CAA News Today
Kanwal Khalid: 2014 International Travel Grant Recipient
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — Apr 21, 2014
Kanwal Khalid was a participant in the 2014 CAA-Getty International Travel Grant Program. A professor of fine arts at University of the Punjab in Pakistan, she specializes in the history of South Asian art and design with a particular focus on miniature painting in nineteenth-century Lahore. Khalid is also a practicing miniature painter and former curator of paintings at the Lahore Museum. Below she describes her experiences at the 102nd Annual Conference in Chicago.
Just when you think you have seen it all, something turns up and surprises you with its novelty and magnitude. The College Art Association did just that when I attended its Annual Conference in Chicago last February. For me, it became more than attending a conference; it was the experience of a lifetime that changed many of my perspectives.
In Pakistan, art history has always been part of the academic study of fine arts, but now it has become an independent discipline in its own right. This is a relatively recent development, of which I have been a part, and art history is enjoying a high status for the first time in the history of Pakistan. But still it is a comparatively new field. When I came to the Chicago conference, it was a complete surprise to realize that thousands of people share the same passion. CAA and the Getty Foundation have caught a tiger by the tail that is growing fast and expanding everywhere.
The chill of Chicago and the layers of snow couldn’t mar the fiery passion of the scholars, students, artists, and art historians participating in the conference. Interactive sessions, exhibitions, bookstalls, art-supply booths—this was a completely magic world for me. To breathe in thoughts and objects that are the passion of my life was a real treat.
Another dimension of knowledge was listening to presentations by the other nineteen recipients of CAA’s International Travel Grant Program and realizing what wonderful work was going on in their countries regardless of all the challenges they face on daily basis, very similar to the situation in my own country.
Outside the grandeur of the Hilton Hotel, it was the world of museums and modern architecture. I really liked the friendly size of museums in Chicago, which were not as overwhelming as other institutions I have visited, where there’s always a sense of missing a lot even after seeing so much. In all the museums that I visited in Chicago, I was able to return to many of my favorite galleries more than once during the week.
And then a bad snowstorm hit just as we were departing Chicago for New York. Our destination was the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and I will not be exaggerating if I call it a researcher’s paradise. The library was a dream-come-true. The best part for me was being surrounded by mountains—the Berkshires were an enchanted land containing everything I could desire. Here, we raised questions, made suggestions, and challenged old concepts in a true scholarly approach.
The time passed too quickly, and we were saying goodbye to each other at Penn Station in New York City, with a hope that someday we will meet again. I traveled south to give a lecture in Delaware and then attend a meeting in Washington, DC. My experience at CAA turned out to be a great asset for these events, where I imparted my knowledge of South Asian art and culture with more confidence and vigor, especially during a briefing to the South Asian desk at the US State Department about the contemporary educational and cultural situation of Pakistan.
CAA’s 2014 Annual Conference was a life-changing event. Now I’m more confident about my research and teaching methodology because a comparison with other approaches helped me improve my own ways of doing things. I’m so very much looking forward to attending the conference next year.
After returning to Pakistan, I have talked with my students about the potential and scope of CAA and to encourage them to become members. This will give them an exposure to a world of dedicated art historians, enthusiastic academicians, and talented artists, with endless opportunities for those who have the judgment and ability to take advantage of them.
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Kanwal Khalid in Chicago.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Apr 16, 2014
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.
Dealing Direct: Do Artists Really Need Galleries?
When Haunch of Venison closed in 2013, the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos was left without a gallery in London or New York—the two cities where Haunch, which was bought by Christie’s in 2007, had spaces. Since her gallery closed, Vasconcelos’s career has been on an upward trajectory: she has represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale, unveiled public sculptures in Porto and Lisbon, and produced several new works for a retrospective at the Manchester Art Gallery. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Value/Labor/Arts: A Primer
“When is it okay to work for free? Is it acceptable as long as you’re working with—or for—another artist? What is an artistic service?” These are some of the questions raised by Shannon Jackson, director of the Arts Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, in her introduction to Art Practical’s latest issue, Valuing Labor. (Read more from Daily Serving.)
The Best Prospective Law Students Read Homer (and Study Art History)
Several years ago, Michael Nieswiadomy released a paper on the LSAT scores of economics majors. I thought I’d make some inquiries with LSAC for some data on this subject to follow up. Applicants to law schools who have degrees in classics placed first, and art-history majors came fourth. (Read more from Excess of Democracy.)
Low Expectations, High Stakes
More than half the nation’s most vulnerable college students are in courses taught by part-time, adjunct faculty members who lack the job security, credentials, and experience of full-time professors—as well as the campus support their full-time peers receive. Community colleges rely on part-time, “contingent” instructors to teach 58 percent of their courses, according to a new report. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Team-Based Learning for Art Historians
Recently two professors participated in a workshop on team-based learning at Brooklyn College, a process in which students are divided into permanent teams for the semester and work during class on activities based on readings. Team-based learning was developed by professors working with business and marketing majors in large lecture classes. While claims that students reportedly read and engage more are attractive, can this model be applied to an art-history class? (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)
Precocious Professionalism: An Academic Epidemic?
The job crisis facing young American PhDs today has an analogue in one earlier historical period: the situation of newly minted lawyers and physicians in early-nineteenth-century France. After the French Revolution abolished the guilds, regulation of recruitment ceased in not only artisanal crafts and mercantile trades but also faculties of law and medicine. As the number of law and medical students soared, employment prospects correspondingly diminished. (Read more from Perspectives on History.)
