CAA News Today

Affiliated Society News for September 2011

posted by CAA — Sep 09, 2011

American Council for Southern Asian Art

The fifteenth biennial symposium of the American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) will take place at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis from September 22 to 25, 2011. The engaging event will feature speakers presenting a wide range of papers on historical and contemporary art from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan region. Please direct any questions about the symposium to Rick Asher at the University of Minnesota. You may download a PDF of the full program, registration, and related information.

American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works

The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) has published a second edition of The AIC Guide to Digital Photography and Conservation Documentation. The text has been updated since its first publication in 2008 to include recommendations for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and an expanded chapter on storage and backup of electronic records. The second edition is also fully illustrated with over 120 color plates, including detailed screenshot instructions for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. This remarkable resource, nearly doubled in size, is available online for $60 (AIC members) and $75 (nonmembers).

Art Historians Interested in Pedagogy and Technology

The new website of Art Historians Interested in Pedagogy and Technology (AHPT), launched in August 2011, allows members to share and use technological resources for education in the visual arts. Projects, publications, and conference information are also available. New members may join via PayPal in order to access this abundance of resources and to contribute to the expanding conversation about technology in the classroom.

AHPT will participate in the upcoming Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), taking place November 9–12, 2011, at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. AHPT’s session, called “Reflections on Where We Are and Where We Are Going with Technology in the Art History Classroom,” will consider integrating technologies into established lecture courses and online teaching, fostering pedagogical change in departments and institutions, and negotiating curricular needs with administrators. The panel, chaired by Marjorie Och of the University of Mary Washington, will include presentations by Fran Altvater of Hillyer College at the University of Hartford in Connecticut; Janice Robertson of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York; and Saul Zalesch of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. This session marks the inauguration of AHPT’s affiliation with SECAC.

Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey

The Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA) held its first international conference, “Modern Arab Art: Objects, Histories, and Methodologies,” in Doha, Qatar, on December 16–17, 2010. Emerging and established scholars shared research, methodologies, and thoughts on the future of the field. In addition, AMCA joined Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in celebrating the institution’s subsequent opening on December 30.

AMCA mourns the passing of its dear friend and esteemed colleague, Rhonda Saad. In her memory, the organization has established the Rhonda Saad Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Modern Arab Art. Submissions must be produced between June 2010 and October 2011 and may not exceed thirty-five pages, excluding notes and bibliography. They also must be unpublished and sent via email. AMCA will award $500 to the author of the winning paper at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in December 2011. The prize is sponsored by donations from generous individuals. Deadline: October 1, 2011.

AMCA welcomes Anneka Lenssen, a PhD candidate in the History, Criticism, and Theory of Architecture and Art Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, to its board of directors as treasurer. Lenssen, who recently received a Fulbright scholarship to study the artistic and intellectual movements in Syria from 1960 to 1980, is hard at work on her dissertation, which examines “The Shape of the Support: Painting in Syria’s Twentieth Century.”

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries

At its recent annual conference, held on May 23, 2011, the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) elected new officers to its board. Jill Hartz, executive director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in Eugene, was elected president for a three-year term. Hartz succeeds David Alan Robertson, the Ellen Philips Katz Director of the Mary and Leigh Block Art Museum at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The new vice president of strategic planning is Brent Tharp, director of the Georgia Southern University Museum in Statesboro. Kris Anderson, director of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle, has become vice president of communications, and taking over as treasurer is Michiko Okaya, director of art galleries and curator of the College Art Collection at Lafayette College’s Williams Center for the Arts in Easton, Pennsylvania. The new secretary is Lynn Marsden-Atlass, director of the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

AAMG summons new papers from members for its next annual conference, to be held on April 28, 2012, at the the University of Minnesota’s Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. Papers should refer to the conference topic, “Tools of Engagement: Securing Commitment on Campus.” Deadline: September 15, 2011.

Association of Historians of American Art

The Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) is offering a travel grant covering expenses (up to $500) for an ABD student of historical art of the United States who is participating in the 2012 CAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles. The recipient must be an active AHAA member enrolled in a graduate program. To enter, please submit the name of the session you plan to participate in and your paper title to Melissa Dabakis, AHAA secretary, using the online form. Deadline: February 1, 2012.

