CAA News Today
Meet the 2016 Participants in the CAA-Getty International Program
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — Nov 17, 2015
CAA is pleased to announce the 2016 recipients of travel support through the CAA-Getty International Program. In an effort to promote greater interaction and exchange among art historians internationally, CAA will bring scholars from around the world to participate in the program, to be held during CAA’s 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC, from February 3 to 6, 2016. This is the fifth year of the program, which has been generously funded by the Getty Foundation since its inception. The participants—professors of art history, curators, and artists who teach art history—were selected by a jury of CAA members from a highly competitive group of applicants. In addition to covering travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and per diems, the CAA-Getty International Program includes support for a preconference on international issues in art history, conference registration, and a one-year CAA membership.
Activities for participants in the CAA-Getty International Program will begin with a one-day preconference colloquium on international issues in art history, during which they will meet with North-American–based CAA members to discuss common interests and challenges. Participants will also be assisted throughout the conference by CAA member hosts, who will recommend relevant panel sessions and introduce them to colleagues who share their interests. Members of CAA’s International Committee have agreed to serve as hosts, along with representatives from several affiliated societies of CAA, including the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, the Association for Latin American Art, and the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasia, and Russian Art and Architecture.
This program has increased international participation in CAA’s activities and expanded international networking and the exchange of ideas during and after the conference. The CAA-Getty International Program supplements CAA’s regular program of Annual Conference Travel Grants for graduate students and international artists and scholars. CAA looks forward to welcoming the 2016 recipients at the upcoming Annual Conference in Washington, DC, this February.
2016 CAA-Getty International Program Participants
Sarena Abdullah is a senior lecturer in the School of the Arts at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, where she teaches art history to undergraduate and graduate students. She received an MA in art history from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and a PhD in art history from the University of Sydney in Australia. Specializing in contemporary Malaysian and Southeast Asian art, Abdullah is widely published locally and abroad and has presented papers at conferences in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and the United States. She is a field leader for Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, a research project led by the Power Institute Foundation for Art and Culture at the University of Sydney and funded by the Getty Foundation. With two research grants from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Abdullah is working on a project called “Theorizing Early Modernism and Cosmopolitanism in Early Twentieth Century Penang by Examining Modern Artistic Works and Print Medium Pertaining to Penang (1826–1942).”
Abiodun Akande studied fine arts at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, Nigeria, and received an MA and PhD from the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan, also in Nigeria. His dissertation on “Yoruba Traditional Religious Wood-Carvings in Oyo, Sabe, and Ife” reflects his broader interest in the diffusion history of Yoruba peoples and their material culture across national boundaries. Akande is also interested in recording the effects of diffusion on sociocultural and artistic productivity and the resultant identities and iconologies of this culture group. Akande teaches art history, museology, art education, and painting at the Emmanuel Alayande College of Education in Oyo. In 2013, he participated in the first Basel Summer School in African Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland; he also attended a graduate symposium hosted by the School of Arts at Peking University in Beijing, China.
María Isabel Baldasarre holds a PhD in art history from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina, having earned an undergraduate degree in art history from the same university and a National Professor of Sculpture degree from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón. Baldasarre is currently a researcher at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), an associate professor and coordinator of the master’s degree program in Argentinean and Latin American art history at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, and a member of the board of the Centro Argentino de Investigadores de Arte. Baldasarre has received scholarships and grants from CONICET, the Antorchas Foundation, the Latin American Studies Association, the Getty Foundation, the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. A specialist in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European and Argentinean art, art collecting, and the art market, Baldasarre is the author of Los dueños del arte. Coleccionismo y consumo cultural en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2006).
Danielle Becker is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University in Stellenbosch, South Africa, and the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. She was previously the head of visual studies at the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography. Her PhD research, in progress at the University of Cape Town, examines how South African art history is framed in art-historical curricula at tertiary institutions, in art-historical writing, and in museum displays. Becker’s interests include art historiography, postcolonial theory, and the framing of African art. Before beginning her doctoral research, she completed a fine-arts degree at Cape Town, worked as the arts coordinator for a nonprofit called South African Education and Environment Project, and completed a master’s degree in art history at the University of Manchester in England. Her forthcoming publications include a book chapter on Instagram in Africa’s Media Image in the Twenty-First Century: From the Heart of Darkness to Africa Rising (forthcoming from Routledge) and an essay, “Locating the Label on the Luggage: Towards a Continued Decolonization of South African Visual Culture.” (forthcoming from Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture.)
Bùi Thị Thanh Mai is a lecturer in art history, theory, and criticism at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in Hanoi. She is also head of the university’s Department of Academic Research Management and International Relations and a member of the editorial board for the university’s journal, Art Research Magazine. Bùi specializes in the history of Vietnamese art, with a focus on modern and contemporary art; she is also interested in art theory, art education, and curatorial theory and practice. Bùi is working on three concurrent projects: “Optimistic Characterization in Painting in Hanoi in 1945–1990” within the framework of the Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art program; “Art Theory and Criticism in Vietnam: Actual Situations and Solutions of the Effect on the Artistic Life”; and a textbook on Vietnamese art history for the Vietnam University of Fine Arts.
Heloisa Espada received a PhD in art history and art criticism from the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo in Brazil in 2011. She studies Brazilian art after World War II, with a special focus on geometric abstraction and photography. In 2014 Espada began postdoctoral studies at her university’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where she is researching the origins of Concrete art in the city, supported by a grant from the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, a Brazilian government agency. Espada wrote Hércules Barsotti (São Paulo: Folha de São Paulo, 2013), Geraldo de Barros e a fotografia (São Paulo: Instituto Moreira Salles and Edições SESC, 2014), and Monumentalidade e sombra: o centro cívico de Brasília por Marcel Gautherot (forthcoming from Annablume). Since 2008, she has been the head of visual arts at the Instituto Moreira Salles, where she is also researcher and curator.
Ildikó Gericsné Fehér received an MA and PhD in art history from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. As associate professor in the Department of Art History of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, she lectures and leads seminars on Renaissance and Baroque art. She is also a consultant to the university’s Conservation Department. Fehér’s research interests include detached wall paintings from medieval and Renaissance Italy in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest; Florentine art dealers at the end of the nineteenth century; Károly Pulszky’s purchases of paintings in Italy for the museum circa 1890; wall paintings in Umbria from the fourteenth to sixteenth century; self-portraits by Hungarian artists in the Uffizi Gallery; and the works of Jacopo Palma il Giovane.
