CAA News Today
CAA Members Win NEH Summer Stipends
posted by CAA — Apr 13, 2017
On March 29, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced funding for 208 humanities projects totaling $21.7 million. These grants include programs that support international collaboration, engage students in interdisciplinary courses, and help veterans.
Among the recipients are the following CAA members, all of whom received a $6,000 Summer Stipend to work on their various research projects:
- Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire of the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library in Winterthur, Delaware, for “Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedia and the Color Printing Revolution: A Translation and Critical Study”
- Jennifer Germann of Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, for “A Study of the Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray, an 18th-century British Artwork”
- Laura Morowitz of Wagner College in Staten Island, New York, for “Art Exhibitions in Vienna, Austria, during the Nazi Occupation”
- Allie Terry-Fritsch from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, for “Cosimo de’Medici, Fra Angelico, and the Public Library of San Marco”
- Anne Verplanck of Pennsylvania State University in Harrisburg for “The Business of Art: Transforming the Graphic Arts in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
These awards come just weeks after President Donald J. Trump’s administration released a budget proposal calling for the elimination of the NEH, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Education’s international education programs, the Institute for Museums and Library Services, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Our attention now turns to Congress, which can fund these programs despite the administration’s proposals. We have been heartened that these programs—which have been supported by presidents of both parties—have seen growing support in Congress in recent years. Indeed, over the past two years, the Republican-controlled Congresses have supported increases for the NEH.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Apr 05, 2017
Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Live Drawing Videos on Instagram Are Giving Users a Peek into the Creative Process
With the capability to create and share livestreams, sixty-second videos, and Stories, creatives have a new world of opportunity to demystify artmaking, to facilitate virtual studio visits, and to grow their followings. Moreover, artists can set themselves up for commissions and projects—and drawing is proving to be a ripe medium through which to accomplish this. (Read more from Artsy.)
The Exhilarating Return
Having recently returned from my own sabbatical, I wonder whether there are some downsides to the sabbatical’s luster—in particular, the larger view that it obscures. In our efforts to reverence sabbatical, we may fail to give proper due to its mighty counterpart, the return. This is a mistake. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
The Community-College Side Hustle
“Side hustle” is a term I had never heard until a few months ago, and now suddenly I’m seeing it everywhere, most recently in an advertisement for Uber drivers. It refers to having a second source of income in addition to one’s main job. That’s a concept professors have embraced, probably ever since there have been professors. (Read more from Vitae.)
The Art of “No”
Early in my career, I struggled to say no. I was asked to serve on committee after committee, to evaluate fistfuls of manuscripts and grants, and to perform dozens of other tasks, large and small. I said yes, often because of genuine interest but other times out of a sense of guilt or obligation—and sometimes out of fear of reprisal if I refused. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Penn Museum Shows Artifacts Curators Are Fighting to Save in Syria and Iraq
Many American museums have been closely monitoring the ongoing destruction of heritage sites in Syria and Iraq, but few have had boots on the ground. Curators and researchers at the Penn Museum have been on the frontlines of the battle to safeguard cultural heritage in conflict zones; they recently organized an exhibition illustrating how high the stakes are. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
A Hushed Departure at the Met Museum Reveals Entrenched Management Culture
The recent discovery of a looming $40 million deficit that forced the Metropolitan Museum of Art to cut staff, trim its exhibition schedule, and postpone a heralded $600 million expansion are signs that the system is showing cracks. Now, details about dysfunction in the digital-media department reveal additional consequences of the museum turning a blind eye to problems. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Paper Warping When Painting with Acrylics
When water is applied to paper, the fibers can soak up liquid and expand. This may create the infamous buckles and cockles that can be the bane—or joy—of those who paint with water media. (Read more from Just Paint.)
Was Banksy Caught on Camera at a Mall in Israel?
Several British tabloids ran stories last weekend showing footage captured with a mobile phone camera by an anonymous woman who claims to have caught the elusive Bristol-born artist in action, working on a show that’s slated to open to the public inside a mall in Herzlyia, Israel. (Read more from Artnet News.)
2017 TERRA FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN ART INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATION GRANT WINNERS
posted by CAA — Apr 03, 2017
CAA is pleased to announce the 2017 recipients of the Terra Foundation for American Art International Publication Grant. This program, which provides financial support for the publication of book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of American art, is made possible by a generous grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. For this grant, “American art” is defined as art (circa 1500–1980) of what is now the geographic United States.
“This year’s publication grant recipients demonstrate once again how this program serves the mission of advancing and internationalizing scholarship on American art,” says Francesca Rose, Program Director for Publications at the Terra Foundation for American Art. “Whether by funding translations or supporting original research in languages other than English and publications by early-career U.S. scholars, the 2017 publication grants allow for the dissemination of important scholarship to the global Americanist community. In addition, providing for travel to the CAA Annual Conference facilitates participation by non-U.S. authors in U.S. professional networks.”
The six Terra Foundation grantees for 2017 are:
- Philippe Artières, Attica, USA, 1971, Le Point du Jour
- Emily Burns, Transnational Frontiers: The Visual Culture of the American West in the French Imagination, 1867–1914, University of Oklahoma Press
- Sophie Cras, The Artist as Economist: Art and Capitalism in the 1960s, Yale University Press
- Kenji Kajiya, Formless Modernism: Color Field Painting and 20th-Century American Culture, University of Tokyo Press
- Kate Lemay, Triumph of the Dead: The American War Cemeteries in France, University of Alabama Press
- ShiPu Wang, The Other American Moderns, Pennsylvania State University Press
Two non-US authors of top-ranked books have also been awarded travel funds and complimentary registration for CAA’s 2018 Annual Conference in Los Angeles; they also received one-year CAA memberships.
