CAA News Today
An Interview with Linda Nochlin
posted by CAA — Jun 08, 2017
CAA is proud to launch our newest initiative for fostering academic discussions about art and its purpose through conversations with diverse scholars and practitioners from our community. Every month, executive director Hunter O’Hanian will interview a notable scholar or artist who is making or has made progressive change in his or her field, with the goal to not only learn more about their craft, but to understand the artist or scholar behind it.
Our first interview in this series is with renowned feminist art historian Linda Nochlin, a long time CAA member and author of the pioneering essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” We caught up with Linda at her home on the Upper West Side, where art and inspiring works lined every wall of her apartment. Read the full conversation below (or click the video!) to hear Linda recount the early beginnings of her career, her thoughts on feminism then and now, her advice to young scholars, and a sneak preview of her upcoming book, Misère.
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Hello, my name is Hunter O’Hanian, and I’m the Director of the College Art Association. I’m here today with Linda Nochlin. Hello Linda. |
| Linda Nochlin: | Hello. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | How are you? |
| Linda Nochlin: | I’m okay. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You’ve been a member of CAA for a long time. It’s great to have this opportunity to chat with you. Let’s talk a little bit about your background. I know you grew up here in New York, in Brooklyn. You earned degrees from Vassar, Colombia, and NYU. You taught at Colombia, Vassar, Yale. You’ve won many awards from CAA. Most recently you won the 2006 Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for writing in art. I know you’ve won a Guggenheim Fellowship. I know you’re a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. You’ve got an honorary doctorate from Harvard. A lot of it’s really been about what you’ve been doing as far as thinking about, writing about, teaching about art. What brought you to art? |
| Linda Nochlin: |  I was always interested. When I was a little kid, I liked to paint and draw. I was very much encouraged to paint and draw both by mother and by my school. Being in New York, I had all these museums. There were a lot of other people who were interested in art that were around me, that were my friends. It seemed sort of natural to go to museums. I enrolled myself when I was 12 in the class for talented children at the Brooklyn Museum. A very interesting place. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You enrolled yourself you said? |
| Linda Nochlin: | I went with a portfolio and they said, “Come on.” |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Great. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I was always interested in art, music, dance. I loved to dance. The arts. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Apart from your writing, have you been drawing and making work through your adult life as well? |
| Linda Nochlin: | No, I quit. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | How come you quit? |
| Linda Nochlin: | Well, I don’t know. I just got interested in writing about it rather than making it. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You have a very long history of publishing. There’s certainly a lot of work that you’ve done with Realism and Courbet. What attracted you to that particular period and that particular genre? |
| Linda Nochlin: | Probably it was political I think. It was during the McCarthy period that I came to maturity. I went to the Institute. I really wanted to work on something that was anti-McCarthy. That was left. I was a person of the left and Courbet was the ideal subject in that. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Tell me about what you remember of the McCarthy era and what was going on at the time and how artists and writers were dealt with. |
| Linda Nochlin: | It really was a very oppressive period for people in intellectual and artistic pursuits. Even if they didn’t come and get you, that was always a threat lying over. I remember I began my Frick talk with a long quotation from Karl Marx. People were dumbfounded. I remember my teacher said, “Linda, you’re so brazen.” It was scary times. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Watching the news today, do you see any similarities? |
| Linda Nochlin: | No. I think it’s a different thing now. It’s scary in a different way, but you can say what you want. Unless you’re in government. I think it is a different take. It’s not good and it’s not pleasant, but I think it’s different. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | I noticed…. I’ve read that you said you were introduced to feminism in the late 1960s. You were probably in your 30s at that time. You wrote that you became a feminist virtually overnight. Tell me about that. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I had been in Italy in ‘68, ‘69. I came home and a friend came with all these publications and said, “Do you know about feminism”? It was called the women’s movement. I said, “No.” She said, “Read this.” She left me Off Our Backs and rather the somewhat crude broadsheets of the early feminist movement. I stayed up all night reading and I was a feminist the next day. Certainly I always had been to some degree, but I could see now I could become formally as part of an organization, as part of a movement. Yes, I was a feminist. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Do you see the movement alive today? |
| Linda Nochlin: | Mm-hmm [affirmative] yes. But, of course, a lot of people I know happen to be feminists. I don’t know how alive it is otherwise. I think it still is. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | It’s interesting. I meet a lot of male feminists, too, which back in the beginning of the movement…. |
| Linda Nochlin: | It would be unheard of. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | It would be unheard of for a man to say he was a feminist. Now there’s many of us who are actually happy to say that. |
| Linda Nochlin: | You think of the Women’s March after the inauguration this year. It was enormous. Enormous. Not every one of those people might be a self-pronounced feminist, but they’re all feminists in the sense that they gathered together to show that they believed in something and were against other things. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Of course there’s the essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” that you wrote in 1971. I think ARTnews published that? |
| Linda Nochlin: | Yes. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | First of all, tell me about the title. How did you end up with that title? Why have there been no great women artists? |
