CAA News Today
Affiliated Society News: December
posted by CAA — Dec 17, 2021
Many of CAA’s affiliated societies will be presenting sessions at our 110th Annual Conference from February 17-19 and from March 3-5. Check out a list of their sessions to preview!
To attend these sessions and more, make sure to register for the conference and learn more at its registration page.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Announcements
Bibliography Week 2022 Schedule & Registration
From January 25–28, 2022 the Bibliographical Society of America will celebrate Bibliography Week with a series of events designed to demonstrate bibliographical practice and its relevance to interdisciplinary scholarship in the humanities.
Tuesday, January 25, 4-5pm Eastern – Materialities of Tibetan Buddhist Texts
Within the diverse traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, the power of books—both printed and hand-written—lies not only in their contents, but also in their materiality as objects. The three scholars on this panel will share bibliographical studies of Tibetan texts that highlight how text production, circulation, and replication within architectural spaces has been utilized by Tibetan religious and political leaders to assert and solidify their power.
Wednesday, January 26, 4-5pm Eastern – Meet the Editors of Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
Please join Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA) co-editors Dr. Sarah Werner and Dr. Jesse Erickson for an online Q&A session on January 26. Drs. Werner and Erickson will discuss their vision for the journal and how it can be part of an expanded field of bibliographical scholarship. They will also answer questions that you might have about publishing in PBSA, such as the submission and review process, image permissions, special issues, and open access.
Thursday, January 27, 11-12pm Eastern – In-Person, Center for Book Arts Tour
Guests are invited to a tour of the Center for Books Arts in New York (28 W 27th St., 3rd Floor). For nearly 50 years, CBA has supported artists and uplifted the book arts by presenting exhibitions, lectures, readings, and performances; providing opportunities for artists, writers, curators and scholars through residencies, fellowships, publishing, and collecting; and empowering the creation of new book art by providing courses on book art related technique and history.
Thursday, January 27, 2-3pm Eastern – Bound Images: Maps and Books
This panel offers three case studies to explore what changes theoretically and in practice when we dethrone the ‘sovereign map’ and engage with the production, circulation and reading of maps as bound images, a hybrid graphic and textual part of the stories told by authors and publishers which is experienced by readers through materiality, context, and significance: Giuseppe Rosaccio’s Il mondo e sue parti (Florence, 1595), Johann Jakob Scheuchzer’s Physica Sacra (Augsburg and Ulm, 1731), and Jorge Juan and Antonio Ulloa’s Relación Histórica del viage a la América meridional (Madrid, 1748).
Friday, January 28, 12:00 pm Eastern – 2022 BSA Annual Meeting & New Scholars Program
- Christopher Adams, Malkin New Scholar – ‘Could you make it rather more of a He and She picture?’: The Queer Dust-Jacket and Postwar British Fiction
- Eve Houghton, Pantzer New Scholar – ‘I am always sorry to antagonize collectors’: Henrietta Bartlett and the 1916 Census of Shakespeare Quartos
- Liza Mardoyan, BSA New Scholar – Decorative Bird Initials in the Medieval Armenian Manuscript Culture
- Learn more about the 2022 New Scholars and read their talk abstracts here.
Friday, January 28, 1:30 pm Eastern – Keynote Lecture by Dr. Elizaveta Strakhov: What Makes Bibliography Critical? A Medievalist’s Response
What makes bibliography critical for a Western manuscripts scholar? Medievalists have, after all, enshrined bibliography to the point of developing the specialized subdisciplines of paleography and codicology. How does a Western medievalist breathe new life into bibliography, that bread-and-butter of their scholarly pursuits? This talk offers a case study of two manuscripts of bilingual Anglo-French poet Charles d’Orléans’s work: not the two collections notoriously supervised by him, but two later fifteenth-century, largely neglected manuscripts of his work, one made for European humanist circles and the other circulating with English Tudor royal audiences.