The two author awardees for 2017 are:
- Sophie Cras
- Kenji Kajiya
“The Terra Foundation award is unique in that it supports publishers in the United States and abroad and also provides funds for authors of award-winning books to attend the CAA Annual Conference,” says Betty Leigh Hutcheson, Director of Publications at CAA. “Scholars outside the United States who receive travel grants can expand their networks, gain exposure to new ideas, meet publishers at the Book and Trade Fair, and apply to present papers at the conference. The success of the Terra Foundation program is grounded in the high quality of manuscripts CAA receives each year and our ability to financially support these projects. CAA has played a vital role in this process for the past three years, which is particularly gratifying as we see awarded projects reach completion.”
About CAA
The College Art Association is the world’s largest professional association for artists, art historians, designers, arts professionals, and arts organizations. CAA serves as an advocate and a resource for individuals and institutions nationally and internationally by offering forums to discuss the latest developments in the visual arts and art history through its Annual Conference, publications, exhibitions, website, and other programs, services, and events. CAA focuses on a wide range of advocacy issues, including education in the arts, freedom of expression, intellectual-property rights, cultural heritage and preservation, workforce topics in universities and museums, and access to networked information technologies. Representing its members’ professional needs since 1911, CAA is committed to the highest professional and ethical standards of scholarship, creativity, criticism, and teaching.
About the Terra Foundation for American Art
Established in 1978, the Terra Foundation for American Art is dedicated to fostering the exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States. With financial resources of more than $350 million, an exceptional collection of American art from the colonial period to 1945, and an expansive grant program, it is one of the leading foundations focused on American art, supporting exhibitions, academic programs, and research worldwide.
CWA Picks for April 2017
posted by CAA — Mar 30, 2017
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts selects the best in feminist art and scholarship. The following exhibitions and events should not be missed. 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.
Maria Sibylla Merian, Chinese Vase with Roses, Poppies and Carnations, ca. 1670–1680 (photograph © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz)
Maria Sibylla Merian and the Tradition of Flower Illustration
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin
Matthäikirchplatz, 10785 Berlin, Germany
April 7–July 3, 2017
Städel Museum in Frankfurt
Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
October 11, 2017–January 14, 2018
Academic conference
University of Amsterdam
ARTIS Library, Plantage Middenlaan 45-45A, 1018 DC Amsterdam, Netherlands
June 7–9, 2017
In commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the death of the German-born illustrator and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (April 7–July 2, 2017) and Städel Museum in Frankfurt (October 11–January 14, 2018) are sponsoring a joint show of approximately 150 of her works on paper and vellum. Known for her exquisite depictions of flowers and insects, Merian had an international reputation in her lifetime. Her illustrated texts include a volume of engravings of flora and fauna she produced while on a scientific expedition to the Dutch colony of Surinam in 1699. As a complement to this exhibition, the University of Amsterdam is sponsoring an academic conference titled “Changing the Nature of Art and Science: Intersections with Maria Sibylla Merian” (June 7–9, 2017), where her contributions to the history of printmaking, natural history, and botanical art will be honored.
Invitation for Kate Kretz’s #bullyculture
Kate Kretz: #bullyculture
39th Street Gallery and Corridor Exhibition Space
Gateway Arts Center, 3901 Rhode Island Ave, Brentwood, Maryland
March 11–April 15, 2017
#bullyculture represents the first phase of an ambitious in-progress series that Kate Kretz commenced in 2011 and will conclude later this year. In her quest to find the common denominator to all the crimes against women, children, “minorities,” animals, and the earth, she has produced a large corpus of works on paper, sculpture, paintings, textiles, and mixed media. Some of the themes she explores in this series include “trophy hunting, VIP culture and ‘the 1%’, corporate destruction of the earth, rape culture and sexual entitlement, the fetishization of guns and their use for intimidation.” The artist, who has received numerous awards and grants, including the Southeastern College Art Conference’s 2016 award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement and a position on the Fulbright Specialist Roster through 2021, will be giving a lecture on April 1.
Shagha Ariannia: Who Sings the Nation-State?
Vincent Price Art Museum
East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park, CA
March 18–June 10, 2017
A little over fifteen years ago, and one week after 9/11, Shagha Ariannia and her family arrived to Los Angeles as migrants from Iran. Ariannia has mined this particularly potent history of travel, place-finding, and identity-in-transit throughout her artistic career by, for example, annotating her family’s photographic archives in a series called What would America/Iran do without Iran/America? (2012). This solo exhibition focuses on a series of works Ariannia has been creating using national anthems from various countries (Iran and the United States included, among many others). In this way she takes seriously the titular question posed by Gayatri Spivak and Judith Butler in their 2007 dialogue Who Sings the Nation-State? As Butler says in that text, in regard to hearing the US national anthem sung in Spanish in the streets of Los Angeles, “The monolingual requirement of the nation surely surfaces in the refusal to hear the anthem sung in Spanish, but it does not make the anthem any less sing-able in that or any other language” (60).