Insurer Solicits Offers for DIA Artwork; Several Billion-Dollar Bids Received
A group of major Detroit creditors said four investors have made tentative billion-dollar bids for the Detroit Institute of Arts—or key portions of its collection—in a move aimed at undercutting the city’s competing proposal to give the museum to a nonprofit in exchange for $816 million in outside funding that would help reduce pension cuts. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)
How to Avoid a Digital Boom and Bust
The Microsoft Corporation donated more than $1.5 million worth of software to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to upgrade its computer systems and help the museum put more of its collection online. Meanwhile, the Art Institute of Chicago will soon launch an app that transforms visitors’ smartphones into pocket-sized curators. Like many digital projects, the Art Institute’s app and the MFA Boston’s upgrades received a green light only because of external funding. But some experts worry about what will happen if and when grants for digital development diminish. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Join the Wyeth Publication Grant Jury
posted by CAA — Apr 03, 2014
CAA received a grant from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art to offer the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant for three additional years. The funding will allow CAA to award $40,000 in grants to publishers each year from 2014 to 2017. Wyeth grants support the publication of books on the history of American art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. For this program, “American art” is defined as art created in the United States, Canada, and Mexico through 1970. The program has supported thirty-nine books since 2005.
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations for two individuals with expertise in any branch of American art history, visual studies, or a related field to serve on the jury for the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant for a three-year term, July 1, 2014–June 30, 2017. Candidates must be actively publishing scholars with demonstrated seniority and achievement; institutional affiliation is not required.
Members review manuscripts and grant applications once a year and meet in New York in the fall to select awardees. CAA reimburses jury members for travel and lodging expenses in accordance with its travel policy.
Candidates must be current CAA members and should not currently serve on another CAA editorial board or committee. Jury members may not themselves apply for a grant in this program during their term of service. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name; self-nominations are also welcome. Please send a letter of interest describing your qualifications for appointment, a CV, and contact information to: Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or send all materials as email attachments to Alex Gershuny, CAA editorial manager. Deadline: May 10, 2014.
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Yale University Press received a Wyeth grant in 2012 to help publish Katherine Bussard’s book Unfamiliar Streets (2014).
Lilianne Lugo: 2014 International Travel Grant Recipient
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — Apr 01, 2014
After last month’s Annual Conference, recipients of CAA’s 2014 International Travel Grants were invited to contribute short articles reflecting on their experiences in Chicago. What follows is a personal reminiscence from Lilianne Lugo, an educator, administrator, and playwright based in Havana, Cuba. Lugo studies the relationship between the history of art and the history of theater, as well as the intersections of contemporary art practice and the performing arts. She is professor and vice dean of research and postgraduate studies at the Universidad de las Artes in Havana, Cuba.
Saudade
The persistence of melancholy. The persistence of the friends I have released to oblivion. The persistence of the memories of other cities, other people that I miss. I walk in an unknown city. I can barely breathe, it’s so cold. My best friend wrote me an email. “What are you doing?” he asks. “I miss you….” But when I wrote him back I can only send him a picture of my foot on the snow … it’s my way of embracing the spirit of life, my way of saying that I am seizing and enjoying the opportunities that suddenly emerge in our lives and change it forever. Just a few moments in life can be counted like that, and this is one of them.
First time in the snow. From the plane I can see the frozen ground. Behind I have left the unbearable heat of Havana and the noise of its streets. First time in Chicago. First time in the United States. First time at CAA’s conference. So many impressions, so many new people. I can write only in first person singular. I can’t speak for the others. I can’t talk about what I haven’t seen before.
For a couple of days the Hilton Chicago is invaded by hordes of art historians, artists, professors, and recruiters. It’s a huge event, and the whole city seems to inhale a whirlwind of art. Exhibitions, talks, panels, and informal gatherings that interrupt the rhythm of daily routines and establish a different understanding of reality. In a world of white ground, how to conjure the fire of masterpieces? How can we understand and explain (if that’s possible) from a warm and carpeted hotel the always ungraspable world of art and art history?
For twenty people each year, the College Art Association and the Getty Foundation make it possible to attend this conference. That means twenty people in the world receive a gift to come to the States and share and learn what we know about the art in our countries with colleagues from all over the US. This time the group is composed of people from Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, South Africa, Portugal, Poland, Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, Estonia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Croatia.
Some images of those days come to my mind: the day of the preconference, in which each of us presented a paper about our research, and the discussion afterward about so many different topics. Art Shay’s exhibition My Florence at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago that we, as a group, visited together. In the library of the college we saw the photographs and the artist himself. It was the story of his life, the little moments he shared with his wife and family, and it was so impressive to see him, with the energy and look that only years can bring. Or the exhibition at the DePaul Art Museum, The Sochi Project: An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus, about the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, and the environment of that particular area that, in the former days of Communism, was the recreational spot for Joseph Stalin. And then we walked with our graduate-student host to see the Lakeview neighborhood nearby. Or the meetings with so many bright and marvelous people….
Then, when the conference ended, another trip was waiting for us, to the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts. From the plane’s window we could see Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty; at LaGuardia airport we said goodbye to our fellow travel-grant recipient Mahmuda Khnam, who was feeling sick and couldn’t travel to Williamstown. We talked on the drive north and shared our opinions, we talked about everything: Brazilian soap operas, LGBT rights, curatorial practices, communism, incomes, outcomes, food, and snow. Then, a warm welcome at the Clark, a very special place in a beautiful setting where studying takes place in real luxury. Outside it snowed all day long, but inside the Clark was joyful and cozy, as we were received in that sanctuary of knowledge like kings and queens.
Now, in the sun again, I remember with joy the city of Chicago, the museums, the extraordinary collection of the Art Institute, the people of CAA, my fellow grant recipients, and, of course, all that I have learned about not only specific issues related to my research, but also the methodologies and approaches that many colleagues are currently using. I learned, too, about how things work in the professional world of art and art history in the United States.