Peyvand Firouzeh specializes in the art and architecture of the Islamic world, with a focus on Iran, Central Asia, and India in the medieval period. She is particularly interested in interconnections between architecture and power, patronage of art and architecture, cross-cultural exchanges between Iran and India, and museum studies. Firouzeh obtained her BA (2004) and MA (2007) in architecture from the Tehran University of Art in Iran and her MPhil (2011) and PhD (2015) in the history of art and architecture and Asian and Middle Eastern studies from the University of Cambridge in England. She was the acting curator of Islamic collections from Iran, Central Asia, and India at the British Museum in London in 2014–15. Firouzeh is currently a fellow of art histories and aesthetic practices (2015–16) at the Forum Transregionale Studien and Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, where she is working on a new project, “Depicted Legitimacy: Sufi-Sultan Encounters in the Visual and Textual Cultures of South Asia.”
Lev Maciel graduated from the Medieval Studies Department at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia in 1998, with an M.A. thesis on fifteenth-century Spanish history. His dissertation on eighteenth-century Siberian architecture earned him a PhD in 2004 from the State Institute for Art History in Moscow. Currently Maciel is an associate professor in the Faculty of Humanities of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, where he supervises the recently created program in art history. He is also a part-time research associate professor at the Institute for Theory and History of Architecture and Town Planning in Moscow. Maciel’s research interests include a wide range of subjects within the history of architecture, including the late Renaissance and Baroque (Russia, southern Italy, Brittany, Spain, and Latin America), late antiquity and Byzantium, the Islamic world, Mongolia and Tibet, and nonmodernist movements in the twentieth century.
Emmanuel Moutafov is a Byzantinist, art historian, and epigrapher who holds a PhD in world history of the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries from the Institute for Balkan Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. He has been a visiting research fellow at the Program in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University; a Mellon Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin; a Mellon Foundation fellow at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem; and a Getty Foundation research fellow in the summer research group Visions of Byzantium in Istanbul, Turkey. In 2013 he became a supervisor of research at the board of directors of the Institute for Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and last year was appointed a director of the same institute.
Ceren Özpınar is a lecturer and a scholar of art historiography and the history of art whose research covers feminist temporalities in art historiography and contemporary art in Turkey. She is currently a British Academy Newton International Fellow in the Department of Art History at the University of Sussex (2015-17). Özpınar received a PhD in the history of art from Istanbul Technical University in 2015, with a thesis on the historiography of contemporary art in Turkey. In 2013, she held a one-year position of visiting research fellow at the University of Leeds, for which she was awarded a doctoral research grant by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. She is among the authors of National Art Histories in an Unfinished World (forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s University Press). Özpınar teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in art history, art management, and visual culture.
Horacio Ramos is a Peruvian art historian who specializes in Latin American vanguardism and neovanguardism. He teaches at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima and also works as researcher at Museo de Arte de Lima. Ramos holds a BA in philosophy and an MA in art history from the Universidad Católica. In previous research, he explored the reform of Lima’s main square (or Plaza de Armas) during the first half of the twentieth century, a complex process that involved debates about nationalism, architectural heritage, and modernism. Currently he is focusing on how invasiones (precarious urban settlements at the periphery of Peruvian cities) have been represented in documentary photography and neovanguardist art of the later twentieth century. Since invasiones and abandoned archeological ruins share the deserted landscape of the coast, his investigation seeks to trace the complex interconnections between art, archeology, landscape, and social exclusion.
Olaya Sanfuentes Echeverría earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, a master of arts from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and a PhD in art history from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain. She is a professor at the Institute of History, a part of the Department of History, Geography, and Political Science at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Sanfuentes’s current research focuses on devotional practices involving art, especially religious statues used in festivals and rites in honor of the saints and virgins in Andean communities, as well as similar practices related to nativity cribs. More generally, Sanfuentes is interested in practices surrounding visual representations, history, and material culture, and how communities deal with cultural heritage.
Paulo Silveira holds bachelor’s degrees in fine arts (with qualifications in drawing and painting) and in communication studies from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He earned an MA and PhD in visual arts, with an emphasis in art history, theory, and criticism, from the same university. His graduate studies included doctoral research in France at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Silveira is a professor of art history at the Instituto de Artes at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. His research interests include visual arts, with a focus on the formal and contextual study of the artistic process, the intellectual and artistic foundations of contemporary art, intermedia, perception of works of art, aesthetics, rhetoric of artist’s publications, and methodology. Silveira is a member of the Brazilian Committee of Art History and the National Association of Researchers in Fine Arts (serving on its committee for history, theory, and criticism).
Sandra Uskoković is an assistant professor in the Department of Arts and Restoration at the University of Dubrovnik in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Her primary areas of research include architectural theory, modern architecture, urban culture, performance art, and cultural studies and heritage. She received an MA in architectural history and heritage preservation from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and a PhD in historic preservation and architectural history from the University of Zagreb. During 2002–3 Uskoković served as an intern at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome, Italy, and at the International Committee on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) in Washington, DC. She is a member of the ICOMOS Scientific Committee on Twentieth-Century Heritage and has participated in conferences on international preservation. Uskoković is the author of three books: Modern Architectural Heritage of Dubrovnik (Zagreb: Antibarbarus, 2010), Contemporary Design in Historic Settings (Zagreb: Antibarbarus, 2013), and Architect Lovro Perković: Sensibility of Space Design (Zagreb: Ex Libris, 2015). She also has published numerous articles in academic and artistic journals. Since 2015 she has coordinated a regional interdisciplinary forum for research in urban culture in the Balkans, called Urban Hum.
For more information about the CAA-Getty International Program, please contact project director Janet Landay at jlanday@collegeart.org or 212-392-4420.
Affiliated Society News for November 2015
posted by CAA — Nov 09, 2015
Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH)
The Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH) is very pleased to announce the establishment of a new program that will strengthen intellectual connections among art history disciplines in different regions of the world. With generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art, ARIAH’s East Asia Fellowship program will enable twelve scholars from countries in East Asia to conduct research at ARIAH member institutes on any topic in the visual arts. The project is funded for a three-year period, beginning in 2016, with four fellowships offered each year.
The East Asia Fellowship program is open to art history scholars from Japan, Mongolia, the People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau), the Republic of China (Taiwan), and South Korea. Each East Asia Fellow will be hosted by an ARIAH member institute, and will also have the opportunity to travel to other research centers during the fellowship period, which will last three to four months. Fellowships will be awarded through an open, competitive application process. The deadline for the first of three rounds of fellowships is December 31, 2015. Candidates can find more information about the program, including application instructions, at www.ariah.info/east_asia_fellowship.html.
More information about ARIAH, including a complete list of member institutes, can be found at www.ariah.info.
Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) Annual Conference: Call for Proposals
Communities in Dialog: Models of Best Practices for Academic Museums, Galleries, and Collections
When: Tuesday and Wednesday, May 24-25, 2016
Where: Katzen Arts Center, American University, Washington DC
Deadline for Submissions: Monday, November 30th, 2015
The AAMG conference committee requests proposals on topics that address and can help establish guidelines, benchmarks, and best practices in all areas of academic museum and galleries, including, but not limited to: collections care and registration, governance, assessment, community engagement, teaching and museum education, exhibitions, public programming, fundraising, and professional development. Topics may address systemic challenges and present model programs that could become “templates” for the field.