Nina Katchadourian: Curiouser
Blanton Museum of Art
200 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Austin, TX
March 12 – June 11, 2017
A few years ago I recall seeing a dozen or so clickbait-y articles written about Nina Katchadourian’s Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style, a series in which the artist constructed toilet-paper and neck-pillow costumes during long-haul flights and photographed herself wearing them in the tiny, and poorly lit, spaces of onboard lavatories. This midcareer survey—the artist’s first touring museum exhibition—promises to flesh out Katchadourian’s wide-ranging work. The Flemish lavatory portraits, for example, are only one piece of a larger series of works using the airplane as studio space (Seat Assignment, 2010–ongoing). One of the works on display, and one of her most well-known, is the video Accent Elimination, wherein the artist hired a speech coach to teach her parents (both foreign born) to speak in a “standard” American accent, and, in turn, to teach her how to speak with her parents’ accent. Her collaborations with her family, other artists, international agencies, and even animals are potent reminders that the activity of art is almost never a solitary endeavor, and her interest in quotidian acts of creativity suggests that art can be found anywhere. One just has to know how to look.
May Stevens: Alice in the Garden
Ryan Lee Gallery
515 West 26th Street, New York, New York
February 23–April 8, 2017
May Stevens, a celebrated activist committed to the civil rights, antiwar, and feminist movements, used painting to combat social injustice and to revise women’s history throughout her seventy-year career. The exhibition Alice in the Garden comprises several large-scale paintings depicting Alice Dick Stevens, her elderly mother, during the final years of her life.
From 1983 and 1990, Stevens turned her attention to her mother and producing the five-panel painting Alice in the Garden (1988–89). “The mural-like images confront the viewer with the massive figure of Alice—fleshy, fragile, and vulnerable. In her hands, Alice manipulates flowers—dandelions Stevens had playfully thrown at her during an afternoon visit.”
In a conversation with the art historian Patricia Hills, Stevens explained the importance of Alice as a subject: “For me I think it means I want her [Alice] to be known, even for the individual person that she is, but it also means that I want people like that not to be forgotten. For me she’s not just a single person, because we all know this person. We all know her and we may become her. She’s a problem. As aging is a problem, as illness is a problem, as being a woman who does not fulfill herself is a problem.” (Patricia Hills, May Stevens [San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2005], 45.)
Today May Stevens, now 92, lives with Alzheimer’s disease in a memory-loss facility in New Mexico. She has received numerous awards including ten MacDowell Colony residencies, the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award (1990), a Guggenheim fellowship in painting (1986), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in painting (1983), an Andy Warhol Foundation residency (2001), and CAA’s own Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001).
Terrains of the Body: Photography from the National Museum of Women in the Arts
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High St, London
January 18–April 16, 2017
Featuring over seventeen contemporary artists working across mediums, Terrains of the Body: Photography from the National Museum of Women in the Arts assembles an impressive collection from Washington, DC, for display across the water in London. “By turning their camera to women, including themselves, these artists embrace the female body as a vital medium for storytelling, expressing identity and reflecting individual and collective experience.”
Many works in the display extend the scope of 1970s feminist art, including performance and video. This display celebrates their legacy today. Moving between photography’s ability to document and tell stories, these works present women as creator and subject of their work. Several artists in the exhibition, including Nan Goldin and Daniela Rossell, photograph women in expansive series that appear documentary in nature. Other artists include Marina Abramović, Rineke Dijkstra, Anna Gaskell, Charlotte Gyllenhammar, Candida Höfer, Icelandic Love Corporation, Mwangi Hutter, Kirsten Justesen, Justine Kurland, Nikki S. Lee, Hellen van Meene, Shirin Neshat, Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation, Janaina Tschäpe, and Adriana Varejão.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Mar 29, 2017
Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Women’s Movement Impacts Spending on Art Supplies
The week before the Women’s March, sales of poster boards in the US were up 33 percent and foam boards by 42 percent versus the same week last year. Sales of easel pads/flip charts also grew, as did tools used to assist in making the poster messages, including paint markers, specialty markers, and permanent markers. (Read more from NPD Group.)
Gender Gap Persists at Largest Museums
When the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art steps down in June, the top job at the biggest art museum in the US will be up for grabs. A woman faces long odds of landing that job, to judge from a study from the Association of Art Museum Directors. “The Ongoing Gender Gap in Art Museum Directorships” shows that just one of the nation’s thirteen largest museums is led by a woman. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Meet Art Girl Army, a Group of Female Creatives Fighting for Equal Opportunity
When Sydney Lowe invited a few girlfriends over to her small Brooklyn apartment in 2014, she didn’t know she was starting an army. Today she is the founder of Art Girl Army, a fast-growing collective of women creatives—including those who are gender nonconforming, transgender, and genderqueer—who make art, films, graphics, and music. And while they might not be armed with weapons, they certainly have missions. (Read more from Artsy.)
Seeking Grants: More Than Money
The need to succeed at getting grants is a continuing part of faculty life at research institutions. Watching the process leaves some graduate students and postdocs convinced that they want no part of it. The stakes seem so high. But bringing in outside funding is the only way to sustain an independent research-driven career in an academic setting. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Virtual Reality in the Art-History Classroom
I recently become fascinated with virtual reality and the realism I experience by viewing through a small boxlike device—in this case, Google Cardboard. I wondered if there could be connections made between virtual reality and my art-history survey course for students at Mount Saint Mary College. (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)
The American Government Is Searching for Its Own Lost Art
They are not America’s art police. There are no midnight raids, covert surveillance, or undercover operations. Most everything is done through cordial emails, polite phone calls, and, if necessary, civil court. While glamour is not top priority, make no mistake—the United States government wants its art back. (Read more from Atlas Obscura.)