I began this essay talking about melancholy. It’s the feeling I get when I think about those moments during CAA’s conference. Portuguese had a beautiful word to describe it: saudade. And that would be the best word, because even in Spanish nostalgia or melancolía are not the same. I cherish those moments. While I am thinking about what lies ahead, I am eager to come back and share with my new colleagues the fruits of another year of work.
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Lilianne Lugo.
Millard Meiss Publication Fund Seeks Two Jury Members
posted by CAA — Mar 27, 2014
CAA seeks nominations and self-nominations from two individuals with specializations in medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque art to serve on the jury for the Millard Meiss Publication Fund for a four-year term, July 1, 2014–June 30, 2018. Candidates must be actively publishing scholars with demonstrated seniority and achievement; institutional affiliation is not required.
The Meiss jury awards grants twice a year to support the publication of book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. CAA reimburses jury members for travel and lodging expenses in accordance with its travel policy.
Candidates must be current CAA members and should not be serving on another CAA editorial board or committee. Jury members may not themselves apply for a grant in this program during their term of service. Nominators should ascertain their nominee’s willingness to serve before submitting a name; self-nominations are also welcome. Please send a letter describing your interest in and qualifications for appointment, a CV, and contact information to: Millard Meiss Publication Fund Jury, College Art Association, 50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004; or send all materials as email attachments to Alex Gershuny, CAA editorial manager. Deadline: May 10, 2014.
2014 International Travel Grant Recipients Attend the Chicago Conference
posted by Janet Landay, Program Manager, Fair Use Initiative — Mar 10, 2014
This year’s recipients of CAA’s International Travel Grants arrived in Chicago on Sunday, February 9, a few days in advance of the Annual Conference. Although the temperature outside was freezing, the mood among the program’s participants was considerably warmer due to their enthusiasm and friendliness. Funded by a generous grant from the Getty Foundation, the grantees (as pictured above from left to right) included: Katerina Gadjeva (Bulgaria), Freeborn Odiboh (Nigeria), Susana S. Martins (Portugal), Kanwal Khalid (Pakistan); Magdalena Nowak (Poland), Adriana Oprea (Romania), Cezar Bartholomeu (Brazil), Daria Kostina (Russia), Eddie Butindo-Mbaalya (Uganda); Lilianne Lugo Herrera (Cuba), Laris Borić (Croatia), Josefina de la Maza Chevesich (Chile), Fernando Martinez Nespral (Argentina), Portia Malatjie (South Africa), Mahmuda Khnam (Bangladesh), Rael Artel (Estonia); Ahmed Wahby (Egypt), Hugues Heumen Tchana (Cameroon), Heba Nayel Barakat Hassanein (Malaysia), and Eric Appau Asante (Ghana). For some, it was their first visit to the United States; for all, it was their first to Chicago and to a CAA Annual Conference.
Now in its third year, CAA’s International Travel Grant Program aims to bring a more diverse and global perspective to the study of art history by generating international scholarly exchange. Over time, the program will build CAA’s international membership and strengthen its connections to an increasingly global art community. The international travel grant recipients were selected by a jury of CAA members from over one hundred applicants based on the following criteria: all had to be art history professors, artists who teach art history, or museum curators with advanced degrees in art or art history; they had to be from countries not well represented in CAA’s membership; and they had to demonstrate that attending the conference would significantly support or strengthen their work.
With additional support from the National Committee for the History of Art (NCHA), several CAA members—including members of its board of directors and International Committee and representatives from NCHA—took part in the visitors’ activities throughout the conference week, serving as hosts and/or participants in a preconference session about international topics in art history. This year graduate students from Chicago-area universities also participated to assist the grant recipients in visiting museums and galleries around town. Through informal conversations, excursions, and meals, these CAA members introduced grantees to colleagues in their fields, advised them about conference activities, and exchanged information about the practice of art history in their countries. For many, the week’s activities marked the beginning of new friendships and scholarly collaborations, to be continued in various countries around the world and at future CAA conferences.
A highlight of this year’s program was the full-day preconference about International Topics in Art History held on Tuesday, February 11, 2014. Each of the grant recipients gave presentations about their work, addressing topics such as art and national identity, international issues in contemporary art, cross-cultural influences on artistic styles, and curriculum reassessments of art historical training. The talks featured a wide range of art, from Renaissance arches to Islamic-Hispanic domestic architecture, from communist-era paintings in Poland and Russia to contemporary art in Estonia, South Africa, and Malaysia. Following the presentations, Rick Asher, professor of art history at the University of Minnesota, led a lively discussion that further explored these topics and related issues about how art history is practiced in different parts of the world. Joining him were Professors Mark Cheetham (University of Toronto), Jennifer Milam (University of Sydney), Steven Nelson (UCLA), and museum curator Joanne Pillsbury (Metropolitan Museum of Art).
“The diversity of the grantees was astonishing, and their respective self-introductions brought very much to the meeting. It was clear that nobody had had such opportunities of meeting colleagues from so many distant cultures and countries as we did that day.”
–Eva Forgacs, professor of Russian and Central European art history and a host for this year’s program
Later in the week, grantees attended a session sponsored by CAA’s International Committee entitled Topics in Global Art History: Historical Connections. The first in a series of sessions on global art history, this year’s panel included presentations by two former grant recipients, Shao-Chien Tseng (Taiwan) and Trinidad Perez (Ecuador). The goal going forward is to solicit proposals for papers from former grantees to reinforce connections between them and CAA members.
CAA’s International Committee remained centrally involved in planning this year’s travel grant program. We are particularly grateful to Ann Albritton, outgoing chair of the committee, for her enthusiastic support. In addition to co-organizing the session on Topics in Global Art History (with committee member Gwen Farrelly), Ann offered guidance on program plans, lined up several hosts, and served as an energetic host herself.