AHNCA (Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art)
Events
Virtual Salon Series: Rethinking the Visual and Material Culture of Enslavement
January 19, 2022 at 7 pm EST
The Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and the Dahesh Museum of Art present a Virtual Salon, “Rethinking the Visual and Material Culture of Enslavement,” featuring Jennifer Van Horn (University of Delaware), Adrienne L. Childs (The Phillips Collection), and Phillip Troutman (George Washington University). Register at this link.
Virtual Salon: Decorative Arts and Materiality
February 9, 2022 at 7 pm EST
Please join us on Wednesday, February 9, at 7 pm EST for our Virtual Salon on the Decorative Arts and Materiality. This series of online events is co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) and the Dahesh Museum of Art. The panel will feature Amy F. Ogata (University of Southern California), Lee Talbot (The Textile Museum, George Washington University), and Christine Garnier (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts/Harvard University). Registration information forthcoming!
SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF COLLECTING
Event
As part of its continuing series of Zoom lectures focusing on the collections of university museums, the next Society for the History of Collecting–West Coast chapter event will take place on January 28, 2022:
Collectors’ Clothing Caches: Selections from the Texas Fashion Collection
Annette Becker
28 January 2022, 10:00 AM, PST; 6 PM BST
This talk traces the history of the Texas Fashion Collection through three collections and collectors who have shaped its holdings. The Collection was originally conceived by Stanley and Edward Marcus, of the Neiman Marcus luxury department stores, who in 1938 created the Neiman Marcus award to recognize national and international talent in all areas of fashion and design. The talk then focuses on Claudia Heard de Osborne, whose passion for Balenciaga resulted in a gift of hundreds of garments by the designer. The final spotlight will be on brothers Scott and Stuart Gentling, visual artists who collected historic garments as part of their artistic practice.
Annette Becker is a material culture historian and arts educator committed to bridging popular and academic understandings of fashion history. She currently serves as the director and curator of the Texas Fashion Collection, an archive of nearly 20,000 garments and accessories housed at the University of North Texas.
To register for this event please email: events@societyhistorycollecting.org
IN MEMORIAM: Amy Kirschke
posted by CAA — Dec 14, 2021
Longtime CAA member, Amy Kirschke, passed away on November 27, 2021. Kirschke was a UNCW faculty member, a recent department chair, and a Professor Emerita in Art and Art History. Her family has established the UNCW Dr. Amy Kirschke Scholarship in Art and Art History in her memory.
Amy Kirschke specialized in modern art, including the art of the African Diaspora and African contemporary art and was a prolific scholar and professor. She published, edited, and contributed to several books including Aaron Douglas: Art, Race and the Harlem Renaissance (1995, University Press of Mississippi), Art in Crisis: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Art of African American Identity and Memory (2007, Indiana University Press), Women Artists of the Harlem Renaissance. (2014, Mississippi University Press), and Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist (Yale University Press, 2007).
Image source.
Pedagogy and Professional Development at the 110th Annual Conference
posted by CAA — Dec 14, 2021
The upcoming Annual Conference this winter and spring will feature a number of sessions that discuss issues related to pedagogy, education, and professional development. See below for links to explore these topics in the conference schedule, as well as a selection of sessions.
Note: As of January 7, all in-person sessions and activities scheduled for February 16-19 in Chicago are now virtual on the same dates. Virtual sessions and activities scheduled for March 3-5 will remain the same. This change will allow for more access and engagement, regardless of location.