AAMG seeks proposals that are representative of a cross-section of the academic field, including anthropology, art, history, science, and natural history museums, galleries, and collections. AAMG particularly encourages students and faculty to submit.
Submission Guidelines: A one-page outline of presentation proposal plus a contact list and CVs of each participant should be sent electronically to Vice President of Programs Leonie Bradbury, vp-programs@aamg-us.org If multiple presenters please add a one paragraph abstract for each paper or subtopic.
More details online at AAMG Annual Conferences.
The Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture (HGCEA)
The Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture (HGCEA) recently changed its name to Historians of German, Scandinavian, and Central European Art and Architecture (HGSCEA).
Northern California Art Historians
Call for Papers: “Zones of Representation: Photographing Contested Landscapes, Contemporary West Coast Perspectives on Photography and Photograph-Based Media,” symposium organized by Makeda Best (California College of the Arts), Bridget Gilman (Santa Clara University), and Kathy Zarur (California College of the Arts), at SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA, on Saturday, April 23, 2016.
Contemporary global events and phenomena continue to shape visual interpretations of economic, social, environmental, and political geographies, and to disrupt conceptions of region, nation, citizenship, and community. “Zones of Representation” will consider how photographers and time-based media artists have responded to transformations in the global landscape through new ideas about the function of photographic media, and the shifting roles of makers and audiences. We want to know: how can novel visual practices disrupt traditional narratives of spatial representation?; in what unique ways do artists in time-based media acknowledge and respond to the historical contribution of their medium in defining, producing, and perpetuating these same narratives?; what new connections do these practices demonstrate and reveal?; and, in what ways do contemporary technologies, modes of distribution, and access impact interactions with the land?
We invite papers that address the expanded role of photography and time-based media in global landscape discourses and social fabrics. Proposals on contemporary topics or new perspectives on historic materials are encouraged. Proposals from image makers are also welcome. Please send a 300-word proposal, a one-paragraph biographical statement, and full contact information to zonesofrepresentation@gmail.com by January 8, 2015.
“Zones of Representation” aims to connect artists, historians, curators and arts professionals, and students in Northern California, facilitating a regional network for the latest art historical scholarship. The symposium is presented in collaboration with SF Camerawork and is co-sponsored by the Northern California Art Historians (NCAH), a College Art Association affiliated society.
American Society of Appraisers
The American Society of Appraisers will offer Signs and Symbols in the Visual Arts, a 2-day course, on January 15-16, 2016, at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA.
Since the beginning of history, human beings have used visual images to signify concepts, beliefs, and ideas. This class will explore visual vocabularies and how they are used in material culture. We will look at images of the cosmos, the earth, geometric forms, animals, plants and the human body and how they are used in art, architecture and design. The focus will be on imagery of the European tradition, though examples from India, China, Japan and indigenous American cultures will also be considered. Because painting, sculpture, books, furniture, decorative arts, buildings, coins, and other objects will be used as sources, the course will be quite useful for those interested in visual studies and anyone wishing to deepen their appreciation of the rich vocabulary of art, architecture and design.
For more information, visit http://www.appraisers.org/Education/View-Course?CourseID=528
Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and Visual Resources Association (VRA)
Join the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association (VRA) March 8-12, 2016 in Seattle, Washington for the third joint conference of the two organizations. The beautiful and technology-driven city of Seattle was proposed by a coalition of members from the VRA Pacific Rim Chapter and the Northwest Chapter of ARLIS/NA. Both chapters have proposed a theme of “Natural Connections” to highlight both the shared values of ARLIS and VRA as well as the close relationship in the Puget Sound area between its people and nature.
In addition to inspirational speakers, information-packed sessions, a preconference THATcamp, marquis events at the city’s hallmark art and library institutions, and many terrific opportunities for making “Natural Connections” with colleagues and friends old and new, the conference schedule allows a free weekend at either end. Come early, stay late, and check out what Seattle has to offer: stunning natural landscapes, unique architecture, fabulous food & drink, and a huge variety of cultural activities. There is no other place like Seattle to visit in March when it offers cherry blossoms as a cure to your late-winter doldrums.
The Italian Art Society (IAS)
The Italian Art Society (IAS) is delighted to announce the success of its “Campaign for 500.” In early November we reached and surpassed our goal of 500 members, an historic high. Thanks to the generosity of one of our patron members, Mr. Peter Folgliano, next year we will be able to offer two new research and publication grants of up to $1000.00 each. One will be for graduate students, and the other for PhD holders, whose projects concern art and architecture in Italy between 1250 and 1600.
The next IAS/Kress lecture will take place at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 in Florence, Italy. The speaker will be a senior or established scholar working on a topic related to Florence or its environs (application deadline January 8, 2015, please see our website, www.italianartsociety.org, for more information).
The IAS is pleased to announce the recipients of the extra research and publication grants we offered this summer: Dr. Allison Levy (Independent Scholar), for her book, Misfits, Monstrosities, and Madness at the Villa Ambrogiana and Dr. Johanna Heinrichs (Dominican University) for her book, Mobile Lives, Stable Homes: The Palladian Villa between City and Country.
Mid America College Art Association (MACAA)
Building on the success of the 2014 conference, the 2016 MACAA conference will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio and hosted by the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), with School of Art Director Kate Bonansinga and Kris Holland serving as Conference Co-Chairs. Numerous regional institutions and their faculty have been taking part in planning the conference including Ball State University, Miami University, Thomas Moore College, University of Dayton, University of Toledo, Wayne State University, and Western Michigan University. DAAP is also collaborating with FotoFocus 2016 on inviting and sponsoring keynote speakers.
The title of the conference, Studio Shift: MACAA2016 @ DAAP, was selected to underscore the constantly evolving character of art and design. During the last several decades there has been an escalating interest in socially engaged art and design. In this post-studio context, creative practitioners release control to the audience. While this conference will focus on past, present, and future kinds of creative research space for artists, designers, historians, curators, and critics, other presentation topics are also welcome. We welcome student participation in MACAA 2016 as well. The deadline for session proposals is December 1, 2015. The conference hotel is the Kingsgate Marriott on the campus of the University of Cincinnati.
MACAA continues to contract Eastern Illinois University continuing education for conference and membership support services. In 2014, MACAA was established as a non-profit registered in the State of Michigan and retained the services of a CPA to streamline its accounting and business practices. Since the last conference, we have elected Christopher Olszewski (Savannah College of Art and Design) as President of the organization, Barbara Giorgio (Ball State University) as Secretary, and welcome nine new board members. In addition to Kate Bonansinga (DAAP) and Kris Holland (DAAP), we are happy to welcome Mary Eisendrath (Virginia Commonwealth University), Heather Hertel (Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania), Jennifer Murray (Loyola University Chicago), Rod Northcutt (Miami University), Elizabeth Olton (University of New Mexico), and Scott Thorp (Georgia Regents University). Our new representative to Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) is Guen Montgomery (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
The 2014 MACAA conference, “Mash-Up: Navigating Art and Academia in This Millennium,” was held October 22-25, 2014 in San Antonio, Texas. The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) was the conference host, with Dr. Scott A. Sherer serving as MACAA Conference Chair and Professor Greg Elliott serving as UTSA institutional coordinator. The city of San Antonio, with its well-known cultural history, provided a great foundation for camaraderie.