At the close of the week’s activities, grant recipients and hosts met again to report on what they had learned and how it will impact their work in the future. Several discussed preliminary plans to co-organize meetings, guest curate exhibitions, and/or arrange guest lectures at each other’s universities. Their experiences were well-summarized by Laris Borić, who wrote after he returned home:
Personally I was deeply impacted by the enthusiasm and dedication of some of the speakers at the conference, CAA staff and my fellow grant recipients. As I have already said in one of the debates, awareness that we all share a common passion and dedication towards research and teaching made me feel I belong to a common tribe or nation made of art historians wherever they come from.
–Laris Borić, professor of Renaissance art and architecture and grant recipient from Croatia
Image Captions
First: 2014 CAA International Travel Grant Recipients (left to right): Katerina Gadjeva (Bulgaria), Freeborn Odiboh (Nigeria), Susana S. Martins (Portugal), Kanwal Khalid (Pakistan); Magdalena Nowak (Poland), Adriana Oprea (Romania), Cezar Bartholomeu (Brazil), Daria Kostina (Russia), Eddie Butindo-Mbaalya (Uganda); Lilianne Lugo Herrera (Cuba), Laris Borić (Croatia), Josefina de la Maza Chevesich (Chile), Fernando Martinez Nespral (Argentina), Portia Malatjie (South Africa), Mahmuda Khnam (Bangladesh), Rael Artel (Estonia); Ahmed Wahby (Egypt), Hugues Heumen Tchana (Cameroon), Heba Nayel Barakat Hassanein (Malaysia), Eric Appau Asante (Ghana) (photograph by Bradley Marks).
Second: Joanne Pillsbury and Eric Asante (photograph by Bradley Marks).
Third: Fernando Martinez Nespral and Mahmuda Khnam (photograph by Bradley Marks).
Fourth: Deborah Marrow from the Getty Foundation talks with grant recipients at a reception following the preconference (left to right): Eddie Butindo-Mbaalya, Cesar Bartholomeu, Hugues Heumen Tchana, Freeborn Odiboh, Eric Appau Asante (photograph by Bradley Marks).
Affiliated Society News for March 2014
posted by CAA — Mar 09, 2014
American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (JAIC) is being celebrated by Maney Publications as its Journal of the Month. All access restrictions on three years’ worth of journal content are being lifted until February 15, 2014. Go to http://www.maneyonline.com/page/jotm/jac to learn more. You will find:
- Commentaries on the conservation of textiles, archaeological artifacts, and electronic media, as well as a commentary on sustainability and a review of the archive
- Video interviews with Michele Derrick (editor-in-chief) and Pamela Hatchfield (AIC board president)
- “Best of the Archive”: ten articles handpicked by the editor that are free to download
- 20 percent discount on institutional subscriptions
Foundations in Art: Theory and Education
The Herron School of Art and Design, part of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), will host “Tectonic Shifts,” the thirty-fifth biennial national conference of Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) in Indianapolis, Indiana, March 25–28, 2015. As the title of the conference, “Tectonic Shifts” suggests, participants will be examining how the forces of change are shaping the foundations landscape. FATE is interested in hearing from foundations faculty and programs that are breaking new ground with their teaching practices. The Herron School of Art and Design looks forward to being the conference host and introducing attendees to its great city.
Glass Art Society
The forty-third annual conference of the Glass Art Society (GAS), titled “Strengthening Community, Collaboration, Forging New Bonds,” will be held March 19–22, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City is second to none when it comes to a thriving, diverse cultural scene: it is home to renowned architecture, public art displays, galleries, museums, and colleges, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Millennium Park. GAS will hosts its conference at well-known venues such as the historic Palmer House Hotel and the Chicago Cultural Center, both centrally located in the heart of downtown. GAS will partner with a new addition to Chicago’s flourishing art scene, Ignite Glass Studios, located in the West Loop neighborhood. Hot glass, flame working, and cold working will be showcased in this state-of-the-art learning center. The second demo site is West Supply, a unique facility that joins glass production with a foundry, which casts concrete and metals for many notable collections in the high-end design, interiors, and gallery markets.
View the complete list of presentations. GAS will also be hosting special conference events such as the preconference reception, live and silent auction, Goblet Grab, gallery hop, an international student exhibition, and a closing night party. For additional information about the conference schedule and to register, visit the website.
Italian Art Society
The Italian Art Society (IAS) is delighted to announce the selection of the fifth annual IAS/Kress Lecturer in Italy: Jean Cadogan, professor of fine arts at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, who will speak on “‘Maravigliose istorie:’ The Mural Decoration of the Camposanto in Pisa.” Cadogan will share her intriguing work on the multiphase, comprehensive program of painting on the walls of the Camposanto in a presentation on May 27, 2014, in Pisa. IAS is happy to establish a link with a respected Italian university, as the lecture will take place in the Gipsoteca of the Università di Pisa. Mark your calendars to visit Pisa if you are in Italy in late May! More details to follow on the IAS website. In addition, please look at the organization’s website for details about the five IAS-sponsored sessions and a reception that IAS hopes to host at the upcoming Renaissance Society of America meeting in New York on March 27–29, 2014.
Leonardo Education and Art Forum
The chair of Leonardo Education and Art Forum (LEAF), Adrienne Klein of the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has announced the election of two new chairs-elect. Klein will be immediately succeeded by David Familian, who is artistic director of the Beall Center for Art and Technology at the University of California, Irvine. Familian will then be succeeded in 2015 by the newly elected Suzanne Anker and in 2016 by J. D. Talasek.