| Linda Nochlin: | I was at a Vassar graduation the year before and I think … I can’t remember who it was. He had a gallery. He was a well known gallerist. He said, “Linda, I would love to show women in my gallery, but why are there no great women artists?” I started really thinking about it and one thought followed another. It almost wrote itself. It seemed all so hitched together, so logical. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You address the question in the beginning of the essay about how many great artists there are regardless of their gender, the fact of what actually makes a great artist. Talk a little bit about that. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I refuse to say it’s something inborn, a golden nugget I would say, but artistic greatness, artistic production depends so much on time, place, situation, etc. It was no accident that up through the Renaissance, even the 18th century that artists came in families. Father artists, mother artists. You think of the Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach family, family practice. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You write in here “The problem lies not so much with some feminist concept of what femininity is, but rather with their misconception shared with the public at large of what art is with the naïve idea that art is the direct personally expression of individual, emotional experience, a translation of personal life into visual terms. Art is almost never that. Great art never is.” |
| Linda Nochlin: | Well that says what I mean. It always takes place within a context, within a setting, certain training, certain standards. What might be considered great art in one period might not be in others. It’s interesting. There’s a certain agreement in the Renaissance. They knew it was Raphael Michelangelo, etc., very little question. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You also write here, “the fact of the matter is that there have been no supremely great women artists as far as we know.” I’m happy you added that in, “as far as we know,” although there have been many interesting and very good ones who remain insufficiently investigated or appreciated. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I think that’s been corrected to a certain extent today. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Tell me about the ones who have been discovered or investigated. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I suppose Artemisia Gentileschi would be a primary one. Who else? |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | What about women artists in the latter part of the 20th century or beginning part of the 21st century? |
| Linda Nochlin: | I think women artists have definitely caught up as leaders, as being the interesting ones making art and so on. I’m thinking of somebody like Joan Jonas, for example. I’m thinking of somebody like Louise Bourgeois. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | I was just going to ask you about Louise. |
| Linda Nochlin: | Obviously. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Judy Pfaff |
| Linda Nochlin: | The list itself is so long. I’m not saying they’re all Michelangelo, but I’m personally not a Michelangelo person. They’re really interesting and dynamic and have changed the way we look at art, which I think is important. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | I guess it’s in part because society has allowed them to some degree to be able to do that. |
| Linda Nochlin: | Yes, of course. They had to fight for it, too. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Of course. One last quote that I thought was interesting. There’s so much of this essay. I hadn’t read it for years. It’s just so dense. It so wonderful. |
| Linda Nochlin: | It is. I tried to squeeze a lot in. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | You say “most men despite lip service to equality are reluctant to give up the natural order of things in which their advantages are so great. For women, the case is further complicated by the fact that unlike other oppressed groups or castes, men demand of them not only submission, but unqualified affection as well.” |
| Linda Nochlin: | It’s sort of hard. Say in terms of color, nobody demands that black people love and adore and cater to white people. It’s only gender that does that. It’s very confusing if on the one hand there is somebody you love, live with, etc., yet who is part of a group or caste that is really denying you equality and denying you self-expression. It’s confusing to put it mildly. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | As we said, we have made progress…. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I think so. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | But how much progress to do you think that we’ve made? How tough do you think it is for a young woman, 30 years old, starting out today? |
| Linda Nochlin: | I think it’s undeniably better. The conditions are better for a woman succeeding, and a lot of the major artists now certainly are women, but there’s still a boys’ club feeling about certain types of art and certain types of artists. I think you know equality has gone so far and no further maybe. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | It’s interesting when you think about it in the sense that we think women have had the right to vote for 100 years, but still they don’t get paid the same wage. It’s been 135 years since the Emancipation Proclamation has been signed. |
| Linda Nochlin: | No, it isn’t just done by words or by the progress of a few superstars either. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Switching gears, but also on this one a little bit, obviously you’ve been involved in the academy and artistry for many, many years. What is your sense about the future for people graduating out of a master’s programs or PhD programs and getting jobs in higher education today? What do you think about that? |
| Linda Nochlin: |  I think it’s a difficult market as far as I can see. Although there are now galleries and museums throughout the country. It’s not just a question of the east coast and the west coast and Chicago. I think there is a sort of spreading, or a spread of art which allows for some jobs, but being an artist is tough no matter how you take it. I think it’s getting ahead, finding a gallery, getting a proper amount of publicity, making sure you show. It’s hard. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | What about for scholars, for those getting their PhD about being able to move their careers along? What advice would you have for them? |
| Linda Nochlin: | What advice would I have for them? Be very, very smart. Write a lot. Have strong opinions. Just don’t be a little library worm. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | It seems your strong opinions have done you well for your career. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I wouldn’t know how to not have them if you know what I mean. That’s what I’m about is my opinions. You have to know something. Frankly I know a great deal. There are very good…. I was a very good student, very good. I worked very hard. I really took pains and energy with my research, not just opinions. They have to be based on something. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Can you think of an opinion that you had out there in some of your writing that you looked at it years later and thought, “I wouldn’t have come to the same conclusion?” |