Art Attack: Why Do People Try to Destroy Museum Masterpieces?
On March 18, a man “with no fixed abode” slashed Thomas Gainsborough’s The Morning Walk with a screwdriver at London’s National Gallery. He was quickly detained and the damage appears to be fixable—the paint was cut, but the screwdriver did not pierce the supporting canvas. Conservators are brilliant surgeons, and the scars should be invisible by the time they are done. (Read more from Salon.)
Dealing with Disrupters
As obstructionist protests of controversial speakers spread, some say the future of the trend depends on how colleges and universities respond—namely what, if any, disciplinary action they take against participants. But just what action to take, and when, is tricky business. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Statement on the US President’s FY2018 Budget Proposal
posted by CAA — Mar 16, 2017
Today the US President released his proposal for 2018 federal budget – it envisions transferring additional billions of dollars to the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security from many important domestic programs such as the Environmental Protection Agency, education, and legal services. As expected, the budget also calls for the complete elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and 16 other federal agencies. CAA was one of the first national organizations to speak against these cuts.
Read the statement against these cuts that CAA released on January 23, 2017.
As educators, art historians, artists, curators, museum directors, designers, scholars, and other members of the visual arts community we must act to defend the role of arts and humanities in our society. The budget process is long and ultimately controlled by the US House and Senate. Earlier this week, CAA traveled to Washington for Humanities Advocacy Day to meet with many congressional offices to discuss the importance of continued NEA and NEH funding. We will return again next week to do the same for Arts Advocacy Day.
In addition, CAA assembled an Arts and Humanities Advocacy Toolkit with information on how to contact your representatives in Congress to voice your support for the NEA and NEH and the many quality programs they fund. Call their offices. Email them. Attend Town Halls. You can learn how these agencies support activities in your area here: funded by the NEA and funded by the NEH. Be sure to let your representatives know of the impact of the arts and humanities in your districts. Spread the word to your colleagues and friends.
Despite the White House’s opposition to continued funding for the NEA and NEH, there is sufficient reason to believe that many members of the US House and Senate will support a budget that includes continued funding for these agencies. I ask our members to join in the effort to make sure all members of Congress knows the importance of the work done by these agencies.
Hunter O’Hanian
Executive Director
Chief Executive Officer
Learning from Experience: Fair Use in Practice
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — Mar 14, 2017
We are eager to learn how individual CAA members are relying on fair use. Please take the following survey to let us know if, how, and to what extent you rely on fair use! Link here.
At last month’s Annual Conference, CAA’s Committee on Intellectual Property (CIP) organized “Learning from Experience: Fair Use in Practice,” a panel addressing fair use and how reliance on this aspect of copyright law has increased since CAA published its Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts two years ago. The CIP session featured leading visual arts professionals in four areas: the academic art library, publishing, art-making, and artist-endowed foundations, each of whom described the importance of fair use in her work. The session, which was attended by more than ninety conference-goers, was led by CIP’s new chair, Anne Collins Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and CAA president emerita, during whose tenure CAA undertook its fair use project, which culminated in the publication of the Code.
The panel opened with a brief overview of CAA’s fair use initiative by Goodyear, and then offered compelling examples of the Code’s application. Carole Ann Fabian, the Director of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University reported that Columbia advances the principal of open access policy where possible, and that Avery librarians draw upon three fair use codes when advising library users about quoting from or reproducing copyrighted materials: that developed by the Association of Research Libraries (2012), CAA’s Code of Best Practices (2015), and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) Guidelines (2016). The shared norms of the CAA and AAMD codes, both of which champion a liberal assertion of fair use, provide particularly helpful guidance on fair use applications related to copyrighted images. Avery is often the first point of contact for students and faculty who have questions about these issues, and as a collecting organization, is also a provider of primary content (and their digital surrogates) to scholars worldwide. Fabian noted that the work librarians perform educating users about copyrights and the doctrine of fair use is ongoing with each year’s influx of new students and faculty. Having a concise resource like CAA’s Code, makes it infinitely easier to introduce library users to this essential feature of American copyright law.
Victoria Hindley, Associate Acquisitions Editor, MIT Press, reported that discussions about fair use at last year’s CAA Annual Conference motivated her to work with her colleagues at MIT Press to pursue a fair use initiative of their own. With support from Executive Editor Roger Conover, Press Director Amy Brand, legal counsel, and others, Hindley helped to define a progressive position in support of responsible fair use. “One of our primary goals,” she said, “was to figure out how to reduce the burden of clearing permissions placed on the author.” The resulting proposal, which is undergoing final Institute approval, is a robust document that most notably, as she explained: “would no longer require authors to indemnify the press when they have made a reasonable good faith determination of fair use.” MIT Press has developed proposed new contract language in support of this position; and, to further empower authors, the Press has crafted permissions guidelines that take advantage of the CAA Code and also refer authors to it. “The CAA Code of Best Practices has proven to be an invaluable guide for us as we’ve held these discussions and made decisions about our own guidelines,” noted Hindley. The new policy pending adoption at MIT Press would provide protections similar to those that CAA grants contributors to its publications.