Anker is a visual artist and theorist working at the intersection of art and biology in a variety of media ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. She is chair of the Fine Arts Department in the School of Visual Arts in New York. Talasek is director of cultural programs of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, which explores the intersections of science, medicine, technology, and visual culture. For the past three years, Talasek has organized and moderated DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous events in Washington, DC, in collaboration with Leonardo/ISAST.
Midwest Art History Society
The Midwest Art History Society (MAHS) will hold its forty-first annual conference in Saint Louis, Missouri, from April 3 to 5, 2014. In addition to more than twenty scholarly sessions, conference activities will include a special viewing of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis and a curator-led tour of Impressionist France at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, will offer the keynote address. For more information about the conference and access to online registration forms, please visit the MAHS website.
National Council of Arts Administrators
The forty-second annual meeting of the National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA) convenes September 23–26, 2014, in Nashville, Tennessee, hosted by Vanderbilt University.
Yes is a world
and in this world of yes…e.e. Cummings
(creativity in the expanding field)
The world is the new studio. Artists are involved in an ever-expanding production involving constituents beyond the art world and marketplace. As educational institutions, how do we respond to this massive shift in artistic attitude? Is there a balance between standard nineteenth- and twentieth-century production and the new twenty-first-century practice centered on global and social interconnectedness? This conference will investigate art’s expanding field by exploring the influences of globalization, art education, and integrated practice. Participants will consider their role as educators of creativity, how they influence our institutions, and their effect on local and world communities. Speakers include: Richard Lloyd, author of Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post Industrial City; David Owens, author of Creative People Must Be Stopped! Six Ways We Stop Innovation (without Even Trying); and Steven Tepper, author of Not Here, Not Now, Not That! Protest over Art and Culture in America.Visit the NCAA website to learn more about this conference and to join the organization.
Public Art Dialogue
Established in 2009, the Public Art Dialogue (PAD) award for achievement in the field of public art is given annually to an individual whose contributions have greatly influenced public art practice. Awardees are chosen from nominations made by PAD members. Award winners receive a three-year PAD membership, which includes a subscription to the journal and all other membership benefits. Each year, the recipient accepts the award at a ceremony during the CAA Annual Conference, at which he or she makes a special presentation open to the public. Nominations for the 2015 award are due on May 1, 2014. Past winners have been Suzanne Lacy, Mary Jane Jacob, Anne Pasternak, Ben Rubin, and Penny Balkin Bach. Jack Becker is the 2014 recipient. For more information see http://publicartdialogue.org/award.
Society for Photographic Education
Each spring, Society for Photographic Education (SPE) hosts a conference for the presentation of artistic work and research to a community of peers. “Atmospheres: Climate, Equity and Community in Photography,” SPE’s fifty-second national conference, will be held from March 12–15, 2015, in New Orleans, Louisiana. SPE is accepting proposals for the 2015 conference from March 6 to June 1, 2014. Topics are not required to be theme based and may include (but are not limited to): imagemaking, history, contemporary theory and criticism, new technologies, effects of media and culture, educational issues, and funding. SPE membership is required to submit and proposals are peer reviewed. The presentation formats are:
- Graduate Student: short presentation of your own artistic work and a brief introduction to your graduate program
- Imagemaker: presentation of your own artistic work (photography, film, video, performance and installation, multidisciplinary approaches)
- Lecture: presentation of a historical topic, theory, or another artist’s work
- Panel: group led by a moderator to discuss a chosen topic
- Teaching: presentations, workshops, demos that address educational issues, including teaching resources and strategies; curricula to serve diverse artists and changing student populations; seeking promotion and tenure; avoiding burnout, and professional exchange
Visit the SPE website for information on SPE membership and full proposal guidelines
Society for the Study of Early Modern Women
The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (SSEMW) held its annual meeting at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 2013. The results of the election of new officers were announced. Megan Matchinske, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, stepped into the office of president, which was vacated by Jane Couchman, emerita of the Department of French and Women’s Studies at York University in Glendon, Canada. A full list of the new officers will be available shortly on the SSEMW website.
An excerpt from Jane Couchman’s letter to the society’s membership at the close of her term as president in 2013:
The highlights of this year were our meetings at SCSC in San Juan, and especially the talk given jointly by Susan Amussen and Allyson Poska, “Shifting the Frame: Trans-imperial approaches to Gender in the Atlantic World,” a topic chosen to mark our presence in Puerto Rico. The large and enthusiastic audience found their gendered, collaborative, transnational, transatlantic approach relevant and exciting. Susan and Allyson modeled the best of the kind of scholarship that SSEMW encourages, and that we hope to offer to early modern scholarship more generally. The Society’s principal work is very visible and we can all be proud of it: Co-sponsored Sessions (17 panels at 6 different conferences in 2013), the Annual Meeting, Reception and Plenary talk, Travel grants to graduate students (5 each year), the slate of Nominations, the Awards for scholarly work (http://ssemw.org/2013-award-winners/), the SSEMW website and Listserv, our support for Early Modern Women, an Interdisciplinary Journal, our collaboration with Attending to Early Modern Women.
Society of Architectural Historians
Registration is open for the Society of Architectural Historians’ annual conference (#SAH2014), taking place April 9–13, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency Austin in Austin, Texas. The conference offers thirty-five paper sessions along with public programming that includes twenty-one guided architectural tours and the SAH Austin Seminar, “Austin and the Place of Historic Architecture in Rapidly Growing Cities.” Please visit sah.org/2014 for more information on the conference, including a complete schedule of events and how to register.
The call for papers for the 2015 conference in Chicago (April 15–19) opens on April 16, 2014. For abstract submission instructions, visit sah.org/2015.