In order to sustain its commitment to scholarship, AHAA has inaugurated an option for lifetime membership. Dues are $750, of which $730 is tax deductible.

The second AHAA symposium will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 12–13, 2012. Details about the symposium will be coming soon.

Historians of Islamic Art Association

The Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) has launched a new and improved website that features benefits for HIAA members as well as public resources for the study of Islamic art and culture. Please consult the Events & Exhibitions section for more information on upcoming HIAA programs at the CAA Annual Conference, the Middle East Studies Association’s annual meeting, and the American Oriental Society’s annual meeting.

Historians of Netherlandish Art

The Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) has published a new issue of its open-access, peer-reviewed Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. Appearing twice a year, the journal examines Netherlandish art produced during the early modern period (1400–1750) and other work as it relates to Netherlandish art. The new issue comprises four articles: Els Stronks’s “Never to Coincide: The Identities of Dutch Protestants and Dutch Catholics in Religious Emblematics,” expanding on discrepancies between Protestant and Catholic literary practices and identity in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic; Michael Zell’s “Rembrandt’s Gifts: A Case Study of Actor-Network-Theory,” discerning the relevance of said social theor to the artist’s dealings with his patrons and collectors; Virginie Spenlé’s “‘Savagery’ and ‘Civilization’: Dutch Brazil in the Kunst- and Wunderkammer,” focusing on the collection of exotic objects such as the notorious coconut cup and the shifts in status of such objects; and Renée Kistemaker’s “Between Local Pride and National Ambition: The ‘Amsterdam Museum’ of the Royal Dutch Antiquarian Society and the New Rijksmuseum,” discussing the tension between the national and international aims of the new Rijksmuseum.

International Association of Art Critics

The United States chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA) has appointed two new board members—Jill Connor and João Ribas—by a unanimous vote at its recent annual meeting, held on May 23, 2011. Both will serve the organization through May 2012. Connor is the New York editor of Whitehot Magazine, editor of On-Verge, and a contributor to AfterImage, ArtUS, Art in America, Interview, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, and Sculpture. Ribas, a curator at the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, previously held the same title at the Drawing Center in New York. His writing has appeared in numerous art and culture publications.

International Association of Word and Image Studies

The International Association of Word and Image Studies (IAWIS/AIERTI) has published a bilingual volume containing papers from the eighth International Conference of Word and Image, held at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris in 2008. Edited by Véronique Plesch, Catriona MacLeod, and Jan Baetens, Efficacité/Efficacy: How to Do Things with Words and Images (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011) focuses on three central inquiries: What do we do with texts and images? How do texts and images become active cultural agents? What do texts and images help us do? The book’s contributions, culled from specialists in the field, cover a wide range of topics, from visual poetry and garden theory to new media art and ekphrasis. The publication aims to offer a broad survey of interactions among language, imagery, anthropology, memory, and writing, presenting a cutting-edge analysis of the study of word and image.

International Sculpture Center

The International Sculpture Center (ISC) is accepting nominations for the 2011 Outstanding Educator Award, which recognizes individual artist educators who have excelled at teaching sculpture in institutions of higher learning. Candidates for this award should be masters of sculptural processes and techniques who have devoted their careers to the education of the next generation and to the advancement of the field as a whole. Anyone can nominate a qualified educator; international submissions are welcomed and encouraged. Recipients receive a feature article in Sculpture, a lifetime ISC professional-level membership, and recognition at an award ceremony to be held at their educational institution (which also receives benefits, such as acknowledgement in Sculpture and a one-year ISC university-level membership). Deadline: October 21, 2011.

Italian Art Society

The Italian Art Society (IAS) seeks papers for the third annual IAS–Kress Lecture Series, taking place in Venice, Italy, in late May or early June 2012. This series enthusiastically promotes intellectual exchanges between art historians of North America and the international community of scholars living or working in Italy. Papers should present a topic related to the host city from any period. One distinguished scholar, necessarily an active IAS member, will receive an honorarium of $700 and an additional $500 allowance for travel and other conference-related expenses. Deadline: January 4, 2012.