The conference featured 41 panels and presentations regarding diverse topics in studio disciplines, art history, and museum practices. Conference participants enjoyed a cabaret-style Hometown Artist’s Rodeo, organized by Ken Little (UTSA) and hosted by the Southwest School of Art; a keynote performance by The Art Guys hosted by the McNay Art Museum; and a keynote talk by Joseph Seipel (Virginia Commonwealth University) hosted by the San Antonio Museum of Art. Participants enjoyed presentations and extended discussions regarding research and creative endeavors.
The Members Meeting featured door prizes supplied by the University of Texas Press and Routledge/Taylor and Francis. The Green Bag Lady — Teresa VanHatten-Granath (Denver, CO) — contributed beautiful eco-friendly hand-made bags for all participants. Paula Owen, President of the Southwest School of Art, juried the Members’ Exhibition, held at the UTSA Art Gallery. Ellen Mueller (West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, WV) won Best in Show and Rosemary Meza-DesPlas (El Centro College, Dallas, TX) was awarded Honorable Mention.
Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture, Inc. (SHERA)
The Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture, Inc. (SHERA) is actively participating in the yearly convention of the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), which took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 19-22, 2015. SHERA members organized multiple sessions and roundtables on a wide range of topics covering history of art, theory of aesthetics, architecture, textile design, film, photography, and fashion among others. A roundtable discussion devoted to the state of the discipline and new research in histories of art in Russia and the countries of East and Central Europe also took place at this convention.
SHERA has successfully launched its visiting scholar program to Russia by arranging visa invitations this summer for two British scholars, members of SHERA, as part of the visiting scholar program with the Russian State University of Humanities in Moscow (RGGU). The visiting scholar program enables scholars to conduct individual research while being involved in educational activities with a partner institution. Apart from RGGU, SHERA has established working relationship with the Department of Art History of the European University in St. Petersburg. Inquiries about the application process should be directed to: shera.artarchitecture@gmail.com.
Association of Textual Scholarship in Art History (ATSAH)
Association of Textual Scholarship in Art History (ATSAH) cosponsored with The Università of Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy an international conference on Arts and Politics, November 4-8, 2015.
Members of ATSAH who presented inlcude Profs. Maureen Pelta, Moore College of Arts and Design, PA; Tina Bizzarro, Rosemont College, PA; Sarah Lippert, University of Michigan-Flint; Emilie Passignat, University of Florence, Italy; Brian Steel, Texas Tech University; Debra Murphy, University of North Florida; Liesbeth Grotenhuis, Hanze University, Groningen, Netherlands; and Liana De Girolami Cheney, President of ATSAH.
Liana De Girolami Cheney, PhD, President of the Association for Textual Scholarship in Art History (ATSAH), recently published articles in the following publications:
“Lavinia Fontana’s Two Minervas,” Woman’s Art Journal (Fall/Winter 2015), 30-40.
“Sofonisba Anguissola’s Ponce Portrait of a Young Man,” SOURCE: Notes in the History of Art Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer 2015), 39-47.
“Giorgio Vasari’s Saint Michael: A Symbol of Neoplatonic Light,” Journal of Religious Studies, Davis Publishing Company, Vol. 3, No. 3 (May-June 2015), 152-66.
“Giorgio Vasari’s Saint Francis: Aretine Fervor,” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, David Publishing Company, Vol. 5, No. 8 (October 2015), 859-73.
“Giorgio Vasari’s “Sala degli Elementi” in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence: The Symbolism of Saturn as Heavenly Air,” in Heavenly Discourses, ed. Nicholas Campion (Bristol, UK: Sophia Centre Press, 2015), 14-24.
“Edward Burne-Jones’ Heavenly Conception: The Days of Creation,” in Brian Abbott, ed. City of Stars: New York: The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (2015), 75-86.
Richard J. Powell Is 2016 Distinguished Scholar
posted by Christopher Howard — Nov 09, 2015
Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he has taught since 1989, has been named CAA’s 2016 Distinguished Scholar. A specialist in American art, African American art, and theories of race and representation, Powell will be honored in February during a special session at CAA’s upcoming Annual Conference in Washington, DC.
Powell was chair of the school’s Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies from 1996 to 2001. He currently is dean of the humanities for the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke. In 2013, the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art bestowed the Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Scholarly Excellence upon Powell for his contributions to the field of American art history.
Powell earned a PhD in art history at Yale University in 1988, after receiving an MA in Afro-American studies in 1982 from the same school. He was awarded Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal for Distinguished Alumni in 2009; three years later he received the James A. Porter Award for Excellence in African American Art Scholarship from Howard University, where he earned an MFA in printmaking in 1977. Other notable grants, fellowships, and residencies came from the Voyager Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University.
Powell led CAA’s flagship journal, The Art Bulletin, as editor-in-chief from 2008 to 2010. Among his many editorial accomplishments were substantial multiauthor interventions on decentering modernism, organized around an essay by Partha Mitter; on Pablo Picasso during wartime, for which a play by Ariel Dorfman served as anchor; and on Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas in light of postcolonial and materialist discourses. In the latter, for example, lead author Byron Ellsworth Hamann explored the presence in the painting of materials from the Americas, including silver, clay, and the red dye cochineal.
Powell’s books include Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture (2008); Black Art: A Cultural History (2002); Jacob Lawrence (1992); and Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson (1991), which drew from his dissertation on this twentieth-century American artist. He was the primary or sole author of numerous exhibition catalogues, such as Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott (2005); Beauford Delaney: The Color Yellow (2002); To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (1999); and James Lesesne Wells: Sixty Years in Art (1986).
As a curator, Powell has organized and cocurated such exhibitions as Conjuring Bearden at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art (2006); Back to Black: Art, Cinema, and the Racial Imaginary at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London (2005); Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance for the Hayward Gallery in London and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (1997); and The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism for Washington Project for the Arts (1989). His first curated show, Impressions/Expressions: Black American Graphics, appeared at the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York and toured nationally.
The 2016 Distinguished Scholar Session will take place on Thursday, February 4, 2016, 2:30–5:00 PM, at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Powell will be joined by three colleagues: Kobena Mercer, professor of history of art and African American studies at Yale University; Gwen Everett, associate professor of art history at Howard University and associate dean of the school’s Division of Fine Arts; Kellie Jones, associate professor of art history at Columbia University and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Art History and Archaeology; and Suzanne Preston Blier, Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.
