CAA News Today
New in caa.reviews
posted by CAA — Dec 23, 2016
Amanda Cachia visits Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947–2016 at Hauser Wirth and Schimmel. Although “it was the inaugural project at Hauser Wirth and Schimmel, a commercial gallery-cum-arts complex,” the show “felt like an ambitious museum exhibition,” making it “an echo of the revolution taking place within the institutional world of museums and galleries themselves.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Sarahh E. M. Scher reads Architectural Vessels of the Moche: Ceramic Diagrams of Sacred Space in Ancient Peru by Juliet B. Wiersema. The book “is a significant contribution to the field of art history” that “addresses the relationship between architectural spaces and its representation” on ceramic vessels and architectural remains from the Moche culture, “a topic that has not been closely researched prior to this volume.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Johanna Seasonwein discusses Elina Gertsman’s Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna. In this “ambitious exploration” of about forty sculptures known as Shrine Madonnas, the author breaks with past studies “of these and other kinds of late medieval devotional objects” and “aims to suggest ways that medieval audiences understood and responded these objects.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Kristen Gaylord reviews Someday Is Now: The Art of Corita Kent, an exhibition and catalogue organized by the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. Corita, “a teacher, nun, activist, and artist,” was a “national figure in her time,” and the “monumental” catalogue is “the first scholarly monograph dedicated to an important but previously understudied artist of the postwar period.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
caa.reviews publishes over 150 reviews each year. Founded in 1998, the site publishes timely scholarly and critical reviews of studies and projects in all areas and periods of art history, visual studies, and the fine arts, providing peer review for the disciplines served by the College Art Association. Publications and projects reviewed include books, articles, exhibitions, conferences, digital scholarship, and other works as appropriate. Read more reviews at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Dec 21, 2016
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.
Why Does the Art World Love Overlooked Artists?
The prices of work by young artists escalate so quickly that it’s difficult to buy it continuously throughout their career. The same is true for public museums, which usually rely on either (shrinking) public funds or committees whose decision-making processes will always take longer than those of deeper-pocketed private museums. One fruitful solution to this dilemma is the focus on overlooked historical artists. (Read more from Artnet News.)
The Soft Power of Art
Harvard professor Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” to describe the ability of a nation to influence others with its values and culture. In the mid-twentieth century, the CIA used American modern art as a weapon in the cold war. The legacy of this effort can be found in a popular discourse of contemporary art that rarely goes beyond how much art sells for. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)
Saving Art from Looting and Destruction Is a Military Matter
The British Army recently announced that it would recruit fifteen to twenty new officers with specializations in art, archaeology, and antiquities to be deployed in the field, just behind the front lines, to help identify, protect, and track art and antiquities that are in danger of being damaged, looted, or destroyed. (Read more from Salon.)
New Law Will Aid the Recovery of Nazi-Looted Art
In a rare act of bipartisanship, Congress unanimously passed a bill geared toward helping Holocaust survivors and their families reclaim art looted by the Nazis. Approved by both the House and Senate, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 now heads to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law. (Read more from Artsy.)
An Artistic Discovery Makes a Curator’s Heart Pound
It’s an auctioneer’s jackpot dream. A man walks in off the street, opens a portfolio of drawings, and there, mixed in with the jumble of routine low-value items, is a long-lost work by Leonardo da Vinci. That is what happened to Thaddée Prate, director of old-master pictures at the Tajan auction house in Paris. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Big Data, Big Challenges
The rise of big data has been a tremendous boon to researchers, but it has also revealed shortcomings in how higher education collects and analyzes data and judges the impact of research on human subjects. Speakers during the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools presented that argument during a session on the ethical implications of big data-driven research. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Five Ways to Make Online Classrooms Interactive
The convenience and flexibility of the online learning environment allow learners to develop new skills and further their education, regardless of where they live. Yet for all of its benefits, online learning can sometimes feel isolating for students and faculty. How does one build a sense of community in online courses? (Read more from Faculty Focus.)
Why Schools Should Not Teach General Critical-Thinking Skills
Since the early 1980s, schools have become captivated by the idea that students must learn a set of generalized thinking skills to flourish in the contemporary world—and especially in the contemporary job market. Variously called twenty-first-century learning skills or critical thinking, the aim is to equip students with a set of general problem-solving approaches that can be applied to any given domain. (Read more from Aeon.)