| Linda Nochlin: | I’m sure there are. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | It’s so interesting how we develop those opinions based upon what we believe at a given time. |
| Linda Nochlin: | Oddly enough I’ve remained more or less consistent. I’ve added some artists in, subtracted some, but the ones that I like are still the ones that I’m interested in. At least many of the issues that I was committed to, I’m still committed to. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | What are you working on now? |
| Linda Nochlin: | I’ve just finished a large book called Misère about the representation about misery in the second half of the 19th century in France and England. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Wonderful. |
| Linda Nochlin: | That’s at the publisher right now. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | When should we expect to see it? |
| Linda Nochlin: | In the fall I should think. Thames & Hudson as usual.* *Update: Misère is slated for release after Spring 2018. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Are you excited about it? |
| Linda Nochlin: | Yeah, I am. I laughingly said to my editor, “Are you going to be able to sell a book called Misère?” He said, “Misère by Linda Nochlin, yes.” It was fascinating, really interesting. It pulls together a lot of things I’ve been interested in all along. It’s both new territory, but based on elements that I’ve been interested in for a long time. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Any nuggets that you want to give away from that that come to mind? |
| Linda Nochlin: | Let me think. There’s been relatively little in investigation of the representation of the poor and oppressed. Middle class Impressionism, etc., upper class before that, religious high-minded themes, battles, just the everyday lives of the poor and “uninteresting,” so to speak, not much setting. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | It’s interesting because that seems like a very timely topic for us. |
| Linda Nochlin: | Exactly I thought of that too. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | As we think of how elections change and how government change and how the education system changes about access, I think it seems.… |
| Linda Nochlin: | Absolutely. It was certainly true in the 19th century, early 20th. I think it’s an interesting book. I hope other people find it interesting. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | I look forward to seeing it. Thank you so much for allowing us here in your home. It was great to chat with you about these things. |
| Linda Nochlin: | Good. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | I look forward to seeing you at another CAA event soon I hope. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I hope so. |
| Hunter O’Hanian: | Thank you. |
| Linda Nochlin: | I would love to. Thank you. |
Getty Supports the CAA-Getty International Program for a Seventh Year
posted by CAA — Jun 05, 2017
The Getty Foundation has awarded the College Art Association (CAA) a grant to fund the CAA-Getty International Program for a seventh consecutive year. The Foundation’s support will enable CAA to bring twenty international visual-arts professionals to the 106th Annual Conference, taking place February 21-24, 2018 in Los Angeles, CA. Fifteen individuals will be first-time participants in the program and five will be alumni, returning to present papers during the conference. The CAA-Getty International Program provides funds for travel expenses, hotel accommodations, per diems, conference registrations, and one-year CAA memberships to art historians, artists who teach art history, and museum curators. The program will include a one-day preconference colloquium on international issues in art history on February 20, this year to be held at the Getty Center.
The deadline for applications is August 21, 2017. Guidelines and application.
The CAA-Getty International Program was established to increase international participation in CAA and the CAA Annual Conference. The program fosters collaborations between North American art historians, artists, and curators and their international colleagues and introduces visual arts professionals to the unique environments and contexts of practices in different countries.
Since the CAA-Getty International Program’s inception in 2012, ninety scholars have participated in CAA’s Annual Conference. Historically, the majority of international registrants at the conference have come from North America, the United Kingdom, and Western European countries. The CAA-Getty International Program has greatly diversified attendance, adding scholars from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, Asia, Southeast Asia, Caribbean countries, and South America. The majority of the participants teach art history (or visual studies, art theory, or architectural history) at the university level; others are museum curators or researchers.
Earlier this year, CAA organized a reunion to celebrate five successful years of the CAA-Getty International Program. Twenty alumni were selected to present papers at the Annual Conference in New York, held February 15-18, 2017. Organized into four sessions about international topics in art history, these Global Conversations were chaired by distinguished scholars from the United States and featured presentations by the CAA-Getty alumni.
Read Global Conversations: 20 Papers from the 2017 CAA-Getty Alumni
One measure of the program’s success is the remarkable number of international collaborations that have ensued, including an ongoing study of similarities and differences in the history of art among Eastern European countries and South Africa, attendance at other international conferences, publications in international journals, and participation in panels and sessions at subsequent CAA Annual Conferences. Former grant recipients have become ambassadors of CAA in their countries, sharing knowledge gained at the Annual Conference with their colleagues at home. The value of attending a CAA Annual Conference as a participant in the CAA-Getty International Program was succinctly summarized by alumnus Nazar Kozak, Senior Researcher, Department of Art Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine “To put it simply, I understood that I can become part of a global scholarly community. I felt like I belong here.”
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 Getty Foundation
The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world. Through strategic grant initiatives, it strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. It carries out its work in collaboration with the other Getty Programs to ensure that they individually and collectively achieve maximum effect.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — May 24, 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.
Modern African Art Is Being Gentrified
I am tempted to think of contemporary African art as akin to an urban neighborhood undergoing gentrification. Now that it is high culture, investors are jostling to get a piece of the action, and private collections are growing in Africa and around the world. This is very good news for the African modernists who will benefit from the increased visibility. (Read more from the New York Times.)
