, and Christina Kiaer is in charge of books on twentieth-century art. Field editors work with caa.reviews for three years.
At Art Journal, Jenni Sorkin has joined the editorial board for a four-year term. Formerly a faculty member at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, she recently received her PhD from Yale University. In 2010–11 Sorkin will be a postdoctoral residential fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. The editorial board also has a new chair, appointed from within its ranks: Karin Higa, director of the Curatorial and Exhibitions Department and senior curator of art at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, will serve for two years.
All editors and editorial-board members are chosen from an open call for nominations and self-nominations, published in at least two issues of CAA News (usually January and March) and on the CAA website.
Summer Obituaries in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — August 02, 2010
CAA recognizes the lives and achievements of the following artists, scholars, photographers, collectors, museum directors, and other important figures in the visual arts. Of particular interest is a thoughtful text on the art historian and public-art preservationist Marlene Park, written especially for CAA by her colleague Herbert R. Hartel Jr.
- Katia Bassanini, a Swiss artist based in Lugano and New York who worked in video, drawing, performance, and sculpture, died on July 20, 2010. She was 40
- Thomas S. Buechner, founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass in 1950 and head of the Brooklyn Museum during the 1960s, died on June 13, 2010, at age 83
- Nicolas Carone, an Abstract Expressionist painter and founding member of the New York Studio School, where he taught for almost twenty-five years, died on July 15, 2010. He was 93
- Joe Deal, an American landscape photographer included in the influential New Topographics exhibition in 1975, died on June 18, 2010, at the age of 62. A longtime teacher and administrator, he was a member of the CAA Board of Directors from 1997 to 2001, serving as secretary for the last two years.
- Daniele Di Castro, an art historian and director of the Jewish Museum of Rome, died on June 25, 2010
- Harry Eccleston, artist, president of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, and chief designer for the Bank of England, where he created the pictorial Series D banknotes, died on April 30, 2010. He was 87
- Carola Hicks, art historian, biographer, and author of books on the Bayeux Tapestry and the stained-glass windows of King’s College Chapel, died on June 23, 2010. She was 68
- Stephen Kanner, architect and cofounder of the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles, died on July 2, 2010, at the age of 54
- Rudolf Leopold, an Austrian ophthalmologist and art collector who focused on twentieth-century art from his country, died on June 29, 2010, at age 85. He was known for popularizing Egon Schiele through several books
- Jim Marshall, a photographer who took classic portraits of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, and other sixties icons, died on March 24, 2010, at the age of 74
- Eleanor R. Morse, an art collector and founder of the Salvador Dalí Museum in Florida, died on July 1, 2010, at the age of 97
- Marlene Park, an artist historian of twentieth-century American art, a public-art preservationist, and a photographer, died on July 10, 2010, at age 78. Read a special text on her by Herbert R. Hartel Jr.
- Harvey Pekar, author of the critically praised comic-book series American Splendor, died on July 12, 2010, at the age of 70
- Rammellzee, a pioneer of graffiti art and hip-hop music in New York, died on June 27, 2010. He was 49
- Helene Zucker Seeman, writer, teacher, and director of the Art Acquisition Program for Prudential Life Insurance for many years, died on June 27, 2010. She was 60 years old
- Robert Shapazian, art dealer, publisher of artist’s books, and founding director of the Californian branch of Gagosian Gallery, died on June 19, 2010, at age 67
- Jan-Erik von Löwenadler, a Swedish art dealer and collector who staged exhibitions internationally, died on July 24, 2010, at the age of 74
- Richard Walker, art historian, cataloguer, and adviser to the Government Art Collection in the United Kingdom, died on May 6, 2010. He was 93
- Wu Guanzhong, a painter and teacher who is widely considered among the most important and influential in twentieth-century Chinese art, died on June 25, 2010. He was 91
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
August Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — July 29, 2010
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 from North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for August 2010 include two exhibitions of folk art: works by American women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries presented at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and by contemporary practitioners from around the world, displayed at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Columbia College Chicago is hosting a panel of five women at the forefront of gaming theory and practice, called “3G Summit: The Future of Girls, Gaming and Gender.” Lastly, closing this month at the Guggenheim Museum in New York is an exhibition devoted to the art-education practices of Hilla Rebay, the first curator and director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting.