People in the News
posted by CAA — Dec 15, 2016
People in the News lists new hires, positions, and promotions in three sections: Academe, Museums and Galleries, and Organizations and Publications.
The section is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
December 2016
Academe
Jacki Apple has retired from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, after thirty-three years of teaching in the Humanities and Sciences Department, where she served as a faculty-elected codirector in the absence of a chair from 2012 to 2014.
Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse has accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Washington in Seattle. She will hold a joint appointment as assistant professor in the Division of Art History and curator of Northwest Native American art at the Burke Museum.
Faye Raquel Gleisser has been appointed assistant professor of art history in the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Morten Steen Hansen has become a lecturer in the Division of Art History at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dan Paz has been appointed lecturer by the University of Washington in Seattle for the Division of Art’s program in interdisciplinary visual arts.
Richard J. PowellRichard J. Powell has stepped down as dean of humanities at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He will remain John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History.
Kate Roberts has been appointed lecturer in Division of Art’s 3D4M program for ceramics, glass, and sculpture at the University of Washington in Seattle.
David Yager has been inaugurated as president of University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He joined the school last year after serving as dean of the Arts Division and distinguished professor of art at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Museums and Galleries
Birgitta Augustin has left her position as associate curator of Asia art and acting head of the Department of the Arts of Asia and the Islamic World at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Michigan.
Meredith Dean, previously an administrator for the Association of Art Museum Curators, has joined the Museum of Modern Art in New York as development assistant for exhibition and program funding.
Kevin Dumouchelle has joined the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art as curator. Previously he oversaw the African and Pacific Islands collections at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
Erin Hanas, formerly academic programs coordinator at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina, has become associate curator of academic programs for the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
Lehti Keelmann (photograph provided by the University of Michigan Museum of Art)Lehti Keelmann has been appointed assistant curator of Western art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, where she will oversee the collection of European art spanning the medieval period through the twentieth century.
Abraham Thomas (photograph by Pepe Gomez)Abraham Thomas, previously director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, England, has been named Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC.
Institutional News
posted by CAA — Dec 15, 2016
Read about the latest news from institutional members.
Institutional News is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
December 2016
The Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, has received a three-year grant of up to $900,000 from the Walton Family Foundation to support the ongoing digitization of the archives’ collection, enabling the organization to double its current rate. The Archives of American Art is obliged to match the grant, to be given in three installments.
The Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, has announced a long-term partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art to support the digitization of the archives’ collections. Terra has made a $4.5 million commitment, $4 million of which is a challenge grant to be matched by the Smithsonian, to seed an endowment for ongoing digitization. The remaining $500,000 will provide operating support for the current digitization program.
California State University, Long Beach, has received a grant from the Graham Foundation to support an exhibition, Robert Irwin: Site Determined, at the University Art Museum.
Harmony Hammond, Dance of the Ladder, 1981 (artwork © Harmony Hammond; photograph provided by the Getty Research Institute)The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California, has acquired the archive of the artist, writer, curator, and scholar Harmony Hammond. The donation includes correspondence, photographs, original source material for her art, professional papers, publication drafts, editioned prints, original artwork, files, and a slide registry devoted to lesbian artists.
The main entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (photograph by Brett Beyer)The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has reaffirmed its long-term cooperative partnership with the Ministry of Culture of the Government of India by renewing a Memorandum of Understanding for five additional years.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been named the world’s top museum in TravelAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards, based on the quality and quantity of reviews and ratings over a twelve-month period, for the second year in a row.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has received a grant from the Graham Foundation to support an exhibition, Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, scheduled for June 12–October 1, 2017.
Scenes from the Parsons Making Center at the New School (photographs by Matt Matthews and Michael Moran)Parsons School of Design in New York has opened the Parsons Making Center at the New School, a hub for a network of making spaces that provide university students with state-of-the-art tools to design projects in a range of disciplines.
Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, New Jersey, has received a $150,000 Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support the ongoing Collections Discovery Initiative, designed to ensure that Princeton’s Asian art collection can be shared with the broadest possible audiences, especially with scholars and researchers. The grant will allow the museum to enhance and standardize the cataloguing of its Asian art holdings, develop rich educational materials, and restructure its Asian art microsite into an in-depth sustainable resource with an innovative new interface.