The third speaker was the distinguished artist Martha Rosler, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award during the conference from the Women’s Caucus for Art. Rosler has for decades incorporated into her work images circulating in what she has called the public sphere of mass media, including newspapers, magazines, and television, without stopping to consider copyright. While showing examples of her work, Rosler described the importance of processes like hers, which, she said, for many artists “constitute an essential form of critique.” Although Rosler’s practice predates the publication of CAA’s Code of Best Practices, she acknowledged that the Code serves to clarify the principles on which such a practice is based. She also noted that the Code has the potential to offer support and encouragement to other artists who might otherwise shy away from the legitimate use of copyrighted material in their work, for fear of adverse consequences. She also observed, with regret, that many artists, particularly those working in video, have deliberately abandoned or failed to undertake projects involving appropriation precisely because the legal departments of broadcast entities bar the airing of such works, out of fear of reprisal for purported infringements.
Francine Snyder, Director of Archives and Scholarship at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, was the fourth speaker in the CIP session. She talked about the positive effect on the Foundation of a proactive fair use policy in the year since it was introduced. The main goal of the policy has been to foster scholarship about Rauschenberg, disseminate knowledge, and enhance educational initiatives. In this regard, Snyder reported, the policy has proven a great success, generating more scholarship and innovative projects. Among the outcomes to which she referred is an online gallery for children that includes images of Rauschenberg’s work. Snyder indicated that one of the most important values of the Foundation’s public turn to fair use has been to reduce anxiety on the part of those who want to reproduce the artist’s work for creative and scholarly purposes. Snyder mentioned that the fair use policy does not apply to commercial uses, for which the Foundation relies on licensing through VAGA. By way of conclusion, she explained that the Foundation is committed to an open dialogue as interpretations of fair use continue to evolve, as seen in the multiple applications of CAA’s Code of Best Practices.
Following the formal presentations, Jeffrey P. Cunard, CAA’s counsel, and Co-Chair of its Fair Use Task Force, moderated a discussion with the speakers and audience. Cunard noted the importance of the Rauschenberg Foundation’s turn to the doctrine of Fair Use in making work by Rauschenberg available for scholarly and creative purposes, and the relationship between fair use and an open approach to licensing images. He also clarified, in conversation with Rosler, that copyright holders had not objected to her pioneering work, which may not have been surprising, given the transformative nature of her use of appropriated material.
The talks by each of the speakers on this panel, along with the great interest expressed by the audience, point to increased awareness of the application of fair use since CAA published the Code of Best Practices two years ago. While detailing the many ways in which fair use is benefitting scholarship and creative practice, the session also makes clear the need for ongoing education about the Code, and the importance of publicizing and encouraging its use. We invite further examples of fair use in action, and any suggestions for the continued dissemination of the Code and the guidance it provides.
Affiliated Society News for March 2017
posted by CAA — Mar 10, 2017
Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG)
Registration and program information for the 2017 AAMG Annual Conference in Eugene, OR is now available. Please click here to access the schedule of presentations, workshops, receptions, and much more.
Online registration, as well as hotel and travel information, is also now online. Please note: AAMG institutional and individual members will need to login with their username and password to be eligible for the $250 early bird rate. The special member rate is available through April 15. If you have difficulty with logging in to your account, click here to reset your password or contact membership@aamg-us.org.
We hope to see you in Eugene this summer for what will be our biggest and best AAMG Annual Conference to date!
Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA)
The Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) was happy to see many members at CAA for its Annual Meeting and its sponsored session, “The Gustatory Turn in American Art.” February 2017 also marked a changing of the guard of sorts, as we welcome several new board members to our ranks. We wish to express our gratitude to outgoing Board members Anna Marley (Chair Emerita), Monica Jovanovich-Kelley (Treasurer), Jillian Russo (Secretary), Melissa Renn (Membership Coordinator), and Annelise Madsen (Web Coordinator). We are grateful for their years of service to the organization!
We welcome the following incoming board members: Miguel de Baca (Co-Chair), Diana Seave Greenwald (Treasurer), Naomi Slipp (Secretary), Jonathan Walz (Membership Coordinator), and Jeff Richmond-Moll and Andrea Truitt (Web Co-Coordinators). Additionally, the Executive Editors of our online journal Panorama will be joining the board, and so we are pleased to work even more closely with Betsy Boone, Sarah Burns, and Jennifer Jane Marshall.
AHAA is also delighted to announce the venue for our October 2018 Symposium: Minneapolis, Minnesota! We look forward to sharing more information in the coming months as our colleagues at the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art develop their plans.
As always, we welcome hearing your news and views. You can learn more about AHAA or share your news by visiting our website at ahaaonline.org or emailing info@ahaaonline.org. We also welcome submissions, pitches, and proposals for our online journal; please visit journalpanorama.org.
Community College Professors of Art and Art History
CCPAAH wants to thank all of the presenters and participants at our Affiliated Society session at the 2017 CAA Annual Conference in New York. The panel Reinventing the Familiar: Updated Approaches in Art History and the Studio, was chaired by Susan Altman, Middlesex County College and included the following presentations: Taking Art History Beyond the Classroom by Maya Jiménez, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY and Cheryl Hogue Smith, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY; Crowd-sourcing Global Art: Wikis and the Non-Western Canon by Jill Foltz, Collin College; Gaming the Critique: Providing Framework and Fun to the Group Critique by Tyrus Clutter, College of Central Florida; and Waging Art: When Fine Arts meets Workplace Development by Kathleen M. Dlugos, Westmoreland College. The successful Project Share at our early morning business meeting gave everyone lots of new ideas to bring back to our studio and art history classrooms.