CAA inaugurated its Distinguished Scholar Session in 2001, first honoring James S. Ackerman of Harvard University. Since then, the organization has recognized many illustrious writers, teachers, and curators, including Leo Steinberg (2002), John Szarkowski (2006), Linda Nochlin (2007), Svetlana Alpers (2009), Jonathan Brown (2011), Rosalind Krauss (2012), and Wen C. Fong (2013).
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Oct 14, 2015
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Guardian of the Humanities
William “Bro” Adams is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency that awards grants to researchers and cultural institutions to preserve America’s heritage. In an interview with Tom Fox, he discussed his mission at the NEH and his views on leading this federal organization. (Read more from the Washington Post.)
The NEA at 50 and the Death of the Public Good
Fifty years after the National Endowment for the Arts was founded, the agency struggles, doing great work despite being the victim of an unrelenting and highly successful conservative assault on the public sector that began with the election of Ronald Reagan and continues to this day. The NEA’s 2015 budget allocation clocked in at a mere $146 million, which accounts for 0.012 percent of total federal discretionary spending. (Read more from Culturebot.)
How an Art-History Class Became More Engaging with Twitter
When I was a college student, art-history courses revolved around a 1960s-era carousel slide projector. Its monotonous humming and clicking in the darkened lecture hall often put my classmates to sleep. As I prepared to teach my own art-history course last year, I wanted to implement new technologies to make the lectures more interactive and relatable to a twenty-first-century audience. (Read more from the Conversation.)
Can I Reuse a Past Show’s Title?
I’m a painter and had an exhibition in another state two months ago that comprised many of the pieces in the one I’m installing at a new gallery in a few weeks. Can or should I give the show the same title? Or should I come up with something new, since I’m showing some new work too? (Read more from Burnaway.)
Art Forgers Beware: DNA Could Thwart Fakes
Eric Fischl remembers the time a friend waved a catalogue at him to alert him that one of his paintings was up for auction for six figures. In reality, the work was a fake, but so convincing, the artist said, “I thought I was losing my mind.” Brushes with forgery like that one two decades ago, and concerns about his legacy and estate, prompted Fischl to appear in London to vouch for a new authentication system that would let artists sign their works with specks of synthetic DNA. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Copyright Registration Strategies
Copyright registration is something most artists can experiment without legal assistance and great cost, outside of more complex registration questions. However, this does not really help individual artists or small businesses who produce a lot of content. So let’s break it down and then you can make your own conclusions about how cheap and easy it is, depending on what type of content you are registering. (Read more from Clancco.)
On the Case: The Law on Augmented Reality and Museums
A few of our more tech-savvy museum clients have been exploring whether and how to make some of their exhibits come alive by using exciting new “augmented reality” technology. At the same time, they have been grappling with cutting-edge legal issues involved in this new technology—which is where we come in. (Read more from Artnet News.)
The Error of Margins: Vernacular Artists and the Mainstream Art World
Though the art world may not yet have a satisfactory way of referring to artists like Marlon Mullen, who are variously described by such leaky terms as self-taught, outsider, and vernacular, it has, over the past few years, shown more interest in them and is gradually growing the existing market for their work. (Read more from ARTnews.)
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Oct 07, 2015
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
US Has Funded Artists and Intellectuals for Half a Century, but It’s a Perennial Fight
As the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts celebrate their fiftieth anniversaries, they are still trying to climb out of the cellar, at least financially. While their endurance reflects an ongoing commitment to the arts and humanities, their struggles show that the government’s adherence to that promise can be fickle. (Read more from the Los Angeles Times.)
Does the Public Have a Right to Culture?
What do we mean when we say that artists and their heirs have a right to remuneration for the artist’s creativity? Conversely, what do we mean when we say that the public has a right to culture? Which public? Which culture? And is this “right” or “non-right” to be mediated solely through the law? (Read more from Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.)
Museum Directors Release Plan to Help Provide Safe Havens for Endangered Antiquities
Amid the wanton destruction of antiquities in Syria and elsewhere, the Association of Art Museum Directors, a group that represents museum directors, proposed a set of protocols to help cultural institutions understand how they can provide safe haven for valuable works of art and archaeological relics that are at risk of being damaged, destroyed, or looted. (Read more from the New York Times.)
The Informal Economy and the Global Art Market
It is difficult to imagine a reason to keep artworks in a free port unless there is speculation going on. If you are a collector of fine art, you want to be able to see and to appreciate what you own. But if you are a speculator, all you need is storage since you are betting that the work is going to increase in value. (Read more from SFAQ.)
Solving the Solvents
Solvents are used in oil painting for various reasons. In the first layers they are frequently meant to make the paint washier—often a necessary step in the painting process for some artists. With thinner and more fluid paint, one is able to sketch or conjure the gesture that breathes life into a blank canvas and informs the subsequent layers. (Read more from Just Paint.)
Why the Visual Artists Rights Act Is Failing
The federal Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), enacted in 1990 in the wake of the removal of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, was supposed to remedy a long series of conflicts between property owners and artists. The law grants artists the rights to prevent intentional modification to their art and the destruction of a work of “recognized stature.” But how effective is it? (Read more from Artsy.)
Humanities Majors’ Salaries
Major in English and expect to live with Mom and Dad for life. That’s the stereotype constantly reinforced by reports on the hot job prospects for nurses or code writers or various other positions for which practical training is seen as the route to economic success. But a new report shows that graduates with degrees in the humanities earn much more than the average for all American workers, challenging those who suggest that a degree in the humanities is a waste, at least financially. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
On the Academic Job Market, Does Patience Pay Off?
How long am I marketable? It’s one of the most difficult questions an academic job seeker can face. And it’s one of the most important questions we hope our Academic JobTracker project can help answer. If you don’t get a job in your first year on the market, should you stay the course and take another swing next hiring season? Or is it already time to explore other career options? (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Participants Selected for 2016 CAA–Getty International Program
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — Oct 07, 2015
CAA is pleased to announce this year’s participants in the CAA–Getty International Program. In an effort to promote greater interaction and exchange between U.S. and international art historians, CAA will bring colleagues from around the world to its Annual Conference, this year to be held in Washington, D.C. from February 3–6, 2016. This is the fifth year of the program, which has been generously supported by a grant from the Getty Foundation since its inception. The participants—professors of art history, curators, and artists who teach art history—were selected by a jury of CAA members from a highly competitive group of applicants. In addition to covering travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and per diems, participants in the CAA–Getty International Program also receive complimentary conference registration and a one-year CAA membership.
The participants’ activities begin with a one-day preconference colloquium on international issues in art history, during which they meet with U.S.-based CAA members to discuss common interests and challenges. They are assisted throughout the conference by CAA member hosts, who recommend relevant panel sessions and introduce them to colleagues who share their interests. Members of CAA’s International Committee have agreed to serve as hosts, along with representatives from several of CAA’s Affiliated Societies.