The States Where Campus Free-Speech Bills Are Being Born
Last week Tennessee’s governor signed into law a measure that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called “the most comprehensive state legislation protecting free speech on college campuses that we’ve seen passed anywhere in the country.” That new law, among other things, bars public colleges from establishing “free-speech zones” and requires them to adopt broad statements of support for free expression. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Agnes Gund on Diversity in the Art World and the Future of MoMA
In addition to helping museums like MoMA and the Met keep their doors open, Agnes Gund has also been devoted to increasing the diversity of the people who walk through those doors, by funding avenues for art education that reach beyond the halls of private schools to less privileged students who don’t have the same elite cultural access. (Read more from Artnet News.)
Why Can’t the Art World Embrace Robert Rauschenberg’s Queer Community?
Like Merce Cunningham and John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg found beauty in everyday objects. Through close observation, the quotidian could bloom into something either sublime or subversive. This is a tenet of queer art, the ability to transform normativity into the unexpected. (Read more from Artsy.)
On Not Writing a Book Right Now
I recently stumbled across a 2016 Paris Review essay about Robert Caro that notes, “If there is a question that annoys Caro more than ‘Do you like Lyndon Johnson?’ it is ‘When will the next book be published?’” I understand. No question makes me cringe more than “What are you working on next?” (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Writing a Book Pre-Tenure
I wrote a book before I earned tenure—a feat, given the heavy teaching and service load at my institution. Because my situation is different from most tenure-track faculty, talking about my book’s journey isn’t useful for other academics. Instead, I want to share the most important things I learned when writing my first book pre-tenure. (Read more from Vitae.)
“What Are the Arts and Sciences?”
Dan Rockmore asks a seemingly simple question in the title of collection he has just edited, What Are the Arts and Sciences? A Guide for the Curious. But the book is about disciplines, and not just the arts and sciences as a group. Twenty-six of his colleagues at Dartmouth College wrote chapters, explaining their disciplines for the nonexpert. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
U Can’t Talk 2 Ur Professor Like This
After one too many students called me by my first name and sent me email that resembled a drunken late-night Facebook post, I took a very fogeyish step. I began attaching a page on etiquette to every syllabus: basic rules for how to address teachers and write polite, grammatically correct emails. (Read more from the New York Times.)
CAA Amicus Brief on Trump’s Travel Ban
posted by CAA — May 22, 2017
CAA added its name to two amicus briefs in opposition to the United States president’s travel ban, officially known as Executive Order 13,780. We joined the Association of Art Museum Directors and American Alliance of Museums, along with ninety-four art museums. The cases are: International Refugee Assistant Project v. Donald J. Trump in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and State of Hawaii and Ismail Elshikh v. Donald J. Trump in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The brief argues that the travel ban inhibits the work of museums. “The negative effects of the Order are already being felt,” the document reads, “as several museums have postponed or canceled future exhibitions that require foreign artists, lenders, collectors, curators, scholars, couriers, and others whose ability to contribute can no longer be assured.” Specific examples include the Cleveland Museum of Art, which canceled a music performance, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which has doubts about securing loans for an exhibition of Persian art.
We consider joining this amicus brief as inherent to our advocacy efforts and our international reach at CAA. The travel ban impacts the international attendees of our Annual Conference, it impinges on the flow of information and discussion between colleagues, and it harms the practice of research more broadly.
Read about CAA’s International Program
Read about Advocacy News from CAA
CAA Fair-Use Events in Los Angeles and Saint Louis
posted by CAA — May 19, 2017
A scene from the fair-use workshop at the UCLA Library (photograph by Sharon E. Farb)
On May 5, 2017, CAA hosted “Fair Use and the Visual Arts,” a presentation and panel discussion at the UCLA Library. The event was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Speakers on the panel included Peter Jaszi, the lead investigator on the CAA Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in the Visual Arts and Professor at American University Washington College of Law in the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, and Janet Landay, Program Manager of the Fair Use Initiative at CAA. The pair, who have given presentations across the U.S. and internationally as part of the CAA Fair Use Initiative, talked about why it was important for CAA to undertake the project, their methodology, and the resulting Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts.
The second half of the event was devoted to a Q&A with the audience of approximately fifty-five people. Question topics ranged from addressing the issue of how the size at which an illustration is produced impacts fair use to indicating in a caption or illustration credits section that I am claiming fair use in the reproduction of an illustration.
A second discussion on CAA’s Fair Use Initiative took place at the American Alliance of Museum’s 2017 Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo in Saint Louis, Missouri. The panel discussion, titled “Copyrighted Material in the Museum: A Path to Fair Use,” took place on May 9. The panel brought together esteemed colleagues from the museum and publishing worlds and was comprised of Patricia Fidler, publisher of art and architecture at Yale University Press; Anne Collins Goodyear, codirector of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art; Judy Metro, editor in chief for the National Gallery of Art; and Joseph Newland, director of publishing for the Menil Collection. Hunter O’Hanian, CAA executive director, was the chair and moderator.