Using virtual-reality technology, you can now experience the exhibition WONDER on your mobile device (photograph provided by the Smithsonian American Art Museum)The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, has launched Renwick Gallery WONDER 360, an immersive 360-degree virtual-reality app for Apple and Android mobile devices. The app allows audiences to explore the entirety of the museum’s 2015–16 exhibition WONDER, presented at its Renwick Gallery, in 3D; it also expands the visitor experience through emerging technologies and is the first virtual-reality mobile app the Smithsonian has offered.
The Society of Architectural Historians, based in Chicago, Illinois, has received a grant from the Graham Foundation to support a public program, a half-day seminar on “Making and Re-Making Glasgow: Heritage and Sustainability,” at its upcoming conference in Scotland.
The University of Houston in Texas has created a new College of the Arts, comprising the School of Art, the Moores School of Music, the School of Theatre and Dance, the Blaffer Art Museum, the Cynthia Mitchell Woods Center for the Arts, the Center for Arts Leadership, and the Graduate Program for Arts Management.
Bruno Pouliot, senior objects conservator (far right), and Ann Wagner, curator of decorative arts (standing), examine coatings on silver objects during Phase I (2013–15) of the IMLS-funded project, alongside the former conservation technicians Maggie Bearden (left) and Kaitlin Andrews (right) (photograph provided by the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library)The Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library in Winterthur, Delaware, has received a $110,759 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for a project on preventive care for metal objects, which Winterthur deems its highest conservation treatment priority.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Dec 14, 2016
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.
How Trump Should Support the Arts
Since Donald Trump has given few clues as to how he will approach arts policy, I thought I would lay out what a Trump administration ought to do. First, it must save the federal government money, to appeal to the Republican Congress. Second, it should stand a chance of appealing to Trump, given his stances on other issues. Third, it should offer a reasonable chance of improving the quality of the arts in the US, and fourth, the arts community should not hate every aspect of the changes. (Read more from Bloomberg View.)
What Can Artists Do to Oppose Trump?
When Vice President–elect Mike Pence went to see Hamilton on Broadway, he was doing more than enjoying a night at the theater—he was there to triumph over an enemy. For if any work of art represented the liberal hope of the Obama years, it was surely Hamilton. Here was a patriotic attempt to open the canon of American history to people of color, to tell the stories of the past in the language of the present. (Read more from Slate.)
How Big Data Is Set to Change the Art Market
In late October, Sotheby’s announced it had acquired the Mei Moses Art Indices, a database of repeat auction sales that tracks value over time. Shortly after, Artnet said it had brought Tutela Capital, an analytics firm headed by Fabian Bocart, into its portfolio, which also includes a sizeable database of auction prices. Each company has different aims, but one thing is clear: data will play a key role in how they—and the art market—move forward. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Arts Diversity: The Quota Conversation
Ask anyone in the arts about quotas and, more likely than not, you’ll get some form of commitment to a “conversation.” As in, “We should talk about whether or not to use quotas” rather than “Quotas should or should not be applied.” It’s less “Show me a quota and I’ll show you a failure” and more “These tools are limited, but I can’t bring myself to dismiss them.” (Read more from Art Professional.)
The New PhDs
American universities awarded a record number of doctorates in 2015—although the rate of growth in the number of PhD recipients continued a several-year decline. And the 55,006 recipients were more likely to be men and to be American citizens or permanent residents than they were the year before. Those are among the findings of the newest version of the federally supported Survey of Earned Doctorates, covering the year 2015. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
How to Fix the Art World, Part 4
Last August ARTnews embarked on an epic project: finding out what inhabitants of the art world think is wrong with their world and how they would fix it. In the ensuing months, the magazine spoke with more than fifty individuals—artists and curators, critics and historians, art dealers and an art-fair director—to gather a range of perspectives. (Read more from ARTnews.)
The Museum of the Present
What’s a museum? This is a question I have asked more than once in the New Criterion. It’s one this magazine has been asking since its first issue. And it’s one that I wish museums would ask more frequently of themselves. Because the answers are changing—through assumptions that are often unannounced, unacknowledged, and unexplored. (Read more from the New Criterion.)
Advice on Being Advised
It’s difficult to offer general advice on the adviser-advisee relationship because it varies so much—by discipline, professor, student, or institution. How friendly, how hierarchical, or how useful the relationship differs from one pair to the next. Still, there are some near-universal implicit rules that govern this relationship. More often than not, a student learns them the hard way. (Read more from Vitae.)