CAA hopes that this program will not only increase international participation in the organization’s activities, but will also expand international networking and the exchange of ideas both during and after the conference. CAA currently includes members from 70 countries around the world; see the International Desk on CAA’s website for news about international activities and opportunities. The CAA–Getty International Program supplements CAA’s regular program of Annual Conference Travel Grants for graduate students and international artists and scholars. We look forward to welcoming the following participants at the next Annual Conference in Washington, DC.
2016 Participants in the CAA-Getty International Program
Sarena Abdullah, Senior Lecturer, School of the Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang
Abiodun Akande, Principal Lecturer, Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo State, Nigeria
María Isabel Baldasarre, Associate Professor, Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Danielle Becker, Lecturer in Art History and Visual Studies, University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Heloisa Espada, Postdoctoral Researcher, Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of Saõ Paulo, Brazil
Ildikó Fehér, Associate Professor, Art History Department, University of Fine Arts of Hungary, Budapest, Hungary
Peyvand Firouzeh, Post-doctoral Fellow, Museum fur Islamische Kunst, Berlin, Germany
Lev Maciel, Associate Professor, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Bui Thi Thanh Mai, Lecturer of Art History, Head of Department of Academic Research Management and International relations, Vietnam University of Fine Arts, Ha Noi, Vietnam
Emmanuel Moutafov, Associate Professor, Director, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
Ceren Ozpinar, Lecturer, Isik University and Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey
Horacio Ramos, Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Olaya Sanfuentes, Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Paulo Silveira, Professor, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Sandra Uskokovic, Assistant Professor, University of Dubrovnik, Arts & Restoration Department, Croatia
Affiliated Society News for September 2015
posted by CAA — Sep 09, 2015
Community College Professors of Arts and Art History
After successful sessions at last year’s CAA and FATE Conferences, the Community College Professors of Arts and Art History (CCPAAH) will hold two events at this year’s CAA Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Our business meeting will be held on Friday, February 5, from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM. Please bring a project idea to share with your colleagues. Our session “In and out of the Studio: New ideas for Art Appreciation” will be held at 12:30 PM on Thursday, February 4. We are looking for additional presenters who are doing interesting things in Art Appreciation. If you are interested in presenting or have any questions, please contact Susan Altman. We look forward to seeing you at the conference!
Japan Art History Forum
Yurika Wakamatsu, PhD candidate at Harvard University, was selected as the winner of the 2015 Chino Kaori Memorial Essay Prize for an essay titled “Feminizing Art in Modern Japan: Noguchi Shōhin (1847-1917) and the Changing Conceptions of Art and Womanhood.” The prize was established by the Japan Art History Forum in 2003 in memory of distinguished colleague Chino Kaori, and is awarded annually to the best research paper written in English on a Japanese art history topic.
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome (AAR) invites applications for the 2016 Rome Prize competition. Up to thirty fellowships (from six months to two years) are awarded to emerging and established artists and scholars working in a variety of disciplines, including a stipend, room & board, and individual workspace at our eleven-acre center in Rome. Please visit aarome.org/apply for submission guidelines. Applications are due November 1.
AAR presents Bodies of Knowledge, the 2015 – 2016 series of lectures, exhibitions and events. Programming features artists and scholars offering multiple readings across disciplinary and geographical boundaries — questioning assumptions about the ways in which we structure knowledge and how these categories define our understanding of history, identity and culture. Fall events in Rome include a conversation with artist Isaac Julien and curator Mark Nash on filmmaking inspired by architect Lina Bo Bardi, and an exhibition of Cy Twombly photographs, accompanied by a talk with photographer Sally Mann. In New York, the Academy presents an evening on poetry and language with Edward Hirsch and Robert Polito, and a panel discussion on cultural patrimony and collective responsibility with scholar C. Brian Rose, antiquities expert Deborah Lehr and art historian James Cuno. Visit aarome.org for details.
Women’s Caucus for Art
The Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) is pleased to announce Susan M. King (previously Susan King Obarski), Ph.D., as the incoming president of the organization. An art historian and artist, she teaches at the Laguna College of Art and Design and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA. Her doctorate in Visual Studies at UC, Irvine, “Surrealism: A Marxist Enterprise in 1930s London,” included a chapter on artist Eileen Agar. She recently reviewed the J.M.W. Turner exhibitions and catalogue for caa.reviews (in press). Susan is a long time board member of WCA and past chair of the Lifetime Achievement Awards. Her two-year term as president begins in February 2016 after the CAA and WCA conferences. One of her key goals is to cross the generational divide of feminist artists, writers, and scholars to engage an open and fruitful dialogue on a range of feminist and activist issues. To that end, she is curating WATER: AN ESSENTIAL CONVERSATION, featuring historical posters from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and contemporary graphic and video art. Founded in 1972, the WCA is an affiliate society of CAA and a founding member of The Feminist Art Project. More at nationalwca.org.
Renaissance Society of America
The Renaissance Society of America will hold its 62nd annual meeting in Boston, 31 March–2 April 2016. The program will include nearly 700 sessions, with more than 200 in Renaissance and early modern art history. The full, searchable program and schedule can be viewed on our website.
The Renaissance Society of America annually awards short-term grants supporting research projects and publications that aim to advance scholarly knowledge about the Renaissance. Many grants in art history are funded by the generous support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, through the Kress Mid-Career Research and Publication Fellowships in Renaissance Art History and the Kress Short-Term Research Library Fellowships for Art Historians programs. Please see our website for more information. Applicants must be members of RSA. Application deadline is 1 December 2015.
Public Art Dialogue
The newest issue of Public Art Dialogue (Volume 5, Issue Number 1) has been published. Edited by John Craig Freeman and Mimi Sheller, it is devoted to the theme of Hybrid Space and Digital Public Art. Articles include “Down the Rabbit Hole” by Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum; “Networked Monumental: Site, Production, and Distributed Publics—Online, and in Everyday Life,” by Dylan Gauthier; “Future Museums Now—Augmented Reality Musings” by Geoffrey Alan Rhodes; “#sQavengeRhunt: LoVid” by Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus; and “The Digital: A False Division?” by Patrick Lichty. Two interviews by Dorothy Santos are included: Kate Durban and Jim Dessicino. Finally, there are two book reviews: one on Vladimir Geroimenko’s Augmented Reality Art: From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium by Lenore Metrick-Chen; and a second on Ricciarda Belgiosojoso’s Constructing Urban Space with Sounds and Music by Shawn Greenlee. More information is available on the journal’s website.
Association of Academic Museums & Galleries
AAMG/Kellogg 2016 Leadership Seminar: Join colleagues from throughout the U.S. and beyond for AAMG’s flagship professional development program at the prestigious Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management, Northwestern University. Now accepting applications online. APPLICATION DEADLINE JANUARY 15, 2016.