CCPAAH will be sponsoring a session: Draw and Repeat: Reconsidering the Sketchbook at this year’s FATE Conference in Kansas City in April. Interested in presenting? The call for papers for next year’s CCPAAH Affiliated Session at the 2018 CAA Annual Conference will be posted is open through April 15, 2017. Submission site here.
Please follow us on Facebook: Community College Professors of Art and Art History and Instagram: @ccpaah. Interested in getting more involved? Contact Susan Altman at: ccpaah@gmail.com
FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory and Education)
Thank you to all who came to the FATE Affiliate Society session, “Using the F-word for Good, Not Evil: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better,” at CAA this year. We had an excellent turn out!
Coming up, KCAI’s Foundation Department will host To the Core and Beyond, FATE’s 16th Biennial Conference from April 6th – 8th, 2017 at the Intercontinental at the Plaza in Kansas City. There, FATE members will gather as leading voices in fundamental art and design instruction and examine place, geography, introspective and reflexive actions, pedagogical values, and the potency of origins across the world. Influences from inside and outside the studio drive the development of Foundation programs and their students. In response to the conference theme, a broad spectrum of artists and academics will examine our reach as educators, and question how we instill world values through Foundation instruction and diverse programmatic structures. Enrique Martínez Celaya will be the 2017 FATE Conference Keynote Speaker.
More information about FATE’s 2017 conference.
In other news, FATE’s Positive Space: Episode 6 podcast is now live. In Episode 6, Jessica Burke (JB), Georgia Southern University & Emily Sullivan Smith, University of Dayton thoughtfully discuss the role of a Foundations Coordinator, balancing administrative roles with teaching & the pros/cons of a unified foundations curriculum.
More info? Please contact: Naomi J. Falk, naomijfalk@gmail.com
International Sculpture Center
Call for Panels now open for 27th International Sculpture Conference: Intersections + Identities. The ISC is seeking a diverse and comprehensive program, covering topics relevant to sculpture today. Apply online now! The call is open through March 13, 2017.
2017 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards. Faculty, nominate your sculpture students today! Rules and details. Deadline: March 29, 2017. Email: studentawards@sculpture.org Phone: 609-689-1051 ext. 312
Japan Art History Forum (JAHF)
In recent elections, JAHF members elected: Julie Nelson Davis (University of Pennsylvania) to a 3-year term as President, Namiko Kunimoto (Ohio State University) to a 3-year term as Vice President, and Holly Rubalcava (University of Wisconsin-Madison) to a 2-year term as Graduate Representative.
The winner of the 2016 Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize for outstanding scholarship by a graduate student was Elizabeth Self, a PhD candidate in the Dept. of the History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, for her paper titled “A Mausoleum Fit for a Shogun’s Wife: The Two Seventeenth-Century Mausolea for Sūgen-In.” The Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Competition is generously supported by the Japanese Art Society of America (JASA) and by University of Hawai’i Press. More information on the Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize.
The 2016 Clark Center Graduate Travel Grant was awarded to Ja Won Lee of the University of California, Los Angeles, who will be visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to examine Japanese artworks from the collection in the context of her research on the collecting of Chinese antiques and its impact on visual and material culture in 19th and early twentieth-century Japan and Korea. More information on the Clark Center Graduate Travel Grant.
SECAC
SECAC was represented at CAA 2017 on the following session panels and with the following speakers: “In the Studio,” chaired by Elizabeth Heuer, University of North Florida; “Shared Space: The Home-Studio of Thomas Moran & Mary Nimmo Moran,” with Shannon Vittoria, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; “Dueling Studios: The Public and Private Images of Chaim Gross. Dueling Studios: The Public and Private Images of Chaim Gross,” with Sasha Davis, The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation; “Free Markets, Free People: Discourse and Behavior in Lynda Benglis’ Lost Studio Tapes,” with Katie Anania, The University of Texas at Austin; and “The Studio as Model: From André Breton’s Wall to Fischli & Weiss’s Polyurethane Object Installations and Piero Giolio’s Studio,” with Susan Power, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
SECAC 2017 Call for Papers deadline is April 20, 2017, midnight, EDT. Membership in SECAC is due at the time of paper acceptance, and registration fees are required of all. Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) looks forward to hosting “Microscopes and Megaphones,” the 73rd annual SECAC Conference, October 25-28, 2017. Eleanor Fuchs, Associate Provost at CCAD, will serve as conference director. Find more information here.
Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) will host its 70th Annual International Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, from June 7–11, 2017. This is the first time that SAH has met outside North America in over 40 years! Meeting in Scotland’s largest city, world renowned for its outstanding architectural heritage, reflects the increasingly international scope of the Society and its conference. Architectural historians, art historians, architects, museum professionals and preservationists from around the world will convene to share new research on the history of the built environment. The Glasgow conference will include 36 paper sessions, eight roundtables, an introductory address and plenary talk, architecture tours, the SAH Glasgow Seminar, and more. Early registration ends March 14, 2017. Tours-only registration opens to the public on March 15, 2017.
The call for papers for the SAH 2018 Annual International Conference in St. Paul, MN, will open on March 31, 2017.
SAH is seeking educators to produce K-12 lesson plans for SAH Archipedia, an authoritative online encyclopedia of the built world published jointly by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press. Interested educators should submit a proposal that includes a 500-word abstract outlining the topic of the lesson plan and include a preliminary list of the SAH Archipedia content the project would incorporate. Read the submission instructions here. Proposals are due by March 31, 2017.