CAA Member Tour of Greece and Italy
posted by CAA — Dec 07, 2016
CAA is excited to announce an exclusive offer to its members to spend two weeks exploring the art and art history of Greece and Italy, from June 2 to June 11, 2017. The trip includes stops in Athens, Rome, and Florence. Hosted by CAA Executive Director and CEO, Hunter O’Hanian, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore these majestic cities with fellow CAA members and lovers of art.
Local tour guides in each city will lead the group through numerous cultural and historic sites, museums, and galleries. The tour begins in Athens, where highlights include the National Archaeological Museum, the Benaki Museum, Zappio Gardens, the Acropolis and museum, and the Museum of Cycladic Art. In Rome, the tour will visit the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Capitoline Museums, and the Borghese Gallery, among others. Ending in Florence, the tour will stop at the Duomo and Baptistery, Church of Santa Croce, Galleria dell’Accademia, Medici Chapels, Church of San Lorenzo, and the Uffizi Gallery.
Following Florence, you may choose to extend your trip to Venice where the 57th Venice Biennale will be taking place, May 13 through November 26, 2017.
For more information, including rates and a day-by-day tour itinerary, please download and review the Greece & Italy Art and Art History Tour brochure.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Dec 07, 2016
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.
Art Must Admit the Lesson of Donald Trump’s Election or Face Irrelevance
By now, the shock of Donald Trump’s election is fading, leaving only the horror. But we need to reckon with the shock if we are to combat the horror effectively. Since election night, the cultural sphere has valiantly rallied its opinion-leaders, declaring that art must join the fight against whatever terrors a Trump presidency has in store for us. (Read more from Artnet News.)
Professor Watchlist Is Seen as Threat to Academic Freedom
A new website that accuses nearly two hundred college professors of advancing “leftist propaganda in the classroom” and discriminating against conservative students has been criticized as a threat to academic freedom. The site, Professor Watchlist, says it names those instructors who “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.” (Read more from the New York Times.)
Activism and Professionalism in the Workplace
Activism to me was, by necessity, subtle. Once, one of my clients said something that made me think he was gay. To prove myself an ally, I wore a rainbow watch the next time I saw him. He saw it. Blushed. Looked away. I tell myself I helped him. Change comes slowly. One person can make a difference. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
The Urgency of Empathy and Social Impact in Museums
How we can start an empathy revolution in museums? How can we more fiercely recognize the meaningful work that museum professionals are doing to enact change around the relevant issues in our communities? How do we radically expand the work of museums in bringing people together and contributing to strong, resilient communities? (Read more from MuseumNext.)
Dealing with Difficult Art in Post-Election America
Over Thanksgiving weekend, an art exhibition at Salem State University was temporarily closed after a group of students complained that they found several of the works hurtful and offensive. After a closed-door meeting with fifty students, the university reopened the exhibition on November 30, but not before making “several modifications.” (Read more from the National Coalition against Censorship.)
How to Fix the Art World, Part 3
Last August ARTnews embarked on an epic project: finding out what inhabitants of the art world think is wrong with their world and how they would fix it. In the ensuing months, the magazine spoke with more than fifty individuals—artists and curators, critics and historians, art dealers and an art-fair director—to gather a range of perspectives. (Read more from ARTnews.)
Is the Destruction of Cultural Property a War Crime?
It is a settled principle in international law that the deliberate targeting or plundering of religious, historic, and cultural sites is prohibited during war. Prosecutors have discretion in the cases that they bring, but the law of war is clear about accountability in cases of cultural destruction. (Read more from Apollo.)