WHO: Faculty drawn from the Kellogg School of Management Center for Nonprofit Management and seasoned professionals in the academic museum field. Up to 40 Seminar Fellows selected from a national and international application pool by the Application Review Team.
WHAT: A Certificate Program. Intensive, week-long, highly interactive learning and sharing experience with top faculty in the field of leadership and management and academic museum and gallery colleagues from across the U.S. and abroad.
WHEN: June 19 – June 24, 2016
WHERE: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (metro-Chicago)
TUITION: $4,500. Limited scholarship funds may be available.
Association for Latin American Art
ALAA has launched a redesigned website aimed at providing current news and events on Latin American art to the public. The website features updated information on the ALAA bylaws, officers, book and dissertation awards, a newsletter archive, and a list of academic programs that offer graduate degrees in art history with a focus on Latin America. A Members Portal allows registered ALAA members to access a membership directory, discover fellow members’ research interests, and contribute to the public Events Calendar.
Triennial Conference: ALAA is pleased to invite proposals for papers to be presented at its Fourth Triennial Conference “Art at Large: Public and Monumental Arts in the Americas.” Hosted by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with the Department of History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, the conference will be held the weekend of March 18–20, 2016 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Deadline September 15, 2015.
Book Award: ALAA announces its Fourteenth Annual Book Award for the best scholarly book published on the art of Latin America from the Pre-Columbian era to the present. Deadline November 15, 2015.
Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey
AMCA is currently accepting submissions for the 2016 Rhonda A. Saad Prize for Best Paper in Modern and Contemporary Arab Art. Established in 2010, the award aims to recognize and promote excellence in the field of modern and contemporary Arab art. The prize honors our respected colleague and dear friend, Rhonda (1979-2010), who was, at the time of her tragic passing, in the process of researching a doctoral dissertation on modern Palestinian art in the Department of Art History at Northwestern University. Over the last five years, the prize has recognized excellence in graduate work completed on a variety of subjects in a number of disciplines at universities in the U.S. and abroad. This year, we are opening the competition to graduate students as well as to recent post-doctoral students who earned a PhD no earlier than 2013.
The prize is offered to a graduate student or recent PhDs working in any discipline whose paper is judged to provide the most significant contribution to the disciplines of Art History and Middle East Studies. Submissions must have been produced between June 2014 and December 2015, must not exceed 35 pages (excluding notes and bibliography), and must not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication.
Submissions are due to info@amcainternational.org by December 1, 2015. The winner will be announced during the AMCA Members Meeting, held this year at the College Art Association Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, in February 2016. The author of the winning paper will be awarded $500USD and the winning paper will be considered for publication in the Arab Studies Journal, pending the standard review process.
In October 2015, the School of Art, Design, and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore brought together designers, artists, architects, and academics for a multi-disciplinary conference on contemporary Islamic art, design, and architecture. Although each discipline has its own practice and methodology, when collectively grouped under an Islamic identity, we are forced to redefine the term “Islamic.” While new forms, spaces, images, typographies, symbols, colors, and materials of contemporary Islamic art, design, and architecture share distinct cultural narratives from individual geographies, it remains essential to address how comparative and connective perspectives reorient our understanding of contemporary Islamic visual communication. This three-day conference took place October 7-9 and was an unprecedented forum dedicated to convening professionals and scholars from throughout Asia, Europe, and America who share an investment in contemporary Islamic art, design, and architecture. For more information, visit http://www.ciada2015.com/. Organization Committee: Gül İnanç, Peer Sathikh, Nada Shabout, Sarah Rogers and Dina B.
Association of Art Museum Curators and American Academy in Rome
The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and the American Academy in Rome (AAR) are pleased to announce the third year of The Samuel H. Kress Foundation AAMC Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. The program is intended to honor exceptional curatorial vision and help curators advance deserving projects. The purpose of the award is to provide essential funding for curators to develop projects that require research in Italy.
The Affiliated Fellowship is a 4-week appointment at the AAR, which includes housing, six lunches and five dinners a week, and access to residence hall kitchens; $1,500 in airfare; and $2,000 stipend. Affiliated Fellows have access to all the AAR facilities (including 24-hour a day access to the library and overall grounds) and all activities that occur at the Academy, such as concerts, exhibitions, conferences, lectures, and tours, etc. If desired, the Fellow can also schedule to give a talk about their project at the AAR during the Fellowship. For more information, visit http://www.artcurators.org/?KressAARFellowship or email aamc@artcurators.org.
Save the date: The 2016 AAMC Annual Conference & Meeting will be May 7 – 10 in Houston, Texas.
Society for Photographic Education
Society for Photographic Education (SPE) offers student member scholarships to offset the cost of attending SPE’s 2016 National Conference in Las Vegas, NV, March 10-13. Each award includes a $550 travel stipend, conference fee waiver, and complimentary one-year membership in SPE. For more information, visit www.spenational.org or contact info@spenational.org. Application deadline is October 15, 2015, at 11:59 PM EST.
Southeastern College Art Conference
Kevin Cates, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been appointed to the SECAC Board of Directors.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Aug 05, 2015
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Six Dos and Don’ts for Gallery Representation
The road to getting into a gallery can seem impossibly rocky with obstacles at every turn. How do you know if you’re choosing the right path and using the right approach? We chatted with a veteran gallery owner and turned to the experts for six important dos and don’ts to achieving gallery representation. (Read more from Artwork Archive.)
Why Do So Many Galleries Lose Money?
Management of Art Galleries, a slim, Day-Glo orange book, caused a furor when it was published in Germany last year. Written by a 31-year-old German entrepreneur, professor, and art adviser named Magnus Resch, the book argues that most galleries are undercapitalized and inefficient, but, with McKinseylike business strategies, the entire art market could be turned into a profit-generating machine. (Read more from Bloomberg.)
Leading Art Publications in the US Join Forces
ARTnews and Art in America, two of the largest and most widely read art magazines in the US, are merging. Artnews SA—which operates ARTnews, the Polish magazine Art and Business, and the online art market research outlet Skate’s—has acquired Brant Publications’ entire art publishing portfolio, including Art in America. In exchange, Brant Publications, owned by the collector and newsprint magnate Peter Brant, has become the majority shareholder of Artnews SA. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Read “Popular” Scholarly Books
If all goes as planned, there’s a fascinating book about Diderot in your future—and one about the history of photographic detection and another one about the economics of addiction. The Public Scholar program, a major new initiative from the NEH, is designed to promote the publication of scholarly nonfiction books for a general audience, and the first round of grants has just been announced: a total of $1.7 million to 36 writers across a broad collection of disciplines. (Read more from the Washington Post.)