Teaching Longform Scholarship in a Shortform World
Saturday, February 19, 2022, 11:00 PM – 12:30 PM CST
Post-Pandemic Reflections: Making Change in the Studio and Art History Classroom
Thursday, February 17, 2022, 11:00 PM – 12:30 PM CST
Creative Practice as Pedagogical Practice III
Friday, February 18, 2022, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM CST
Pedagogy Sessions, March 3-5
Centering Latina/x & Chicana/x Art Pedagogies
Friday, March 4, 2022, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM CST (5:30 – 7:00 PM EST)
Revisioning Pedagogical Practices through Ecoart: Provocations
Friday, March 4, 2022, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM CST (5:30 – 7:00 PM EST)
F.A.T.E. Affiliate Session: Strategies for Inclusive Studio Art Pedagogy
Saturday, March 5, 2022, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM CST (1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EST)
Post-Pandemic Reflections: Making Change in the Studio and Art History Classroom
Thursday, February 17, 2022, 11:00 PM – 12:30 PM CST
How to Get Published
Friday, February 18, 2022, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM CST
Appraising Your Research as Data: Managing, Visualizing, and Preserving Your Scholarship
Saturday, February 19, 2022, 11:00 PM – 12:30 PM CST
Professional Practice: Hard and Soft Skills
Saturday, February 19, 2022, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM CST
New Age of Teaching the Art of the Islamic World
Saturday, March 5, 2022, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM CST (10:00 AM – 11:30 AM EST)
Reconsidering Art History Through Access
Saturday, March 5, 2022, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM CST (10:00 AM – 11:30 AM EST)
New Perspectives in Art, Design, and Art History: Supporting and Showcasing Emerging Voices from Marginalized Communities
Saturday, March 5, 2022, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM CST (3:30 PM – 5:00 PM EST)
ACLS recently share a list of professional development resources for K-21 education opportunities:
New York State Association of Independent Schools Virtual Job Fair to Promote Diversity
Association of Independent Schools of New England Careers
California Association of Independent Schools Careers
Independent Schools Association of the Central States Careers
National Association of Independent School Careers
New Jersey Association of Independent Schools Careers
New York State Association of Independent Schools Careers
SchoolSpring (Public School Teaching Careers)
The Association of Boarding Schools Careers
Craig Houser, author of Chapter 5: “The Changing Face of Scholarly Publishing: CAA’s Publication Program.”
posted by CAA — Dec 09, 2021
As part of CAA’s 10-year anniversary celebration of its publication The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: 100 Years of the College Art Association, chapter authors reflect on their contributions and how their impressions of the field have changed. Our second video in the series features Craig Houser, who wrote Chapter 5, “The Changing Face of Scholarly Publishing: CAA’s Publication Program.”
Craig Houser is the director of the MA in Art History and its concentration in Art Museum Studies at the City College of New York. His scholarship has addressed institutional politics related to studio art and art history, as well as issues in gender and sexuality in modern and contemporary art.
CAA 2021: A look back on the past year’s programming, publications, and opportunities
posted by CAA — Nov 30, 2021
CAA has produced this reel with a compilation of events, scholarship, programs, and initiatives CAA from the last year. See below for a full list of each item (in order of appearance in the video) with links to learn more.
Programming:
CAA’s first virtual Annual Conference
Mariam Ghani in conversation with Laura Anderson Barbata
In Conversation with Dr. Nancy Odegaard
Theresa Avila, Annual Conference Program Chair in conversation with Meme Omogbai
An Inaugural Evening with CAA Distinguished Awardees and Artists
CAA Then & Now: Reflections on the Centennial Book and the Next Century
Karen Leader, author of Chapter 12: Advocacy
Opportunities:
Publication, travel, and support grants
Publications and Publications Programming:
Artist Project, Elana Mann for Art Journal Open
Roundtable discussion for Art Journal Open, Holding Space…
Art Journal and The Art Bulletin
caa.reviews book and exhibition reviews
caa.reviews’s dissertation roster, 2020
Global Programs
CAA-Getty International Program
CAA-Getty 10-Year International Program online publication
Podcasts
CAA Conversations by CAA’s Education Committee
CAA’s 110th Annual Conference will take place in Chicago from February 17-19, followed by virtual live sessions to be held in Zoom from March 3-5. For more information and to register go to this link.