A presenter at AAM’s annual meeting discussed Andrea Wallace’s Still Life Pixel + Metadata Dress (photograph by Anne Young)
About seventy-five to one hundred people attended the standing-room only session and discussion revolved around fair-use issues for museums who want to use their own materials: catalogues, brochures, websites—even wall texts. A key takeaway from the session: museum representatives need to maintain good relations with donor and lenders, and getting approval from their own legal counsel, who tend to approach these matters with caution.
Later in the day Hunter O’Hanian spoke to faculty and students in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in Saint Louis.
Learn more about the CAA Fair Use Initiative
Learn more about the 106th CAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles, February 21-24, 2018
Affiliated Society News for May 2017
posted by CAA — May 18, 2017
Association for Latin American Art
At ALAA’s annual business meeting held at CAA in New York, a new slate of officers was elected: Michele Greet, President; Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Vice President; and Helen Ellis, Secretary-Treasurer. ALAA presented its 17th Annual Arvey Book Award to George Flaherty for Hotel Mexico: Dwelling on the ’68 Movement (University of California Press, 2015). Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf, and Diana Fane, eds., received honorable mention for their book, Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe 1400–1700 (Kunsthistorisches Institut-Max-Planck Institut and the Museo Nacional de Arte, 2015).
The prize for the best dissertation in Latin American Art History was given to Sara Ryu for “Calendar, Column, Crucifix: Material Reuse in the Early Modern Transatlantic World” (Yale University). ALAA’s sponsored session for 2017 was “The Evolving Canon: Collecting and Displaying Spanish Colonial Art” chaired by Ilona Katzew and Ellen Dooley. Elisa C. Mandell, Georgina G. Gluzman, and Ana Mannarino chaired the “Open Session for Emerging Scholars of Latin American Art.” ALAA currently has 460 members (up from 377 last year) from universities, museums, and foundations in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Spain. Members conduct research in all major time periods and geographic regions of Latin America, as well as on Latino/a art of the United States.
FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory and Education)
Thank you to all who attended the 16th Biennial FATE Conference, “To the Core and Beyond” in Kansas City in April! We had an excellent turn out! And, please welcome the new and returning board members elected during the conference.
In Episode 9 of Positive Space, FATE’s monthly podcast, Valerie Powell has a thoughtful conversation with FATE’s 2017 keynote speaker, artist and author Enrique Martinez, about the artistic process and the ongoing choice to live a creative life.
More info here and listen to episodes on our Apple iTunes page.
In addition, FATE in Review seeks thoughtful articles relating to all areas of foundations education, including expanding the practicum, flexing the core, and re-visioning visual culture. Conference papers and/or presentations, as well as papers written solely for publication, may be submitted throughout the year. We are also interested in reviews of newer books that inform foundations discussion and curriculum. Contact FATE in Review Editor, Michael Marks.
Upcoming for CAA 2018: FATE’s CAA Affiliate representative, Naomi J. Falk, is looking for panelists for FATE’s affiliate conference session, entitled, “Let’s Dance, But Don’t Call Me Baby: Dialogue, Empathy, and Inclusion in the Classroom and Beyond.” Feeling welcome, acknowledged, and heard encourages learning. Fostering inclusiveness and empathy on behalf of minority students legitimizes perspectives. How do we build trust and empathy between faculty, students, peers, and others in our classrooms and communities? How do we create a welcoming and inclusive environment? What has worked? What has gone terribly wrong? Where do we go from here? Examples of readings, projects, tools, and exercises for building inclusive, encouraging, and productive dialogues are all of interest. More info? Please contact: Naomi J. Falk.
The Feminist Art Project
The Feminist Art Project is pleased to announce that the second issue of Rejoinder is now available. The theme of the issue is Borders, Bodies, Homes. Contributors explore how these concepts shape our understandings of selfhood and exile in an environment marked by migratory population flows, resurgent nationalisms, and state-sanctioned violence. Rejoinder features essays, fiction, and artwork by Joshua G. Adair, Connie Freid, Yishay Garbasz, Uddipana Gosswami, Leigh Johnson, Elinor Meeks, Vukasin Nedeljkovic, Jeffrey Shandler, Rachida Yassine, and Helena Zeweri. Sarah Tobias is the editor.
Rejoinder is an online journal published by the Institute for Research on Women in partnership with The Feminist Art Project, both at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Please subscribe in order not to miss out on future issues!
Historians of Netherlandish Art
The Historians of Netherlandish Art are pleased to announce their new officers for the term 2017–2021: President: Paul Crenshaw; Vice-President: Louisa Wood Ruby; immediate past president: Amy Golahny. Please visit our website for more information.
The current issue of the Journal of the Historians of Netherlandish Art (JHNA vol. 9:1, Winter 2017) is dedicated to Walter Liedtke and includes seventeen articles that reference works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art under his care. The formal deadline for submissions to the Winter 2018 and Summer 2018 issues is August 1, 2017, although the editors accept submissions throughout the year.