Libraries Are the Future of Manufacturing in the United States
Public libraries are becoming a one-stop shop for manufacturing in the digital age. Because libraries are investing in machines like 3D printers, someday soon everyone with access to a public library could become an inventor or create something. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)
Looking at How Performers Are Paid for Performance Art
On the heels of protesters descending upon the Guggenheim Museum in May, calling for improved conditions for the workers who will build a future branch of the museum in Abu Dhabi, the artists Gerard and Kelly have partnered with the Guggenheim to hammer out fair labor standards for themselves and the other performers in Timelining, part of Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim. (Read more from the New York Times.)
That “Useless” Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket
Stewart Butterfield, Slack Technologies’ cofounder and CEO, proudly holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada’s University of Victoria and a master’s degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science. “Studying philosophy taught me two things,” says Butterfield. “I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings.” (Read more from Forbes.)
An Ignored Conflict of Interest
Conflicts of interest are inherent in faculty control over curriculum. When not addressed, these conflicts can result in faculty behavior that is neither in the best interest of their students nor of their colleges and universities. Our proposed approach for mitigating such conflicts involves shared governance, with faculty and administrators facing, and mitigating, potential conflicts together. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
CAA Executive Director Linda Downs Announces Retirement
posted by Linda Downs — Jul 31, 2015
Linda Downs, executive director and chief executive officer of the College Art Association (CAA), has announced her retirement, effective February 2016. Under her direction during her nine-year tenure, CAA celebrated its Centennial with a new visual identity and reestablished itself as the largest and most active association in the academic and museum visual-arts field. CAA has been a strong advocate on critical issues in the field, including workforce issues such as equity for part-time faculty, changing the restrictions on visas for international scholars and artists, and state and federal support for visual-arts higher education. CAA has made major improvements to its publications: current and archived issues of The Art Bulletin and Art Journal are now available online as a result of a copublishing partnership with Taylor & Francis; caa.reviews became a fully open-access online journal with an increased readership; and the Art Journal Open website was established, with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, to focus more on artists and to complement Art Journal articles in print.
Over thirty professional guidelines and standards were developed through the expertise of the Professional Practices Committee. A task force supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation was established to develop the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, which has greatly clarified what fair use is and how to utilize it for third-party images and materials in creative and scholarly work. CAA has changed its journal author contracts accordingly. Book and author subventions increased to approximately sixteen per year through the support of the Mellon Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and Wyeth Foundation for American Art. International membership increased through the CAA/Getty International Program, which supported attendance and seminars on international issues at the past four Annual Conferences. The Professional Development Fellowships for Art Historians and Artists was reinstated. A new project, Resources for Academic Art Museum Professionals, that was initiated by the Museum Committee and funded by the Mellon Foundation will establish a social community forum to promote the exchange of information related to the integration of academic art museums into various academic disciplines of study. Following CAA’s strategic plan, task forces have been established to review the structure of the nine Professional Interest, Practices, and Standards Committees, provide guidelines for digital art and architectural history in promotion and tenure, transform and extend the Annual Conference, review the governance structure, and address greater inclusion and attention to design in programs and publications. CAA has laid the groundwork for transforming itself in directions that are critical to the support of the visual-arts field.
The CAA Board of Directors has expressed its admiration for Downs’s outstanding leadership. DeWitt Godfrey, board president, stated, “Linda has brought CAA to a new professional level of service to members and the visual-arts field. We wish her well in retirement and thank her for her dedicated service.”
CAA has organized a search committee and will retain a search firm to seek a new Executive Director.
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.
For more information, please contact Nia Page, CAA director of membership, development, and marketing.
John Wesley William: In Memoriam
posted by CAA — Jul 20, 2015
Julie Harris earned her PhD in art history at the University of Pittsburgh in 1989. She teaches at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership.
There was little in John Williams’s early life to suggest that he would eventually become the world’s authority on Spanish medieval art—unless one considers a boundless energy and curiosity that propelled him from an athletic childhood in Memphis, through a canoe trip down the Mississippi, service in the Marines, and eventually led him to study at Duke, Yale, and University of Michigan—where he discovered Spanish medieval art and earned a PhD in 1962. A scholar of international reputation, inspiring teacher, and family man, Williams died on June 6, 2015. He was 87 years old.
Williams taught first at Swarthmore College from 1960 until 1972. He then joined the Fine Arts Department of the University of Pittsburgh, where he remained for thirty-five years. At Pitt, Williams served as chair for five years, was named Distinguished Service Professor in 1993, and was Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History of Art and Architecture from 1997 to 2000. Among the many honors he received in his career were two Fulbrights to Spain, two NEH grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a visiting membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and an appointment as a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.
Best known for his work on the Beatus Commentaries, Williams’s work evolved from searching for models for these manuscripts’ rich and enigmatic imagery to recognizing the individuals responsible for their creation and a careful reading of their reception. His five-volume series, The Illustrated Apocalypse: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse (Harvey Miller, 1994–2003), won the Eleanor Tufts Award from the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies. Williams’s interests and research were not limited to manuscript studies; he also was an authority on the major Romanesque monuments of Spain, such as San Isidoro in León, Santo Domingo de Silos, and Santiago de Compostela. He participated in rigorous international debates over their dating, patronage, and the meaning of their decoration in all media. This work generated groundbreaking and authoritative publications in such journals as The Art Bulletin and Gesta and in collaborative volumes, some of which he edited or coedited.
John’s life-long interest in Spain did not end with his retirement from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. In addition to ongoing work in medieval art, he recently turned his attention to securing the attribution of a neglected Goya in the Carnegie Institute. A documentary project on the Beatus manuscripts, directed and produced by Murray Grigor and the cinematographer Hamid Shams with commentary by Williams, premiered in New York at the Morgan Library and Museum last October. Even as his illness progressed, he remained engaged in academic pursuits. Determined to complete his book, he enlisted the help of a former student, Therese Martin of Madrid (CCHS-CSIC). The resulting work, Visions of the End in Medieval Spain: Tradition and Context of the Beatus Commentary on the Apocalypse, with a Census of Illustrated Manuscripts and Study of the Geneva Beatus (forthcoming from Amsterdam University Press, 2016), both introduces a recently discovered manuscript and offers Williams an opportunity to update and reassess his earlier work on the Beatus corpus.
Williams had a gift for synthetic scholarship, revealing connections across the Pyrenees and across disciplines in a way that made his art-historical analysis deep and utterly unique. Four students—Martin, David Raizman, Ann Boylan, and myself—wrote their dissertations on Spanish medieval topics under his supervision. Both as his student and in later years, I found that John’s authoritative writing and speaking style made me believe that what he was doing—and by extension what I doing—was important. John was a demanding and thorough adviser who became a delightful friend. He had little sympathy for trendy jargon but plenty of interest in new ideas. I never stopped sending him my work or seeking his approval.
A relentlessly productive scholar, Williams will also be remembered as a person of varied interests, including but not limited to fine books and martinis, music of many genres, good conversation, and the dance at Kalamazoo. He is survived by his wife, Mary; their six children; and thirteen grandchildren.