Check out past CWA Picks archived at the bottom of the page, as exhibitions highlighted in previous months are often still on view.
CAA Joins Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court to Review Appellate Decision That Only “Great” Art Is Protected by the First Amendment
posted by Christopher Howard — July 22, 2010
CAA joined with artists and other arts-support organizations in filing an amicus brief asking the US Supreme Court to grant a petition to review a case involving an artwork removed from public view in San Marcos, Texas. In that case, Kleinman v. City of San Marcos, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the First Amendment only protects “great” works of art.
The brief explains how this new, “great” art standard is inconsistent with the First Amendment and would give governments the ability to ban disfavored art and contemporary art that has not yet become iconic. It points out that whether art is “great” art is not susceptible to an objective, value-neutral determination, but would require courts to act as art critics based on expert evidence of what constitutes “greatness” in art. The brief also highlights a number of examples of artists and art whose work was not initially regarded as “great,” but only became so over time. For all of these reasons, the brief argues, the new and unprecedented “great” art standard of the Fifth Circuit is troubling, and the Supreme Court should review and reverse the appellate decision.
Background
In the city of San Marcos, Texas, participants at a charity event for the opening of a store, Planet K, were invited to smash up an old car. The car was then converted into a cactus planter and painted on the exterior by two local artists, with scenes from San Marcos, abstract designs, and the phrase “Make Love, Not War.” The stated intention of one of the petitioners, Michael Kleinman, organizer of the event and owner of the store, was always to turn the wrecked car into an artwork. The resulting artwork was displayed on private property (the Planet K parking lot) and was easily visible to the public from thoroughfares.
A San Marcos ordinance prohibits, as a public nuisance, any display of a “junked vehicle” that can been seen by the public. Based on the First Amendment—that their artwork is protected speech—Kleinman and the artists sued the city, to enjoin it from applying the ordinance to their artwork. The US District Court for the Western District of Texas found for the city. The court held that the ordinance did not violate the First Amendment, as applied to plaintiffs’ artwork, because they had alternative avenues of communicating their message.
This past February, the Fifth Circuit affirmed that decision. It first questioned whether the wrecked car/planter/artwork could be considered constitutionally protected expression. In particular, the appeals court read a prior Supreme Court decision to indicate that the First Amendment protects only “great” works of art, and that the Supreme Court has not otherwise set out the First Amendment framework to be applied to visual works of art. The Fifth Circuit also went on to hold that even if the First Amendment did apply in this case, under prevailing standards the city’s nuisance law could apply to the artwork. After the decision of the Fifth Circuit, the city seized and removed—but has not yet destroyed—the artwork.
The artists filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, requesting that the court review the decision of the Fifth Circuit. There are several grounds for the petition, one of which is that “great art” should not be the test for whether an artwork is protected by the First Amendment.
First Amendment protection for works of art has long been a core concern of CAA and important to its advocacy program. In the last Supreme Court term, CAA joined the National Coalition Against Censorship in filing an amicus brief in the case of United States v. Stevens. In that case, the Supreme Court ultimately held, 8–0, that the federal statute criminalizing depictions of animal cruelty violated the First Amendment, agreeing with the position taken by CAA in its brief. Earlier, CAA joined an amicus brief in the NEA Four case (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley), in which the Supreme Court ultimately held, in 1998, that it was not unconstitutional for Congress to mandate that the National Endowment for the Arts take into account “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public” when funding artists.
Other Signers to the Brief
The amicus brief to which CAA is a party was filed on July 8, 2010. The other signers are: Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts; Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts (formerly Tennessee Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts); Northwest Lawyers and Artists (Portland, Oregon); Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; ArtCar Fest; the artist historian Douglas Nickel; and artists Butch Hancock, Kelly Lyles, Leo Aston, Alan Pogue, Jan D. Elftman, Philo Northrup, Harrod Blank, Emily Duffy, and Graydon Parrish.
Downloads
Download a PDF of the Kleinman amicus brief. A second PDF contains the petition for certiorari, the District Court and Fifth Circuit opinions, and, at the end of the file, photographs of the artwork in question.
CAA Joins Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court to Review Appellate Decision That Only “Great” Art Is Protected by the First Amendment
posted by Christopher Howard — July 22, 2010
CAA joined with artists and other arts-support organizations in filing an amicus brief asking the US Supreme Court to grant a petition to review a case involving an artwork removed from public view in San Marcos, Texas. In that case, Kleinman v. City of San Marcos, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the First Amendment only protects “great” works of art.