From Thursday 24 May to Saturday 26 May 2018, the three-day conference of the Historians of Netherlandish art will take place at Het Pand in Ghent (BE). The call for sessions and workshops can be found here.
For further information, visit: www.hnanews.org.
The International Center of Medieval Art
Newly-elected officers Helen Evans (President), Nina Rowe (Vice President), and Anne Rudloff Stanton (Secretary), and several other new board members, have begun their three-year terms.
The ICMA invites submissions for their annual Book Prize, to be awarded to the best single-authored book on any topic in medieval art published in 2016 (deadline May 31). Through the generosity of the Samuel H. Kress foundation, they also award Research and Publication Grants (deadline August 31) as well as Travel Grants supporting the travel of speakers in ICMA-sponsored sessions (rolling deadlines).
Recent print and digital publications include the organization’s peer-reviewed journal Gesta (volume 56, number 1, Spring 2017). The ICMA’s newest digital initiative to go public is Lordship and Commune: A Collaboratory, an interactive digital website about the cathedrals of Reims and Amiens in their medieval and modern contexts. This project is an innovative way to invite conversation and collaboration around the major unfinished study on these two cathedrals by the late Barbara Abou-El-Haj, and is intended to be accessible as a teaching and research resource.
Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)
The Society of Architectural Historians is now accepting abstracts for its 71st Annual International Conference in Saint Paul, MN, April 18–22, 2018. Please submit an abstract no later than 5:00 p.m. CDT on June 15, 2017, to one of the 45 thematic sessions, the Graduate Student Lightning Talks or the open sessions. SAH encourages submissions from architectural, landscape, and urban historians; museum curators; preservationists; independent scholars; architects; scholars in related fields; and members of SAH chapters and partner organizations. View the call for papers.
SAH is partnering with the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative to offer Research-to-Teaching Grants and Field Seminar Travel Grants. These new grants are part of the GAHTC’s nearly $500,000 in funding to build new content for its free, digital platform of teaching materials.
SAH seeks partners to organize tours of the built environment for our youth-oriented American Architecture and Landscape Field Trip program. Created to provide opportunities for underserved students from the third grade through high school, SAH offers grants to not-for-profits to organize tours for young people on the history of architecture, parks, gardens, and town/city planning. Application details here.
Registration is open for the SAH Field Seminar to China led by Chinese architectural historian Nancy Steinhardt. This twelve-day trip (December 26, 2017–January 7, 2018) will offer an in-depth view of South China’s cities, buildings, and sites through the course of two millennia. In addition to the buildings and museums on every tourist itinerary, we will visit UNESCO and World Heritage sites, a second-century BCE tomb, a glass pagoda, churches, a mosque, a rare example of “beamless” construction, memorials to Sun Yat-sen, sixteenth-century merchant residences, nineteenth-century European residences, and a Dong drum tower, and we will meet practicing architect-architectural historians. Fellowship deadline is August 31.
The Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA)
SHERA moved to H-SHERA network and is now live in the H-Net Commons. Anyone can browse the site, but you’ll need to log in to post.
SHERA also voiced protest against the close down of the Central European University in Budapest.
The U.S. Latinx Art Forum (USLAF)
USLAF is a new CAA affiliated society. We held our first business meeting at the 2017 Annual Conference and also hosted a plenary session on the state of U.S. Latinx art. The plenary was structured as a two-part discussion beginning with Adriana Zavala (USLAF and Associate Professor, Tufts University) in conversation with Roberto Tejada (secretary, CAA Board of Directors; Professor, University of Houston) and Hunter O’Hanian (executive director, CAA) about the representation of Latinx art history within academia and arts organizations. Curators Rocío Aranda-Alvarado (El Museo del Barrio), Tey Marianna Nunn (National Hispanic Cultural Center) and David Breslin (Whitney Museum of American Art) followed with a discussion on structural barriers impacting the exhibition and acquisition of Latinx art. The session concluded with a roundtable and important interventions from the audience.
For the 2018 Annual Conference, USLAF’s affiliated session will be “Chican@ Art History: Interdisciplinary Foundations and New Directions,” co-chaired by Karen Mary Davalos and Mary Thomas. The session’s CFP will go out in June 2017.
USLAF was founded in 2015 to create a network of artists and scholars committed to expanding and enhancing the visibility of U.S. Latinx art within academia, exhibition spaces, and private and institutional collections. We now boast over 220 members and hope that all CAA members interested in expanding the discipline and/or learning more about US Latinx art will join. To become a member, please visit our website or send an email to info@uslaf.org.
USLAF’s founding Executive Committee is: Adriana Zavala (Director), Rose Salseda (Associate Director), Josh T Franco (Secretary and Membership Coordinator), Sonja Gandert (Social Media), and Sam Romero (Creative Director and Web Developer).
Visual Resources Association (VRA)
The Visual Resources Association (VRA) honored the recipients of the organization’s awards at a Members & Awards lunch on Friday, March 31, 2017, during its 35th annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky. The 2017 Nancy DeLaurier Award was presented to Anne M. Young, Manager of Rights and Reproductions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She was honored for the publication, Rights and Reproductions: The Handbook for Cultural Institutions (Indianapolis Museum of Art and American Alliance of Museums, 2015) that she compiled and edited.