CAA signs AHA statement on Censorship and Prosecution by Chinese Authorities
posted by CAA — Nov 29, 2021
CAA has signed onto a statement released by the AHA that expresses alarm in response to the escalation of censorship and prosecution by Chinese authorities on Chinese citizens who deviate from the Communist Party line of hero worship. It asserts, “Such efforts strike at the very heart of historical scholarship, which depends on open-ended inquiry and a free exchange of ideas, wherever that inquiry leads, and whether or not those ideas cast aspersions on historical actors…. The AHA stands firmly against national laws and policies that in effect criminalize the historical enterprise.” Read the entire statement here.
CAA Then & Now: Reflections on the Centennial Book and the Next Century
posted by CAA — Nov 15, 2021
Cover of The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: 100 Years of the College Art Association, edited by Susan Ball (Rutgers, 2011) featuring detail of Faith Ringgold, The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles, 1996
On November 4, CAA had the privilege to host the digital event celebrating The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: 100 Years of the College Art Association. If you were unable to make it, please watch this recording of the event.
Published in 2010, this book documents and examines over a century of CAA’s history. The event features Susan Ball, editor of the publication, and author Julia Sienkewicz, who will discuss their contributions to the project and how topics and issues have shifted and changed in the last decade. A conversation between CAA CEO and Executive Director, Meme Omogbai, and art historian, Anne Higonnet, will reflect on these insights and CAA’s plans for the future. This conversation also will honor Robert L. Herbert, the dedicatee of the book, and will discuss how his legacy has impacted the field and so many at CAA.
Following this event, CAA will release a series of short videos from authors discussing their specific chapters within the book, including Julia A. Sienkewicz, Judith Brodsky, Ellen Levy, and Karen Leader. Their presentations will cover a range of topics concerning CAA’s history, from advocacy and feminist initiatives to CAA’s past exhibition programs and conferences.
About the book:
Susan Ball, editor. The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: 100 Years of the College Art Association (Rutgers University Press, 2011). Copies are available for purchase here.
In 1911 the College Art Association began with a small group of college art teachers whose single mission was to promote “art interests in all divisions of American colleges and universities.” One hundred years later the CAA, as it is commonly known, is as diverse as the decades that witnessed its maturity and growth. As leadership and membership grew dynamically, art and art history professors were joined by non-academic visual artists and art historians, museum professionals, art librarians, visual resource curators, independent scholars and artists, collectors, dealers, conservators, and non-college educators.
The Eye, the Hand, the Mind is a collaborative journey, filled with pictorial mementoes and enlivening stories and anecdotes. In these essays readers discover the important role CAA played in major issues in higher education such as curriculum development, preservation of world monuments, workforce issues and market equity, intellectual property and free speech, capturing conflicts and reconciliations inherent among artists and art historians, pedagogical approaches and critical interpretations/interventions as played out in association publications, annual conferences, advocacy efforts, and governance.
Celebrating the centennial of CAA members and milestones, Susan Ball and renowned contributors honor the organization’s complex history which, in part, also represents many learned societies and the humanities over the last one hundred years.
About the speakers:
Susan Ball, Ph.D.: Susan Ball edited The Eye, the Hand, the Mind. Ball holds a Ph.D. in art and architectural history from Yale University and holds over 35 years of professional experience – as a professor, scholar, museum professional and nonprofit agency director. Ball served as Interim Director of Programs at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Prior, she was Executive Director at the College Art Association, Professor of Art History at the University of Delaware, the Director of Government and Foundation Affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago, and a consultant with the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation. As an author and editor, she has contributed significant works of scholarship in her field, such as The Profitable Artist: A Handbook for All Artists in the Literary, Media, Performing, and Visual Arts with Peter Cobb and Felicity Hogan (Allworth Press, 2011), and has served on many boards.