The Art Schools Fidel Castro Built—and Then Neglected
Designed by three architects, the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte were constructed in flamboyant, sinuous forms deliberately reflecting the local landscape. Built in brick and terracotta as a pragmatic response to the US embargo of imported steel and using the Catalan vault throughout, these were a confident repudiation of Western-style international modernism. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
New CAA Standards and Guidelines
posted by CAA — Dec 05, 2016
At the most recent meeting of CAA’s Board of Directors, which took place on October 23, 2016, the following statements and guidelines were revised and approved:
- Statement concerning the Acquisition of Cultural Properties Originating from Abroad, from Indigenous Cultures, and from Private Collections during the Nazi Era
- Guidelines for Museums or Other Not-For-Profit Visual-Arts Institutions Working with Artists on Exhibitions and Commissioned Works
- Guidelines regarding the Hiring of Guest Curators by Museums
- Guidelines regarding the Hiring of Catalogue Essayists
New in caa.reviews
posted by CAA — Dec 02, 2016
Sarah-Neel Smith reviews Walid Raad, an exhibition and catalogue produced by the Museum of Modern Art. The museum “should be applauded for its impeccable staging of this rich exhibition,” while the volume “will undoubtedly serve as the go-to resource on the artist for years to come,” despite being “colored by a set of historiographic problems that Raad himself works over in his artistic production.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Mark Alan Hewitt reads Lost Mansions: Essays on the Destruction of the Country House, a book of essays edited by James Raven. The publication “takes up the subject of how England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have dealt with the destruction of county houses during the past several decades,” noting that today’s keepers “must squarely face the reality of multiculturalism, diminishing resources, and indifferent politicians.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
Theresa Leininger-Miller discusses the catalogue Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, edited by Lowery Stokes Sims. Featuring one hundred works by African American artists, all of which were acquired by the museum over the past forty years, the “large, handsome” book “is part of a trend of museums publishing and showcasing their growing collections of African American art.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.
caa.reviews publishes over 150 reviews each year. Founded in 1998, the site publishes timely scholarly and critical reviews of studies and projects in all areas and periods of art history, visual studies, and the fine arts, providing peer review for the disciplines served by the College Art Association. Publications and projects reviewed include books, articles, exhibitions, conferences, digital scholarship, and other works as appropriate. Read more reviews at caa.reviews.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Nov 23, 2016
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.
Trump and the Arts: Evita, Huge Towers, and a Snub for Warhol
For the arts world, the question is essentially the same as the one being asked everywhere right now, across the political spectrum: “What will a President Donald J. Trump mean for me?” The answer from artists, museums, theaters, actors, writers, musicians, and the movie and television industry is: “Your guess is as good as mine.” (Read more from the New York Times.)
How to Fix the Art World, Part 1
Last August ARTnews embarked on an epic project: finding out what inhabitants of the art world think is wrong with their world and how they would fix it. In the ensuing months ARTnews spoke with more than fifty individuals—artists and curators, critics and historians, art dealers and an art-fair director—to gather a range of perspectives. (Read more from ARTnews.)
An Era for Women Artists?
Nearly half a century has passed since Linda Nochlin posed her question “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Now we face it again, as a new wave of all-women exhibitions revives the question and suggests a new answer. (Read more from the Atlantic.)
The Ballet of White Victimhood: On Jordan Wolfson, Petroushka, and Donald Trump
The white body, through its repetition in a history of art that is largely painted white itself, has become an easy and lazy signifier for a universal body, for a metaphorical body, one that becomes symbolic and slippery, that can always be more than its mere representation. The nonwhite body has greater difficulty in attaining this metaphorical bounty. (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)
“Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor”: Artists Space Steps out of Analysis and into Action
Amid all the election paraphernalia of the past few months, some bold stickers have been appearing across New York City. With white text on a red background, they demand: “Decolonize This Place.” At Artists Space Books and Talks, the home base of Decolonize This Place through December 17, the “source” is more complicated than any one person, location, or idea. (Read more from ARTnews.)
Thinking outside the Pipeline
Many faculty diversity initiatives are predicated on the pipeline theory: that getting more minority students to enroll in PhD programs eventually will lead to gains in numbers of professors from underrepresented backgrounds. The pipeline theory has long had its critics, who point to other problems within the academic recruitment, hiring, and retention system. A new study seeks to back up such criticisms with hard data. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Impostor Syndrome Is Definitely a Thing
Impostor syndrome is the feeling that you don’t belong—in graduate school or in your first academic or alt-ac job—and it’s more common that you might think. It makes people believe that they aren’t good enough, smart enough, or deserving enough. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Ugly Consequences of Complaining about “Students These Days”
Sometimes we do need to vent. It isn’t easy teaching students who don’t come to class prepared, seem to always want the easiest way, are prepared to cheat if necessary, don’t have good study skills, and aren’t interested in learning what we love to teach. At some point, though, venting morphs into complaining, and what we say about students becomes what we think about them. (Read more from Faculty Focus.)