SAH is accepting applications for the SAH/Mellon Author Awards through June 1, 2017. These awards are designed to provide financial relief to scholars who are publishing their first monograph on the history of the built environment, and who are responsible for paying for rights and permissions for images or for commissioning maps, charts or line drawings in their publications.
Committee on Women in the Arts Picks for March 2017
posted by CAA — Mar 10, 2017
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts selects the best in feminist art and scholarship. The following exhibitions and events should not be missed. 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.
March 2017
From the Collection: Sister(s) In the Struggle: Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver
Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Photographs of Angela Davis on view: January 18–March 5, 2017
Photographs of Kathleen Cleaver on view: March 7–April 9, 2017
Curated by Julie Crooks, Sister(s) In the Struggle: Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver features photographs of two leading female figures of the Black Panther Party taken from the Black Star Collection at the Ryerson Image Centre. “They were photographed excessively,” Crooks said in an interview with Flare, “and their images were ubiquitous. They were in newspapers, they were in journals, they were on posters and their representations, or likenesses, were all over the place and that created this kind of cult presence…. At times the photographs could be detrimental to one’s image, especially someone like Angela Davis, but I think they also fed into this kind of iconic status.”
In choosing to pull photographs from the Black Star Collection from the civil rights area, Crooks explained that she wanted to humanize the representation of Davis and Cleaver, selecting images that offered a previously unexplored way of looking at them. The exhibition creates comparisons to many other women behind the scenes—those who are not remembered. “I wanted to highlight these photographs because the Black Power statement was, ‘black is beautiful’ and that was kind of a relentless message: that we are beautiful, despite hundreds of years of representation that told us otherwise, Crooks told Flare.
This exhibition is part of a collaboration between the Ryerson Image Centre and Black Artists’ Networks Dialogue, called Power to the People: Photography and Video of Repression and Black Protest, which will run until April 9.
Amy Jorgensen: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Elizabeth Houston Gallery
190 Orchard Street, New York, NY
February 8–March 12, 2017
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue by Amy Jorgensen is a series of delicate handkerchiefs emblazoned with historic images of suffragettes. In fact, displayed on each piece of linen is the surveillance images of eighteen women taken from the 1913 Criminal Records Office of Scotland Yard.
“Recognizing in this episode a peculiar confluence of gazes, Jorgensen re-contextualizes and re-situates these images into the wider question of how women’s identities are constructed, and how they are obstructed…. The gift of the handkerchief is a matrimonial tradition passed from mother to daughter, woman to woman. This work investigates the search for, or the making of, identity that draws upon the plurality and fraction of the self, and the span of influence that is made from generation to generation.”
These discrete portraits of women suffragettes were taken and cataloged by Scotland Yard after a series of acts of civil disobedience, including arson, window breaking, and other public disturbances, which in turn created a national scandal. Jorgensen, who transferred the photographs to the handkerchief using cyanotype, an early-nineteenth-century photographic process pioneered by a woman, first discovered the images while researching Edna Berg, her great aunt and an impassioned suffragette from New York.
“The juxtaposition of these two histories—that of the matrimonial ceremony and that of the women of the suffragette movement—provides a jarring collision point for the examination of patriarchal structures both in history and contemporary culture.”
Jennifer Brea: Unrest
Film
SXSW, Austin, Texas
March 10–19, 2017
After making its debut at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Unrest by the director Jennifer Brea travels to SXSW in Austin, Texas, this March. The film focuses on the life of Brea, who was diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, commonly referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome. Brea, a PhD student at Harvard University, found that she could not sign a check at a restaurant, becoming progressively worse in the months before her wedding. When doctors told her it was “all in her head,” Brea turned her camera on herself, filming from the confines of her bed.
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a systemic neuroimmune condition characterized by post-exertional malaise—a severe worsening of symptoms after even minimal exertion. The root causes and physical effects are not fully understood, especially in women. As Brea described in a TED Talk, her neurologist diagnosed her with conversion disorder and said her physical symptoms were the result of some distance emotional trauma. “It is a perfect custom prison,” Brea observed. “How can a disease this devastating be forgotten by medicine?”
“As I got sick, I found myself as part of cohort of women in their late 20s whose bodies were falling apart,” Brea explained, “and how hard it was to be taken seriously.” Her film explores her own diagnosis but also seeks to address the millions of others with the same condition.
As SXSW nears, screening days and times for Unrest will be posted on the schedule page. The full TED Talk with Brea can be found online.
Suor Plautilla Nelli, Lamentation with Saints (1550)
The Art of Suor Plautilla Nelli
Uffizi Gallery
Piazzale degli Uffizi, 6, Florence, Italy
March 8–April 30, 2017
In the first of an open-ended, annual series of exhibitions dedicated to women artists—what the Italian press is calling “pink exhibitions”—the Uffizi Gallery will showcase the work of Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1587), an artist nun who was Florence’s first known female Renaissance artist. Works culled from her Domenican convent, as well as from churches and museums across central Italy, will go on display on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day; they will remain on view until April 30. The Florence-based organization Advancing Women Artists Foundation, which has been instrumental in facilitating the restoration of Nelli’s works, published the exhibition catalogue. Eike Schmidt, the Uffizi’s current director, was motivated to pursue this initiative after a conversation with the Guerrilla Girls.