Julia A. Sienkewicz, PhD: In The Eye, the Hand, the Mind, Sienkewicz authored the chapter, “Uniting the Arts and the Academy: A History of the CAA Annual Conference.” Sienkewicz, an Associate Professor of Art History at Roanoke College, holds both an MA and PhD from the University of Illinois and a BA from Mt. Holyoke College. She is the author of Epic Landscapes: Benjamin Henry Latrobe and the Art of Watercolor (2019). Currently, she is at work on the monograph Forms of White Hegemony: Transnational Sculpture, Racialized Identity, and the Torch of Civilization, 1836-1865, research that has been recognized with the award of a Terra Foundation Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. She recently edited a special issue of the Art History Pedagogy and Practice journal entitled, “Teaching and Learning the Art History of the United States.” Sienkewicz served in leadership roles at CAA for more than a decade, most recently concluding a term on the Board of Directors as the VP for Committees.
Anne Higonnet, Ph.D.: Anne Higonnet is now Professor of Art History at Barnard College of Columbia University. She received her BA from Harvard College in 1980 and her PhD from Yale University in 1988 under Robert Herbert. Her work has been supported by Getty, Guggenheim, and Social Science Research Council fellowships, as well as by grants from the Mellon, Howard and Kress Foundations. In 2019-2020 she was a Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute. She has published many essays, five print books, and two book-scale digital projects, is a prize-winning teacher, and has lectured widely, including in the Live Arts program of the Met Museum. One of her courses, Clothing, is among the most popular at Barnard and Columbia. She is now writing a book under contract with Norton: Three Fashion Stars and the Revolution They Wore; Joséphine Bonaparte, Juliette Récamier, Térésia Tallien.
Meme Omogbai, CAA Executive Director and CEO: Before joining CAA, Omogbai served as a member and past board chair of the New Jersey Historic Trust, one of four landmark entities dedicated to preservation of the state’s historic and cultural heritage, and Montclair State University’s Advisory Board. Named one of 25 Influential Black Women in Business by The Network Journal, Meme has over twenty-five years of experience in corporate, government, higher education, and museum sectors. As the first American of African descent to chair the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Omogbai led an initiative to rebrand the AAM as a global, inclusive alliance. While COO and trustee, she spearheaded a major transformation in operating performance at the Newark Museum. During her time as deputy assistant chancellor of New Jersey’s Department of Higher Education, Omogbai received legislative acknowledgment and was recognized with the New Jersey Meritorious Service award for her work on college affordability initiatives for families. Omogbai received her MBA from Rutgers University and holds a CPA. She did postgraduate work at Harvard University’s executive management program and has earned the designation of Chartered Global Management Accountant. She studied global museum executive leadership at the J. Paul Getty Trust Museum Leadership Institute, where she also served on the faculty.
Announcing the CAA 2022 Distinguished Scholar
posted by CAA — Oct 26, 2021
Kirsten Pai Buick
We’re delighted to announce the Distinguished Scholar session at the 110th CAA Annual Conference will honor Kirsten Pai Buick. This session will highlight her career and provide an opportunity for dialogue between and among colleagues. It will be held virtually during the 110th Annual Conference on February 17, 2022.
Established in 2001, the Distinguished Scholar Session illuminates and celebrates the contributions of senior art historians. The Annual Conference Committee identifies the distinguished scholar each year and each session typically brings together the distinguished scholar and a group of colleagues. The honoree’s involvement is fundamental to the series as a way of demonstrating a living tradition that gives voice to the continuities and ruptures that have shaped art-historical scholarship from the twentieth century into the new millennium.
Access to this program requires registration and is included with an All Access registration. Recordings will be accessible to registrants after the event. Register here.