For his many years of remarkable dedication, leadership, and service to the VRA and to the visual resources and library professions, the 2017 Distinguished Service Award was presented to Allan T. Kohl, Visual Resources Librarian at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. As one nomination letter stated, “Allan embodies the professionalism for which we as visual resources professionals strive.” Allan achieved this high honor through his ten consecutive years serving on the VRA Board as president-elect, president, past president, and treasurer. He was a founding director of the VRA Foundation and has chaired and served on many committees and task forces throughout his years as a VRA member. Allan continues to be a leader on VRA’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee, contributing pragmatic tools such as the Digital Rights Computator (DIRC). He generously developed and maintains Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) as an open website populated with his superb photographs depicting world monuments. Allan is a regular presenter and leader in various capacities at VRA conferences. Allan’s “what can I do to help” perspective is a true representation of the VRA community. The recipients and donors of the twelve 2017 Travel Awards were also recognized during the event.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — May 17, 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.
Damien Hirst Show Sparks Accusations of Cultural Appropriation
Damien Hirst launched his first major show of new works in ten years earlier this month in Venice, shortly ahead of the opening of the Venice Biennale. But along with massive crowds, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable is attracting charges of cultural appropriation, with one of Hirst’s sculptures replicating a Nigerian work from the fourteenth century without proper historical context. (Read more from Artsy.)
Cultural Appropriation and the Privilege of Creative Assumption
When the Canadian writer W. P. Kinsella died last year at age 81, many laudatory obituaries politely noted that he had been the subject of controversy involving cultural appropriation in the 1980s. Critics, both white and Indigenous, had objected vociferously to Kinsella’s “Indian” stories, in which the writer used a first-person narrator to tell funny tales of reserve life that included bumbling white bureaucrats and native tricksters. (Read more from the Globe and Mail.)
Words Fly on Free-Speech Bill
Numerous states are considering legislation designed to ensure free speech on college campuses, following violent protests over speakers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Middlebury College. Some of the bills would, controversially, mandate punishing students who disrupt campus speakers and require institutions to keep mum on political issues—and perhaps nowhere has the debate been as contentious as in Wisconsin. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Student Rights and the Role of Faculty
Despite the few reasonable similarities between students and customers, it’s still a hair-raising comparison for most faculty. I wonder if we might look at the issue more constructively by considering it from the vantage of student rights. (Read more from Faculty Focus.)
For Robert Rauschenberg, No Artist Is an Island
We tend to think of artists as natural loners, off in their studios, wrestling with their inner selves. But Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends, which opens soon at the Museum of Modern Art, points us in a different direction. It situates Rauschenberg’s work amid that of two dozen fellow artists who provided an audience for one another in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s. (Read more from the New York Times.)
The Arts Brand
“Branding” is a somewhat confusing topic. Briefly, our “brand” is the public’s awareness and perception of our organizations and the goods and services we offer. It is the sum of their perceptions and experiences and is created by all the various parts of our organizations. (Read more from Barry’s Blog.)
Demystifying the Journal Article
One of the most important parts of professionalization is publishing your research. Much of what I’ve learned about publishing comes from submitting papers to journals, incorporating reviewer comments, workshopping papers, and having conversations with colleagues and mentors. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Artists’ Commissions, Tech Gift, and Guns: The Legal Issues Facing US Museums
What’s keeping museum lawyers up at night? The new future. That was the message at the annual meeting of over two hundred museum professionals and lawyers in Dallas. They discussed how to stay out of trouble when commissioning installation and performance art, how to prepare for changes to US tax law, and how best to collaborate with technology companies. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — May 10, 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.
In Higher Ed, Adjuncts May Have Most to Lose if Obamacare Is Repealed
Perhaps no group working on college campuses had more at stake in last week’s vote in the US House of Representatives to repeal the Affordable Care Act than contingent faculty members. Full-time faculty and staff members can typically count on their institutions to provide health insurance, but most part-time professors are on their own. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Defying Trump, Bipartisan Deal Would Boost Funding for NEA and NEH (with Strings Attached)
Far from slashing or even zeroing the budgets for the NEA and NEH, a bipartisan budget agreement to avoid a government shutdown—which, at this writing, awaits final passage and President Trump’s signature—includes moderate increases culture-related institutions and programs. (Read more from CultureGrrl.)
The NEA Really Isn’t “Welfare for Rich, Liberal Élites”
Killing the NEA has long been a cause célèbre for budget hawks and social conservatives. But contrary to claims from Trump and Fox News, and to the insecurities of artists, the NEA is not a federal spigot for decadent city élites. Rather, its grant-making effectively spans the country and helps rural, not–New York, not-wealthy, Trump-friendly districts. (Read more from the New Yorker.)
Beyond Aesthetic: Art That Wills Change
Last weekend, seven artists from around the world gathered in the Logan Center for the Arts to address a weighty question: “What Is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights?” Through a multiday summit that explored issues such as US criminal policies, the refugee crisis, and the hypocrisy of governments, the artists not only formed a community among themselves, but constructed a discourse with the audience. (Read more from the Chicago Maroon.)