IAS provides travel grants to graduate students and recent PhD recipients presenting papers at the annual meetings of the Renaissance Society of America, the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, the Society of Architectural Historians, the International Congress on Medieval Studies, and the College Art Association. Submissions need not be presented at IAS-sponsored sessions but must consider the art or architecture of Italy. International submissions are encouraged. Deadline: November 1, 2011.

The IAS newsletter, published quarterly and sent to all members via email, is accepting exhibition reviews, short articles, and announcements related to Italian art and architecture. Please contact Kay Arthur, the newsletter editor, with any questions or to send submissions. Deadline: September 15, 2011.

Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology

The San Francisco–based Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) has appointed Jeffrey N. Babcock as interim executive director. A current member and former chairman of the organization’s board, Babcock has over thirty years of experience as a senior nonprofit arts and academic executive, consultant, event and media producer, and entrepreneur. He aims to diversify the goals of Leonardo/ISAST and to expand the reach of ArtScience.

Paul Thomas, associate professor in the College of Fine Art at the University of New South Wales in Australia, will moderate a Leonardo Education and Art Forum (LEAF) workshop in collaboration with the Australian Forum at this year’s International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2011) in Istanbul, Turkey. The workshop, entitled “Trans-disciplinary Visual Arts, Science, and Technology Renewal Post New Media Assimilation” and sponsored by the National Institute for Experimental Arts, will address issues encountered in fusing curricula across diverse fields and developing transdisciplinary research and teaching for research and teaching.

The next International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2012), entitled “Machine Wilderness: Re-envisioning Art, Technology, and Nature” and taking place September 19–24, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is accepting proposals for papers, workshops, and panels for the formal symposium. Interested parties may also submit suggestions for residencies, artworks, and performances to take place in Albuquerque throughout fall 2012 in conjunction with the event. Deadline: October 15, 2011.

Society for Photographic Education

The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) offers student scholarships to offset the cost of attending the 2012 national conference, “Intimacy and Voyeurism: the Public/Private Divide in Photography,” to be held March 22–25, 2012, in San Francisco. Applicants must be SPE student members currently enrolled as full-time undergraduate or graduate students at a postsecondary institution, concentrating or majoring in photography but not graduating before the end of the 2011–12 academic year. In addition to a cash award, SPE will waive the conference fee and provide a one-year membership. Ten SPE Awards and one SPE Award for Innovations in Imaging will each feature a $500 travel stipend. The Freestyle Crystal Apple Award for Outstanding Achievement in Black and White Photography, generously sponsored by Freestyle Photographic Supplies, includes a $5,000 cash prize and recognition for the sponsoring faculty member. Deadline: November 1, 2011.

Visual Resources Association

The Visual Resources Association (VRA) has recently posted Cataloging Cultural Objects: A Guide to Describing Cultural Works and Their Images, originally published in 2006, on its website. The public may read the document online or download it as PDFs. Written and organized by Murtha Baca, Patricia Harpring, Elisa Lanzi, Linda McRae, and Ann Whiteside, Cataloging Cultural Objects establishes a metadata standard for the cultural-heritage community. A related online resource, CCO Commons, provides examples and training tools for practical application of the standard, defines key concepts, and offers a toolkit for users. CCO Commons aims to shape and manage information for images of art and architecture, allow increased access to collections, and educate art administrators on best cataloguing practices for museums, libraries, and archives.

Women’s Caucus for Art

The Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) has announced five recipients of its 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award: Whitney Chadwick, professor emerita of San Francisco State University in California; Suzanne Lacy, artist and chair of fine arts at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles; Trinh T. Minh-ha, a filmmaker, composer, author, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley; Ferris Olin, curator, librarian, and professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey; and Bernice Steinbaum, a gallerist and advocate for female artists.