“I identify as a scholar of the visual and material culture of the first British Empire, and the British diaspora in the US, Caribbean, and India. My teaching encompasses topics such as surveys of British Colonial and U.S. Art, American Landscape representation, African American Art, Pro- and Anti-Abolitionist Images in the Atlantic World; and seminars such as Photographing Jim Crow, 1890-1965, Patronizing Women: Taste and Collecting in the 19th and 20th Centuries, and The Victorian Nude: Representing Women, Men, Intersex, and Children. My research and teaching interests encompass histories of science, medicine, religion, as well as monuments, and the use of public space. Increasingly, I am interested in the racialization of mobility—what I characterize as critical mobility studies. I publish primarily in the realm of the history of African American art and its roots in US cultural formations. My first book, “Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject,” is a good example of how I wed my teaching and publication imperatives together with my challenge to art history and visual studies to be more and to do better. Ultimately, teaching is my passion; and I tell my students that job # 1 is surviving the damage, and job # 2 is to never concede the center.”
Kirsten Pai Buick is a professor of art history at the University of New Mexico. She received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Michigan and was a SAAM Predoctoral Fellow and a Charles Gaius Bolin Fellow at Williams College. Buick is a recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize for African American Art and has published extensively on African American art, including her book Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject (Duke Univ. Press, 2010). Her second book, In Authenticity: “Kara Walker” and the Eidetics of Racism, is in progress.
Affiliated Society News: October
posted by CAA — Oct 18, 2021
Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art) (AHNCA)
Announcements
AHNCA announces the winners of their Best Paper Prize at their Graduate Symposium. The Eighteenth Annual Graduate Student Symposium in Nineteenth-Century Art, co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) and the Dahesh Museum of Art was held virtually on September 25–26, 2021. Ten participants, representing future directions for nineteenth-century art history, presented their dissertation research. After prolonged deliberation because of the uniform high quality of the presentations, the jury awarded two Dahesh Prizes of $1000 each, funded by the Mervat Zahid Cultural Foundation, to Lieske Huits of the University of Cambridge and the Victoria & Albert Museum, and Sean Kramer of the University of Michigan.
Events
October 20, 2021, 7pm EDT – Upcoming Virtual Salon: The Art Market in the Nineteenth Century
Please join AHNCA on Wednesday, October 20th, at 7PM EDT for their October Virtual Salon on The Art Market in the Nineteenth Century. This series of online events is co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) and the Dahesh Museum of Art.
For this event, AHNCA will host three specialists, Véronique Chagnon-Burke, Anne Helmreich, and Simon Kell, who will discuss this increasingly important area of nineteenth-century studies. Their discussion will be followed by a Q&A and then a break-out room where attendees can socialize informally.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register here.
Mid-America College Art Association (MACAA)
Opportunities
Call for art submissions: MACAA Members Virtual Exhibition
MACAA invites its members to submit works of art for consideration to the Members Virtual Exhibition. This exhibition is in coordination with the 2022 Mid-America College Art Association
(MACAA) Virtual Conference, titled “Defining the Undefined: Art, Education, Technology and the Mapping of Ourselves,” hosted by Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. The call is open to all mediums and themes. This exhibition, hosted by MACAA via a virtual gallery, is an opportunity to display the incredible work made by MACAA members.
For more information on submission visit this link. Deadline is December 1, 2021.
Bibliographical Society of America (BSA)
Events
October 21, 2021, 7pm EDT – Virtual Event: Bluestockings Bookstore: Empowering Queer and Activist Communities
Founded in 1999, Bluestockings Bookstore has served for many years as a cultural hub, activist network, and vibrant community space on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Entirely all-volunteer run, there are 80+ volunteers, a rotating weekly schedule, and a worker’s collective at the decision-making core. Home to over 300 events a year, Bluestockings offers poetry open-mics, letter writing to prisoners, zine-making workshops, book launches, reading clubs. Panelists Malav Kanuga, Emiliano Lemus, and Joan Dark will share from their personal experiences as former and current members of the Bluestockings collective, offering an in-depth exploration of the space and its pivotal role for queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming individuals.
Register for the event here.