Registration is open for the Croatia Study Tour, a land-and-cruise program tailored for architecture professionals and enthusiasts that will take place August 18–29, 2014. This customized tour from Sarajevo to Venice along the Adriatic Coast, developed by Boris Srdar, will include visits to UNESCO World Heritage sites, exclusive access to landmark buildings as well as those off the beaten path, and admission to the Venice Biennale on August 30. A fellowship is available for this program. To register, visit sah.org/study-tours.
Buildings of Vermont, the latest volume in the Buildings of the United States series, is now available.
Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture
Following elections in January, the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) has updated its by-laws and added two new officers: Tamara Jhashi is now SHERA’s listserv administrator, a role she has filled since 2004, and Ksenya Gurshtein is web news editor. Joining SHERA’s board as members-at-large are Anna Novakov, Andrea Rusnock, and Nicolas Iljine, as well as one returning member, Eva Forgacs.
At CAA’s Annual Conference in Chicago, Eva Forgacs served as host to visitors from Eastern Europe and Russia who were part of CAA’s International Travel Grant Program. Along with the visitors, Forgacs participated in a full-day preconference program organized by the CAA International Committee about international issues in art history, as well as other events throughout the conference itself.
SHERA is delighted to welcome three new institutional members: the Kolodzei Art Foundation, which promotes the contemporary art of Russia and the former Soviet Union through exhibitions and grants; the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, the largest private collection of Russian icons in North America; and the M. T. Abraham Foundation, a collection of Russian and European modern art.
Southeastern College Art Conference
The Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) will meet October 8–11, 2014, in Sarasota, Florida, hosted by the Ringling College of Art and Design. Submissions for the annual juried exhibition is April 1, 2014. The deadline for the call for papers is April 20, 2014. For more information, visit SECAC’s conference page.
Future conferences will be held: October 21–24, 2015 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); October 19–22, 2016 Virginia Tech (Roanoke, Virginia); 2017 (dates TBA) Columbus College of Art and Design (Columbus, Ohio).
SECAC has introduced a new award, the William R. Levin Award for Research in the History of Art. Thanks to the generosity of William R. Levin, professor emeritus at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, SECAC will offer an award of an annual total of $5000 to one or more art historians who are members of the organization. Levin has been a member of SECAC since 1987; served on the Board of Directors; published in the scholarly journal, Southeastern College Art Conference Review; received the SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication in 2004; and has been recognized with two of the organization’s highest honors, the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Exemplary Achievement Award. Deadline for applicants: March 1, 2014.
The deadline for a $5,000 SECAC Artist’s Fellowship is August 1, 2014.
Visual Resources Association
The Visual Resources Association’s thirty-second annual conference will be held March 12–15, 2014, at the historic Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Take a moment to view the full schedule. Selected highlights are:
- Sessions and case studies covering topics such as collaborative practices amongst traditional and nontraditional disciplines within archival and special collections, international copyright and resources, broadening professional roles, management of moving image collections, basic and advanced (RDF and LOD) cataloging procedures, DAM implementation, expanding VRA Core 4 capabilities, personal digital archiving
- Opening speaker, Philip Yenawine, cofounding director of Visual Thinking Strategies
- Tours of Harley-Davidson Museum and Design Archive and Lakefront Brewery
- Networking opportunities provided by Birds of a Feather Lunches throughout the conference and the Sponsors’ Meet and Greet and Poster Presentations
- Members and Awards Dinner
- Informative workshops (many free for conference registrants)
- Unwind with colleagues at the Drink ‘n’ Draw with Stephanie Barenz (Pfister Hotel’s artist in residence).
- Closing speaker Matthew Israel, director of the Art Genome Project at Artsy
The online conference schedule allows for sign up/log in via SCHED to connect with social-media sites, create custom schedules, and share interests with fellow attendees. Search for “vra32.sched.org“ on your mobile device to download the schedule.
Report on the 2014 Annual Conference
posted by Nia Page — Feb 28, 2014
CAA hosted its 102nd Annual Conference from February 12 to 15, 2014, at the Hilton Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. This year’s program included four days of presentations and panel discussions on art history and visual culture, Career Services for professionals at all stages of their careers, a Book and Trade Fair, and a host of special events throughout the region. Preceding the Annual Conference was CAA’s second THATCamp, an “unconference” on digital art history that took place at Columbia College Chicago.
Attendance
Over 4,000 people from throughout the United States and abroad—including artists, art historians, students, educators, curators, critics, collectors, and museum staff—attended the conference. Visual-arts professionals from over 43 countries were represented at the conference.
Sessions
Conference sessions featured presentations by artists, scholars, graduate students, and curators who addressed a range of topics in art history and the visual arts. In total, the conference offered over 200 sessions, developed by CAA members, affiliated societies, and committees. Approximately 800 individuals presented their work.
Career Services
Career Services included four days of mentoring and portfolio-review sessions, professional-development workshops, and job interviews with colleges, universities, and other art institutions. Approximately 240 interviewees and 47 mentors participated in Career Services. During the week of the Annual Conference, there were 165 active jobs posted on the Online Career Center and 56 employers participating onsite.
Book and Trade Fair
This year’s Book and Trade Fair presented 108 exhibitors—including participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico, and Germany—that displayed new publications, materials for artists, digital resources, and other innovative products of interest to artists, scholars, and arts enthusiasts. The Book and Trade Fair also featured book signings, lectures, and demonstrations, as well as three exhibitor-sponsored program sessions on art materials and publishing.
ARTspace
ARTspace, a “conference within the conference” tailored to the needs and interests of practicing artists, presented programming that was free and open to the public, including this year’s Annual Distinguished Artist Interview with Kay Rosen. Over three hundred people attended this lively event. The scheduled interview with William Pope.L was unfortunately cancelled due to inclement weather.