In addition, WCA will present its President’s Award for Art and Activism to two women: Cathy Salser, founder of A Window Between Worlds, a national public-art program initiated in 1991 that provides positivity and art therapy to battered women and children; and Karen Davalos, an accomplished author who is also chair and associate professor of Chicana/o studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The awards ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on February 25, 2012, in conjunction with the organization’s fortieth anniversary celebration and conference, also syncing with the CAA’s 100th Annual Conference. The awards ceremony, free and open to the public, transpires from 6:00 to 7:30 PM in the ballroom of the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens, 120 South Los Angeles Street. A ticketed gala, called “Momentum” and taking place 8:00–11:00 PM, follows the ceremony. Gala plans are still being finalized.

Filed under: Affiliated Societies —

2012 Annual Conference Website Goes Live

posted by CAA — Aug 05, 2011

The website for the 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration, taking place February 22–25, 2012, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, is now live. Get a taste of conference highlights and read about what you receive with registration, such as access to all program sessions and admission to the Book and Trade Fair.

You may also begin thinking about your travel plans: American Airlines, Amtrak, and Avis provide promotional codes for special reduced rates, and CAA offers three travel stipends for attendees, including twenty awards through the newly established CAA International Travel Grant Program, generously funded by the Getty Foundation. Companies and organizations interested in exhibiting in the Book and Trade Fair will find application materials, booth descriptions, and preliminary schedules.

Between now and February, CAA will update the website regularly, with new information on the Awards for Distinction presentation, special receptions, postconference tours, and more. Later this month, CAA will publish the names of the three conference hotels and list room rates and reservation instructions. The titles of program sessions, events in ARTspace, biographies of the Convocation speaker and Distinguished Scholar, participants in the Annual Artists’ Interviews, and topics of professional-development workshops will come later this fall.

Online registration will open in early October 2011, with the lowest rates available for members and nonmembers alike between then and early December.

Filed under: Annual Conference, Book and Trade Fair, Centennial —

Letter to House of Representatives Protesting Further NEA Budget Cuts

posted by CAA — Jul 25, 2011

The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors approved the addition of CAA’s name to a letter protesting the proposed budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts. Thomas L. Birch, legislative counsel for the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, spearheaded the initiative and sent the missive to the US House of Representatives today.

Letter to US House of Representatives Protesting Further NEA Budget Cuts

July 25, 2011

US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative,

As the FY12 Interior Appropriations bill comes to the floor for consideration by the full House, we write to urge you to prevent further cuts to funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The direct federal investment in the artistic capacity of our nation supports thousands of jobs, strengthens communities, improves lifelong learning, and boosts this country’s international competitive advantage.

Every US Congressional district benefits from an NEA grant, leveraging additional support from a diverse range of private sources to combine funding from government, business, foundation, and individual donors. The NEA awarded almost 2,400 grants in those districts in FY10. The NEA has provided strategic leadership and investment in the arts for more than forty years. Americans can now see professional productions and exhibitions of high quality in their own hometowns. Among the proudest accomplishments of the NEA is the growth of arts activity in areas of the nation that were previously underserved or not served at all, especially in rural and inner-city communities.

Nationally, there are 668,267 businesses in the United States involved in the creation or distribution of the arts that employ 2.9 million people including visual artists, performing artists, managers, marketers, technicians, teachers, designers, carpenters, and workers in a wide variety of trades and professions. By direct grants and through allocations to each state, NEA dollars are distributed widely to strengthen the arts infrastructure and ensure broad access to the arts for communities across the country.

The NEA funds school-based and community-based programs that help children and youth acquire knowledge and understanding of, and skills in, the arts. The NEA also supports educational programs for adults, collaborations between state arts agencies and state education agencies, and partnerships between arts institutions and educators.

We understand fully the shared sacrifice that we all must make in order to help get our nation’s fiscal house in order. But funding for the National Endowment for the Arts was already reduced by $12.5 million in FY11, and the FY12 Interior bill currently includes an additional $20 million in funding cuts. We urge you to prevent any further reduction to the investment in our nation’s arts and culture infrastructure when the Interior Appropriations bill is considered on the House floor.