The brief explains how this new, “great” art standard is inconsistent with the First Amendment and would give governments the ability to ban disfavored art and contemporary art that has not yet become iconic. It points out that whether art is “great” art is not susceptible to an objective, value-neutral determination, but would require courts to act as art critics based on expert evidence of what constitutes “greatness” in art. The brief also highlights a number of examples of artists and art whose work was not initially regarded as “great,” but only became so over time. For all of these reasons, the brief argues, the new and unprecedented “great” art standard of the Fifth Circuit is troubling, and the Supreme Court should review and reverse the appellate decision.
Background
In the city of San Marcos, Texas, participants at a charity event for the opening of a store, Planet K, were invited to smash up an old car. The car was then converted into a cactus planter and painted on the exterior by two local artists, with scenes from San Marcos, abstract designs, and the phrase “Make Love, Not War.” The stated intention of one of the petitioners, Michael Kleinman, organizer of the event and owner of the store, was always to turn the wrecked car into an artwork. The resulting artwork was displayed on private property (the Planet K parking lot) and was easily visible to the public from thoroughfares.
A San Marcos ordinance prohibits, as a public nuisance, any display of a “junked vehicle” that can been seen by the public. Based on the First Amendment—that their artwork is protected speech—Kleinman and the artists sued the city, to enjoin it from applying the ordinance to their artwork. The US District Court for the Western District of Texas found for the city. The court held that the ordinance did not violate the First Amendment, as applied to plaintiffs’ artwork, because they had alternative avenues of communicating their message.
This past February, the Fifth Circuit affirmed that decision. It first questioned whether the wrecked car/planter/artwork could be considered constitutionally protected expression. In particular, the appeals court read a prior Supreme Court decision to indicate that the First Amendment protects only “great” works of art, and that the Supreme Court has not otherwise set out the First Amendment framework to be applied to visual works of art. The Fifth Circuit also went on to hold that even if the First Amendment did apply in this case, under prevailing standards the city’s nuisance law could apply to the artwork. After the decision of the Fifth Circuit, the city seized and removed—but has not yet destroyed—the artwork.
The artists filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, requesting that the court review the decision of the Fifth Circuit. There are several grounds for the petition, one of which is that “great art” should not be the test for whether an artwork is protected by the First Amendment.
First Amendment protection for works of art has long been a core concern of CAA and important to its advocacy program. In the last Supreme Court term, CAA joined the National Coalition Against Censorship in filing an amicus brief in the case of United States v. Stevens. In that case, the Supreme Court ultimately held, 8–0, that the federal statute criminalizing depictions of animal cruelty violated the First Amendment, agreeing with the position taken by CAA in its brief. Earlier, CAA joined an amicus brief in the NEA Four case (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley), in which the Supreme Court ultimately held, in 1998, that it was not unconstitutional for Congress to mandate that the National Endowment for the Arts take into account “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public” when funding artists.
Other Signers to the Brief
The amicus brief to which CAA is a party was filed on July 8, 2010. The other signers are: Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts; Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts (formerly Tennessee Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts); Northwest Lawyers and Artists (Portland, Oregon); Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; ArtCar Fest; the artist historian Douglas Nickel; and artists Butch Hancock, Kelly Lyles, Leo Aston, Alan Pogue, Jan D. Elftman, Philo Northrup, Harrod Blank, Emily Duffy, and Graydon Parrish.
Downloads
Download a PDF of the Kleinman amicus brief. A second PDF contains the petition for certiorari, the District Court and Fifth Circuit opinions, and, at the end of the file, photographs of the artwork in question.
July 2010 Issue of CAA News Published
posted by Christopher Howard — July 21, 2010
The July 2010 issue of CAA News just been published. You may download a PDF of it immediately.
Introduced by Andrea Kirsh, CAA’s vice president of external affairs, the July newsletter brings you up to date on all CAA programs and services. It also includes an interview with James Sloss Ackerman, a celebrated professor of Renaissance architecture, and updates on the future of the Bibliography of the History of Art.