ARTspace also featured four days of panel discussions devoted to visual-arts practice, opportunities for professional development, and screenings of film and video.
ARTexchange, an open-portfolio event in which CAA artist members displayed drawings, prints, photographs, small paintings, and works on laptop computers, took place on Friday, February 14. Nearly 40 artists participated in ARTexchange this year.
The Media Lounge, a space for innovative new-media programming in conjunction with ARTspace, presented the UncommonCommons project. UncommonCommons was an incubator for skills and knowledge-sharing that responded to the themes of the commons and “commoning.” The project included a series of workshops, film and video screenings, public discussions, and provocations by a range of international artists, filmmakers, activists, art critics, curators, educators, lawyers, and ethnographers.
Programmed by CAA’s Services to Artists Committee, ARTspace was made possible in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge
The Student and Emerging Professionals Lounge served as a hub for networking, information- sharing, collaboration, professional development, and much more. The Student and Emerging Professionals Committee hosted an incredibly informative session on “Teaching Professional Practices in the Arts” to a packed audience; five Brown Bag Sessions with attendance ranging from 25 to 60; a successful, first-ever social night; and two days of Mock Interviews at full capacity.
The SEP Lounge was sponsored by Wix.com. Wix workshops were held daily at the Annual Conference to captive audiences. Wix empowers creatives and entrepreneurs to build their own website—without having to write a single line of code.
Distinguished Scholar Session
Wanda M. Corn, professor emerita of art history at Stanford University, was CAA’s 2014 Distinguished Scholar. Corn was honored during a special session, sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw of the University of Pennsylvania chaired the session and five additional participants—Lanier Graham, Cécile Whiting, Richard Meyer, Ellen Wiley Todd, and Tirza Latimer—joined Shaw in exploring and celebrating Corn’s many contributions to American art.
Convocation and Awards
More than 400 people attended CAA’s Convocation and presentation of the annual Awards for Distinction, which honor the outstanding achievements and accomplishments of individual artists, art historians, authors, conservators, curators, and critics whose efforts transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large. Jessica Stockholder of the University of Chicago delivered the keynote address. Video of her presentation will be posted on CAA’s website and YouTube page in the coming weeks.
The recipients of the 2014 awards are:
- Yvonne Rainer, Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
- Kay Rosen, Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work
- John Berger, Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
- T. J. Demos, Frank Jewett Mather Award
- Lorraine O’Grady, Distinguished Feminist Award
- Yukio Lippit, Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
- Jeff L. Rosenheim, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
- Peter C. Sturman and Susan S. Tai, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
- Reni Gower, Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
- Margaretta M. Lovell and W. J. T. Mitchell, Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
- Glenn Wharton, CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
- Sascha Scott, Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize
- Jeanne Dunning, Art Journal Award
The recipients of the 2014 Professional-Development Fellowships are:
Professional-Development Fellowships in the Visual Arts:
- Roberta Gentry, University at Albany, State University of New York
- Jaime Knight, University of Iowa
- Liss LaFleur’, Emerson College
- Patrick Segura, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Valentina Vella, Columbia College Chicago
Professional-Development Fellowships in Art History:
- Maggie M. Cao, Harvard University
- Michelle Maydanchik, University of Chicago
Honorable Mentions in the Visual Arts:
- Ann Bartges, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- Rachael Lynn Davis, Colorado State University
- Michelle Young Lee, New York University
Honorable Mentions in Art History
- Lacey Baradel, University of Pennsylvania
- Karlyn Griffith, Florida State University
Board Election and Member Vote
Results of the Board of Directors election were announced on February 14, 2014, during the Annual Members’ Business Meeting. The new directors are:
- Helen C. Frederick, Professor, School of Art and Design, George Mason University
- Gunalan Nadarajan, Professor and Dean, Stamps School of Art and Design, University of Michigan
- Dannielle Tegeder, Associate Professor of Art, Art Department, Lehman College, City University of New York
- David C. Terry, Director of Programs and Curator, New York Foundation for the Arts
They will take office at the next board meeting in May 2014.
CAA’s membership also voted in favor of an amendment to the By-laws. The board believes that this change will benefit members and sustain the services that CAA provides. The amendment also provides for flexibility in enabling CAA to make further changes to the membership structure as may be deemed desirable in the future.
Special Events
Following Convocation, the Art Institute of Chicago hosted CAA’s Opening Reception on Wednesday evening, February 12. Over 600 attendees gathered to celebrate the conference while enjoying a stroll through the Art Institute’s Modern Wing.
CAA celebrated its copublishing partnership with Routledge, Taylor & Francis, with a reception and champagne toast at the CAA booth in the Book and Trade Fair on Friday afternoon.
International Travel Grant Program
The highlight of this year’s CAA International Travel Grant Program was a full-day preconference on Tuesday, February 11, 2014. The grant recipients, who came from 20 countries from around the world, gave presentations about their work, addressing topics such as art and national identity, international issues in contemporary art, cross-cultural influences on artistic styles, and curriculum reassessments of art-historical training. The talks featured a wide range of art, from Renaissance arches to Islamic-Hispanic domestic architecture, from communist-era paintings in Poland and Russia to contemporary art in Estonia, South Africa, and Malaysia. Following the presentations, Rick Asher, professor of art history at the University of Minnesota, led a stimulating discussion that further explored the above topics as well as the differences in how art history is practiced around the world. This is the third year of the International Travel Grant Program, funded by the Getty Foundation. Additional support for the program was provided by the National Committee for the History of Art.