Sincerely,

American Architectural Foundation
American Federation of Musicians
American Music Center
Americans for the Arts
Association of Art Museum Directors
Association of Performing Arts Presenters
Chamber Music America
Chorus America
College Art Association
Dance/USA
Fractured Atlas
League of American Orchestras
Literary Network
Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education
National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture
National Alliance for Musical Theatre
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
National Association of Latino Arts and Culture
National Council for the Traditional Arts
National Performance Network
OPERA America
Performing Arts Alliance
Society for the Arts in Healthcare
Theatre Communications Group

Filed under: Advocacy — Tags: Government Funding for the Arts and Humanities —

Apply for a Meiss or Wyeth Publishing Grant

posted by CAA — Jun 13, 2011

CAA is offering two publishing-grant opportunities this fall—through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant—that support new books in art history and related subjects. The publisher must submit the application to either grant or to both funds, though only one award can be given per title. Awards are made at the discretion of each jury and vary according to merit, need, and number of applications. Both programs have a deadline of October 1, 2011. CAA will announce the recipients of the Meiss and Wyeth grants in late November or early December 2011.

Millard Meiss Publication Fund

CAA awards grants from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund to support book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of art 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 complete guidelines, application forms, and a grant description, please visit www.collegeart.org/meiss or write to nyoffice@collegeart.org. Deadline: October 1, 2011.

Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant

Thanks to generous funding from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, CAA awards a publication grant to support book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of American art and related subjects. For purposes of this program, “American art” is defined as art created in the United States, Canada, and Mexico prior to 1970. Books eligible for the Wyeth Grant have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. For complete guidelines, application forms, and a grant description, please visit www.collegeart.org/wyeth or write to nyoffice@collegeart.org. Deadline: October 1, 2011.

Filed under: Books, Grants and Fellowships, Publications —

Spring Grant Recipients of the Millard Meiss Publication Fund

posted by Christopher Howard — Jun 01, 2011

This spring, CAA awarded grants to the publishers of five books in art history and visual culture through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund. Thanks to the generous bequest of the late Prof. Millard Meiss, the grants are given to support the publication of scholarly books in art history and related fields.

The five grantees for spring 2011 are:

Elizabeth Childs, Vanishing Paradise: Art and Exoticism in Colonial Tahiti, 1800–1901, University of California Press
Shih-shan Susan Huang, Picturing the True Form: Daoist Visual Culture in Medieval China, Harvard University Asia Center
Patricia Leighten, A Politics of Form: Art, Anarchism, and Audience in Avant-Guerre Paris, University of Chicago Press
Pamela Patton, Art of Estrangement: Redefining the Jews in Reconquest Spain, Pennsylvania State University Press
Richard Taws, The Politics of the Provisional: Visual Culture in Revolutionary France, Pennsylvania State University Press

Books eligible for Meiss grants must already be under contract with a publisher and on a subject in the visual arts or art history. Authors must be current CAA members. Please review the application guidelines for more information. The deadline for the fall 2011 grant cycle is October 1, 2011.

Filed under: Books, Grants and Fellowships, Publications —

2011 Advocacy Days in Washington, DC

posted by Christopher Howard — May 24, 2011

Humanities Advocacy Day took place on March 6–8, 2011, and Arts Advocacy Day on April 4–5, 2011. Five members of the CAA Board of Directors represented CAA: Linda Downs, Barbara Nesin, Judith Thorpe, and Jean Miller, who contribute reports below, and Andrea Kirsh. CAA’s development and marketing manager, Sara Hines, also joined the ranks of attendees, which ranged from seasoned arts administrators, artists, scholars, curators, and educators to young students aspiring to enter these fields.

Humanities Advocacy Day

Linda Downs is CAA executive director and recently became secretary of the National Humanities Alliance board of directors.

On March 8, I represented CAA during Humanities Advocacy Day in Washington, DC. Sponsored by the National Humanities Alliance (NHA), this three-day event gathered advocates from across the country to meet on Capitol Hill to inform their senators and representatives about the importance of the humanities in their districts and to support federal funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Advocates usually don’t meet their representatives directly, but their staffers tally every visit and report on messages sent.