Help Desk: The Penis Award
I am a midcareer (female) artist married to an established (male) artist. Throughout our relationship, I have endured innumerable comments and actions that validate my husband and cast me into the shadows. The sexism of the art world astounds me, but I’m not sure what I can do. (Read more from Daily Serving.)
Ten Art Schools That Promise a Healthy Return on Investment
A career in the arts is not generally thought of as a pathway to a great salary, job security and financial fortune. But where you go to school to get your degree can have an impact. With that in mind, Forbes examined a recent report from PayScale.com, a salary, benefits, and compensation information company based in Seattle. (Read more from Forbes.)
A Fair-Use Primer for Graduate Students
When I try to imagine what a Campbell’s Soup can looks like, I am not sure if what I see is the actual object or one of Andy Warhol’s famous works. These iconic cans, regardless of their importance to modern art and American history, are a tangle of popular culture, artistic expression, and copyright litigation, all of which knot around the concept of fair use. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Arts Groups on Edge as New York City Reevaluates Cultural Funding
The elite, marble-arched museums of Manhattan never had to worry about competing for city money with the small-fry arts groups of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx. But this two-tiered system of haves and have-nots is poised to undergo its biggest transformation in decades. (Read more from the New York Times.)
CAA Goes to France
posted by CAA — May 08, 2017
The College Art Association has been invited to speak about its Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts at two conferences taking place in France in early June. On June 4 in Fontainebleau, executive director Hunter O’Hanian will participate in a session on “Fair Use and Open Content” at the seventh annual Festival of Art History, along with speakers from the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art (UK), the J. Paul Getty Trust, and the French Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art.
Two days later, on June 6, Hunter will join Peter Jaszi, lead principal investigator on the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, in Paris to speak at a session on fair use during the annual conference of ICOM Europe. They will be joined by speakers from England, France, and Germany, to discuss “Copyright Flexibilities in the US and EU: How Fair Use and Other Flexibilities are Helping Museums to Fulfill their Mission.”
Both conferences provide opportunities for CAA to share its work on fair use with EU visual arts professionals. Though this feature of copyright law is virtually unique to the United States, there is increasing interest in Europe to provide greater access to copyrighted materials, especially in the cultural sectors of these countries. Travel costs for CAA’s participation are underwritten by a generous grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
CAA Seeks Jury Members for the Terra Foundation Publication Grant
posted by CAA — May 04, 2017
The College Art Association (CAA) seeks nominations and self-nominations for one US scholar and two scholars based outside the United States to serve on the jury of CAA’s Terra Foundation for American Art International Publication Grant through June 30, 2020. Candidates must be actively publishing scholars with expertise in any branch of American art history, visual studies, or a related field with demonstrated seniority and achievement; institutional affiliation is not required.
The Terra Foundation for American Art awarded CAA a major, three-year grant to administer an annual program to support book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of American art, defined as art of the geographic United States from 1500 to 1980. The Terra Foundation for American Art International Publication Grant will award funds of up to $15,000 to US and non-US publishers for books that examine American art in an international context, increase awareness of American art internationally through publication outside the United States, allow wider audiences to access important texts through translation, and/or result from international collaboration. For more information, visit http://www.collegeart.org/programs/publishing-grants/terra-foundation.
Members of the Terra Foundation International Publication Jury review letters of intent for eligibility and meet once each year to select awardees. The first meeting of the jury will take place at CAA’s Annual Conference in Los Angeles, February 21–24, 2018. The 2019 meeting will also take place at the Annual Conference, while the 2020 meetings will take place via teleconference. Two months prior to the meeting, CAA staff will provide all application materials and reader’s reports to jurors for review prior to the jury meeting. Jurors for this grant would serve as volunteers and would not be entitled to receive compensation for service; however, travel and hotel expenses for the 2018 and 2019 jury meetings will be paid by the College Art Association.
US candidates must be CAA members in good standing and should not currently serve on another CAA editorial board or committee. Jury members may not themselves apply for a grant in this program during their three-year term of service. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name; self-nominations are also welcome. Please send a letter describing your interest in and qualifications for appointment, a curriculum vitae, and contact information to: Terra Foundation for American Art International Publication Grant, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or send all materials as email attachments to Sarah Zabrodski, szabrodski@collegeart.org. Deadline: June 20, 2017.
About CAA
The College Art Association is dedicated to providing professional services and resources for artists, art historians, and students in the visual arts. 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. Learn more about CAA at www.collegeart.org.
About the Terra Foundation
The Terra Foundation for American Art is dedicated to fostering exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States for national and international audiences. Recognizing the importance of experiencing original works of art, the foundation provides opportunities for interaction and study, beginning with the presentation and growth of its own art collection in Chicago. To further cross-cultural dialogue on American art, the foundation supports and collaborates on innovative exhibitions, research, and educational programs. Implicit in such activities is the belief that art has the potential both to distinguish cultures and to unite them.