November 1, 2021, 3pm EDT – Collecting, Knowledge, and Power: Perspectives from Latin America
December 9, 2021, 3pm EDT – Collecting and Preserving Colonial Latin America Materials Today: A Roundtable Discussion
The Bibliographic Society of America’s fall series explores the hemispheric histories and contemporary dynamics of collecting and preserving Latin American library and archival materials. Featuring scholars and library and archive professionals based in Latin America and the U.S., the series aims to promote dialogue among scholars and practitioners while confronting ways in which power dynamics have shaped and continue to shape collecting and stewardship practices today.
To view past virtual events produced by the Bibliographic Society of America, visit their YouTube page.
An Inaugural Evening with CAA Distinguished Awardees and Artists
posted by Allison Walters — Sep 13, 2021
Nicole Fleetwood, recipient of CAA’s Frank Jewett Mather and Charles Rufus Morey book awards, discusses the inspiration behind her book, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration.
Supporting excellence in the arts for over 100 years, CAA and its members are highly integrated into the fabric of art and its history, particularly in New York City. On September 1, 2021, CAA had the privilege to highlight its impact in an event featuring its distinguished awardees and partnerships. The event, an Inaugural Evening with CAA Distinguished Awardees and Artists, recognized the talent of CAA’s membership and reaffirmed CAA’s commitment and advocacy for scholars, artists, designers, teachers, young professionals, and many others.
Surrounded by recent artworks created by The League’s faculty members, CAA Executive Director and CEO Meme Omogbai introduced celebrated critic and curator Nicole R. Fleetwood. Fleetwood delivered a private presentation discussing her book and exhibition Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, including detailed insights into the backstory and personal inspiration behind the important project. The book, published by Harvard University Press, unprecedently won both CAA’s Frank Jewett Mather and Charles Rufus Morey book awards in 2021. It was also reviewed across CAA’s publications, including The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews. Fleetwood’s book accompanies a groundbreaking exhibition that began at MoMA PS1 in 2020 and continues to travel; it will open on September 17 at the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and be on view through December 11, 2021.
CAA Executive Director and CEO, Meme Omogbai, presents Nicole Fleetwood with the CAA Frank Jewett Mather and Charles Rufus Morey book awards.
The reception also commended CAA’s Outstanding Leadership in Philanthropy Award recipient, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The Samuel H. Kress Foundation has supported CAA in its mission for over 60 years, through programs in art history and, more recently, digital transformation. With support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, CAA’s new strategic focus on digital initiatives will bridge history, scholarship, and accessibility to better serve all segments of its constituency, especially underprivileged audiences.
The Art Students League of New York graciously hosted CAA for this event. Like CAA, The League is an organization with a long history of promoting the arts and education. Indeed, CAA and The League have been highly integrated into the fabric of art and its history in New York City and have been closely intertwined, collaborating on several events and initiatives dating back to at least the 1950s.
CAA Executive Director and CEO, Meme Omogbai, presents Max Marmor, President of the Kress Foundation, with the CAA Philanthropy Award.
Located west of The League, the site-specific exhibition Re:Growth, A Celebration of Art, Riverside Park, and the New York Spirit, curated by Karin Bravin, included several artists from the CAA community: current CAA Board Member Dahlia Elsayed, former Board President DeWitt Godfrey, and CAA member Jean Shin. While the weather prevented a group walk-through of the exhibition, Elsayed spoke to attendees about the unique exhibition, her sculpture in the show, and its significance.
Altogether, the evening underscored CAA’s wide reach and impact in the arts and the talent of its members. As the largest international organization of arts professionals, CAA has a vital mission to promote the visual arts and their understanding through intellectual engagement, commitment to diversity, and advocacy. This upcoming year will provide opportunities to celebrate several milestones in this mission. CAA’s next virtual event in November 2021, will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the publication of CAA’s seminal history, The Eye, the Hand, the Mind: 100 Years of the College Art Association. In February 2022, CAA will host its first hybrid Annual Conference in Chicago and online; registration will open in October.
Jennifer Rissler, Vice President for External Relations and acting CAA Board President, and Dahlia Elsayed, current CAA Board Member and artist, both spoke at the event.