Online Presence
Digital media were used in a number of creative ways to expand the reach of Annual Conference programming and encourage greater interactivity:
- Thanks to the sponsorship of Golden Artist Colors, select conference sessions were filmed and will be posted to CAA’s YouTube page in the coming weeks
- Informational preconference Google+ Hangout and Q&A currently has 753 views
- A free mobile app helped attendees navigate the conference. The app was downloaded 1,186 times
- Columbia College Chicago students hosted the conference blog, reporting on panels, receptions, exhibitions, and participant experience
- ARTspace organized Art2Make, an exhibition of 3D printed art
- Renowned blog and podcast Bad at Sports recorded a podcast onsite at the conference
Other Exciting Highlights
- CAA released and distributed a Fair Use Issues Report and held a discussion about the ongoing fair-use project. Video from the fair-use session will be posted to CAA’s YouTube page in the coming weeks.
- Unscheduled performance art enlivened the Hilton Chicago during the Annual Conference
Thank You
Members of CAA’s Board of Directors and staff would like to extend their gratitude to all conference funders and sponsors, attendees, volunteers, and participants; the organization’s committees and award juries; the Hilton Chicago staff; Choose Chicago; the museums and galleries that opened their doors to conference attendees free of charge; and everyone else involved in helping to make the 102nd Annual Conference such a tremendous success!
A warm thanks to the following for their generous support of CAA:
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
- Art in America
- Artstor
- Blick Art Materials
- Burlington Magazine
- Columbia College Chicago
- David L. Klein Jr. Foundation
- Getty Foundation
- Golden Artist Colors
- Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Arts
- National Committee for the History of Art
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Pearson
- Prestel
- Samuel H. Kress Foundation
- School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Terra Foundation for the Arts
- Wix
- Wyeth Foundation for American Art
Save the Date
CAA’s 103rd Annual Conference will be held in New York City, February 11–14, 2015.
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, websites, and other events. CAA focuses on a wide range of 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.
Apply for a Publishing Grant from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund
posted by CAA — Feb 27, 2014
CAA is accepting applications for spring 2014 grants through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund. Thanks to a generous bequest by the late art historian Millard Meiss, the twice-yearly program supports book-length scholarly manuscripts in any period of the history of art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy.
The publisher, rather than the author, must submit the application to CAA. Awards are made at the discretion of the jury and vary according to merit, need, and number of applications. Awardees are announced six to eight weeks after the deadline. For the complete guidelines, application forms, and a grant description, please visit the Meiss section of the CAA website or send an email to nyoffice@collegeart.org. Deadline: March 15, 2014.
Image Caption
Bibiana K. Obler’s book Intimate Collaborations: Kandinsky and Münter, Arp and Taeuber won a Meiss grant in fall 2012.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Feb 26, 2014
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.
Orr’s Plan Would Protect DIA Artwork, but It’s Not a Done Deal Yet
The fate of the Detroit Institute of Arts remains in limbo in the wake of the recent release of Kevyn Orr’s restructuring plan for Detroit’s finances. While Orr’s plan incorporates the fundamentals of a much-talked-about deal to prevent the forced sale of any masterpieces and to separate the city-owned museum into an independent charitable trust, several critical steps remain before a final settlement would guarantee the museum safe harbor in Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)
Photographers Band Together to Protect Work in “Fair Use” Cases
To many photographers, a federal appeals court ruling last spring that permitted Richard Prince to use someone else’s photographs in his art was akin to slapping a “Steal This” label on their work, but photographers are pushing back. Several membership and trade organizations have banded together recently to press their cause in Congress and the courts. (Read more from the New York Times.)
No Longer Appropriate?
“Appropriating” other artists’ work without consent is still common, but there is growing evidence—albeit rarely reported—that, although some artists may have started out as willing or unwitting outlaws, they decided that possibly infringing other artists’ copyright was legally unwise and potentially expensive, and they stopped. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Protest Action Erupts inside the Guggenheim Museum
Last weekend, over forty protesters staged an intervention inside the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan during Saturday night’s pay-what-you-wish admission hours. Unfurling Mylar banners, dropping leaflets, chanting words, handing out information to museum visitors, and drawing attention with a baritone bugle, the group highlighted the labor conditions on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates, where Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a franchise of New York’s Guggenheim, is being built. (Read more from ArtLeaks.)
Eminent Domain
A gallery’s street address says a lot more than its web address. We’ll assume that a gallery at 555 West 24th Street in Chelsea sells more expensive art, represents more well-known artists, and is more influential on the market than, say, the residential address of an artist-run apartment gallery in Bed Stuy. A web address can’t connote this same kind of prestige differential. There are no neighborhoods on the internet, and the cost of rent is always somewhere from $1 to $15 a month. (Read more from the New Inquiry.)
People Lose Their Minds over Obama’s Art History Apology
President Barack Obama’s apology to the art historian Ann Collins Johns has created a frenzy of media coverage, including some inexplicably strange responses. When was the last time you heard art history discussed in mainstream news publications and news channels? Crickets. Exactly. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)
In Defense of Art History: Against the Neoliberal Imagination
Obama’s recent statement about art-history majors echoes a crude opinion of the American ruling class—all that is not of immediate and utilitarian interest to the profit system is to be shunned—and underlines a common conception of education and culture and highlights the ongoing onslaught on the humanities and liberal arts. The corporate education model being pushed heavily on public schools, state universities, and city colleges—schools that serve students from largely working-class and poor backgrounds—grants little weight to these subjects. (Read more from Red Wedge.)
The End of the Corcoran Gallery of Art
If the Corcoran Gallery of Art had to be swallowed up by a larger and healthier institution to survive, we might celebrate last week’s announcement that its collection will be devoured by the National Gallery of Art. The National Gallery is hands down the most prestigious and respected steward of fine art in Washington, and its reputation is international. But this is not a swallowing of the Corcoran—this is the end of the Corcoran and its final dismemberment. (Read more from the Washington Post.)