In addition, the July issue solicits your participation in the two upcoming Centennial Conferences in New York (2011) and Los Angeles (2012). For Los Angeles, CAA continues to accept your session proposals through an online process, and an article provides full details on the process. For New York, CAA invites artists to submit video documentation of performance work for the ARTspace Media Lounge, and the organizers of several panels—on Damien Hirst, the future of art history, and health and safety in the artist’s studio—want to hear from you.
The CAA News managing editor welcomes your submissions to the Endnotes section of the next issue. Please send listings for recent solo exhibitions, books published, and exhibitions curated, as well as news about your new position or your grant or fellowship, to Christopher Howard. Deadline: August 13, 2010.
Rose Art Museum to Lease Works from Its Collection
posted by Christopher Howard — July 12, 2010
The latest development at Brandeis University, which early last year decided to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its prized collection of modern art, is to lease works from its collections through a partnership with the auction house Sotheby’s. Selling works from the museum to alleviate the school’s recession-shattered endowment, critics say, is not off the table. The Rose collection ranges from classics by Willem de Kooning and Robert Rauschenberg to more recent works by Dana Schutz, whose first museum exhibition was held at the Rose in 2006.
“The talks between Sotheby’s and Brandeis started a year ago,” writes Ellen Howards of the Boston Herald, but school officials cannot “predict which institutions might lease the art, which works could be made available or what sum a leasing deal would generate.”
A Boston Globe editorial proclaims that “Brandeis should only lend to institutions capable of caring for its artworks. And it should use any revenues to guarantee a future for the Rose.” In a bold statement, the paper also suggests that the university “deserves praise, not criticism, for trying to raise revenue through its collection.”
Geoff Edgars, also of the Boston Globe, offers recent precedents for the Rose’s controversial move: the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta have all rented artworks to other museums and institutions.
In addition, last week Brandeis announced the hiring of a new president, Frederick M. Lawrence, dean of George Washington University Law School. He will fill the position to be vacated by Jehuda Reinharz, who was responsible for the ill-fated idea to close the museum and sell its art, in January 2011.
NEA Releases Report on How Americans Use Electronic Media to Participate in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — July 06, 2010
According to a new report published by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Americans who participate in the arts through the internet, television, radio, computers, and handheld devices are almost three times more likely to attend live arts events than nonmedia participants (59 percent versus 21 percent). Users of technology and electronic media also attend, on average, twice as many live arts events—six versus three in a single year—and see a wider variety of genres.
The report, called Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation, looks at who is participating in the arts through electronic media, what factors affect their participation, and the relationships among media-based arts activities, live attendance, and personal arts creation. Audience 2.0 has determined that media-based arts participation appears to encourage—rather than replace—attendance at live arts events. Among the conclusions:
- Education continues to be the best predictor of arts participation among adults, both for live attendance and through electronic media. Survey respondents with at least some college education were more likely than respondents with a grade-school education to have used electronic media to participate in the arts
- For many Americans—primarily older Americans, lower-income earners, and racial/ethnic minority groups—electronic media is the only way they participate in arts events
- The 15.4 percent of US adults who use media only to engage with the arts are equally likely to be urban or rural
- Twenty-one percent (47 million) of all US adults reported using the internet to view music, theater, or dance performances in the last twelve months. Twenty-four percent (55 million) obtained information about the arts online
Audience 2.0 expands on the research published in the NEA’s 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). This survey, conducted in partnership with the US Census Bureau and released last year, is the nation’s largest, most representative study of arts participation among American adults. Since 1982, SPPA has measured American adult participation in activities such as visits to art museums or galleries and attendance at jazz and classical music concerts, opera and ballet performances, and musical and nonmusical plays. SPPA categorizes these as “benchmark” activities, providing a standard group of arts activities for more than two decades of consistent trend analysis. Audience 2.0 takes a closer look at how audiences use electronic media to engage in these benchmark activities.
In an agency first, the new report is being released only in an electronic format that includes multimedia features. Chairman Rocco Landesman’s video greeting is accompanied by a video commentary on the report from Sunil Iyengar, NEA director of research and analysis. Additionally, each chapter will open with videos from arts organizations that represent each of the benchmark disciplines tracked by the report. Arts organizations can use findings from Audience 2.0 to better understand their audiences’ uses of technology and electronic media.
As part of its ongoing analysis of SPPA data, the NEA is making raw data and detailed statistical tables available to researchers and the public. The tables highlight demographic factors affecting adult participation in a variety of art forms.