Leila Alaoui: No Pasara
Musée des Beaux-Arts
1380, rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal, Canada
Through April 30, 2017
On January 18, 2016, a young French-Moroccan photographer named Leila Alaoui was killed in an attack in Burkina Faso. Alaoui, who had been in the West African nation on assignment for a report on women’s rights for Amnesty International, used her photography to highlight issues related to migration, displacement, and cultural identity. The twenty-four images of No Pasara, which means “no entry,” depict young Moroccans who dream of a better life on the other side of the Mediterranean. The series was commissioned by the European Union in 2008.
In a review of her work last year, a critic for the Economist wrote: “Alaoui’s photojournalism drove the reasons for the movement of humans—before and beyond today’s crises—home, by turning a lens on those who have been and continue to remain unseen between world crises. Economic migrants in the regions she captured, including young Moroccans, Lebanese and Sub-Saharan Africans willing to make perilous crossings for a life in Europe were the consistent thread through her projects.” Alaoui’s hauntingly beautiful images offer a trenchant and poignant vantage point from which to consider the global immigration crisis.
Walled Garden in an Insane Eden
Sara Zanin Gallery
Via della Vetrina, 2, Rome, Italy
February 9–March 25, 2017
“Is it only the external landscape which is altering? How often recently most of us have had the feeling of déjà vu, of having seen all this before, in fact of remembering these swamps and lagoons all too well. However selective the conscious mind may be, most biological memories are unpleasant ones, echoes of danger and terror. Nothing endures for so long as fear.”
—J. G. Ballard from The Drowned World (1962)
Borrowing its title from J. G. Ballard’s science-fiction novel and one of its dystopic tales, this exhibition brings together a contingency of London-based artists whose work engages with the political uncertainties introduced into the European landscape in 2016. Their responses, which include drawings, paintings, sculptures, textiles, and performance, range from skeptical to hopeful. Organized by Marcelle Joseph, the exhibition features mostly women artists, including Rebecca Ackroyd, Gabriella Boyd, Kira Freije, Marie Jacotey, Florence Peake, and Zadie Xa.
CAA Arts and Humanities Advocacy Toolkit
posted by admin — Mar 02, 2017
“The phone calls and emails began coming in a few weeks ago to the Nebraska congressional delegation — all Republicans, and all potentially crucial to an expected fight over the very existence of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities under President Trump.” –“How to Block Trump Arts Cuts? Groups Look for G.O.P. Help,” The New York Times, February 28, 2017
Arts and Humanities Advocates are already taking action. CAA encourages its members and all advocates of the arts and humanities to be persistent and do more.
On January 23, 2017, CAA released a statement condemning the proposed budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other federal agencies.
“For more than a century, the College Art Association (CAA) has represented art historians, artists, museum professionals, designers, and others who think and care about the visual arts and its impact on our culture. We do this in part through direct advocacy for artistic and academic freedom.
Like many other Americans, we have closely watched the proposed changes to the federal government. Recent news reports reveal that the US President intends to propose the elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This proposal is reportedly based in part on a recommendation by the Heritage Foundation that states, ‘As the U.S. Congress struggles to balance the federal budget and end the decades-long spiral of deficit spending, few programs seem more worthy of outright elimination than the National Endowment for the Arts.’
We offer our complete and total opposition to these efforts.”
The current administration’s proposal to cut funding for the NEA and NEH is based on a 1997 Heritage Foundation report, titled “Ten Good Reasons to Eliminate Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.”
To support our statement, CAA has put together an Arts and Humanities Advocacy Tool Kit to help our members and anyone who wants to advocate for the arts and humanities. Information is power, after all. The Tool Kit information is pulled from a variety of sources that aid in forging partnerships, obtaining accurate data on the impact of the arts and humanities, and actions one can take in order to use your voice effectively.
We encourage you to contact us at CAA also. CAA staff will attend both Arts Advocacy Day and Humanities Advocacy Day. The more stories we can share as we meet with colleagues and representatives, the more influence we collectively bring to the table.
Locate and Call
Call your representatives about any and all pressing issues.
Find your local representative
This is a helpful guide on how to contact your local representative:
The How-to Guide to Contacting your Local Official
Face-to-Face
Face-to-face meetings with representatives are the most effective way to deliver your message. Hand your representative a physical document with facts and figures and be sure to explain who you are and how the group you represent relates to your local politician’s constituency.
Town Halls are one good way to voice your opinion to your local representative in person. The Federation for American Immigration Reform has a guide on how to attend Town Hall meetings.
You can also organize and request an appointment at the offices of your representative. The National Priorities Project has a good guide to setting up office appointments.
Sign Petitions
There are myriad petitions floating around these days, addressing vast numbers of topics. It can be hard to keep track or know which petitions to sign.
Change.org remains one of the best places to find a database of petitions by topic. The site also provides explanations and background information for each petition.
To sign the petition to support the NEA and NEH you can sign the White House created petition, the Change.org petition, and the Arts Action Fund petition.
Advocates can also send postcards directly to members of Congress that are customized with their artwork or other artworks, thanks to the #savethearts Postcard Project.
Arm Thyself with Data and Information
There is lots of good data about the impact of the arts and humanities on people and places. The National Humanities Alliance is working on several data gathering and mapping projects.
Americans for the Arts is also a hub for data and information about various federal arts agencies and arts education in America.
Data on the arts and humanities can also be found on the National Endowment for the Arts Facts & Figures page and the National Endowment for the Humanities Impact Reports.
This nifty website is a running tally of all the programs that the NEA funded in 2016.
You can also search the NEA website to see all grants they have awarded since 1996. Check to see what organizations in your local area are funded by the NEA.
The same search for grants can be done on the NEH website.