This year, more than two hundred people from colleges, universities, professional associations, and state humanities organizations visited 107 House and Senate offices representing thirty-four states. Participants asked that Congress maintain the NEH’s enacted level of $167.5 million for fiscal year 2010. The strong attendance indicated how important this annual event is and, in particular, that an increasing number of art-minded citizens were highly concerned about the proposed Congressional budget reduction that would eliminate the NEH. With colleagues from the state of New York, I targeted new members of Congress to inform them about the importance of the humanities in their districts.

Preceding Humanities Advocacy Day was the NHA annual meeting, which took place March 6–7 and included advocacy training, a workshop on finding grants, and panel presentations. In his keynote address, David Skorton, president of Cornell University, emphasized the importance of humanities education for cultural understanding and for the security of the United States. During a luncheon, Leslie Berlowitz, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, announced the launch of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, which will bring together scholars and corporate leaders to propose steps to strengthen the humanities nationally. On one panel, three individuals demonstrated how effective, important, and creative current humanities research is: Ashley Marshall, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, uses digital statistics to reinterpret eighteenth-century studies; Tara McPherson, associate professor in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, established the Vectors Journal at her school, an online venture that introduces an interactive publishing platform to humanities scholars; and Damon Dozier, director of public affairs at the American Anthropological Association, described the association’s RACE project that explores all aspects of the concept of race and has attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers over the past three years.

The humanities community made a strong impact on Congress this year. At this time of writing (late April 2011), the NEH remains in the Congressional budget, albeit at a reduced amount.

Arts Advocacy Day

Barbara Nesin is an artist, a professor and department chair of art foundations at the Art Institute of Atlanta in Georgia, and the president of the CAA Board of Directors.

Sponsored by Americans for the Arts, Arts Advocacy Day offered a full day of training followed by a second day of meeting Congressional representatives on Capitol Hill with the aim of preserving federal funding for the arts during an especially challenging economic period. During my first time attending the event, I learned how to speak about not just the intrinsic value of the arts, but also their real economic value in this country and the importance of the arts in education. In training sessions hosted by Americans for the Arts, my colleagues and I were given the voting history and committee work of our representatives and, when in conversation with them later, were told to highlight how the arts function as a business magnet, create jobs and tax revenue, attract tourism, and foster the country’s creative advantage internationally. We didn’t neglect education, as the arts strengthen academic performance in a variety of disciplines, such as science, technology, English, and math, and contribute to an innovative, competitive workforce.

This year, advocates had to prepare a unified message that was pertinent to current budget and political realities. Furthermore, those of us who wear more than one hat—for me, being a CAA board member, a professor and administrator, and a resident of Georgia—needed to understand the context of each position in relation to the overall mission for the day. We had to make a strong case to save the NEA’s budget for fiscal year 2012 and to maintain $40 million appropriated for the Department of Education’s Arts in Education programs and grants.

Americans for the Arts provided me with a wealth of information about pressing state issues, identifying key politicians with critical influence and importantly emphasizing that now is not the time to point out disparities in federal support between, for example, the visual and performing arts. What was the right approach? A consistent, nonpartisan message supported by facts and real-life examples, practical solutions, and a convincing, definite ask.

Before coming to DC, I had consulted my home institution’s public-relations department to determine appropriate topics and strategies. I also reviewed issues close to CAA’s heart, ready to share information about tax reform in the arts: preserving incentives for charitable giving, extending the IRA Charitable Rollover, and rejecting attempts to create a hierarchy for deductions to nonprofits that discriminates against the arts. I also wanted to ask for support for the Artist–Museum Partnership Act—something CAA has advocated for many years—which would allow artists to deduct from their federal income tax the fair-market-value of works of art donated to and retained by nonprofit institutions. (Currently artists can only deduct the cost of their materials used to make the work). Improving the visa process for foreign guest artists was also on my list of topics.

Even though representatives from Georgia raced to attend emergency meetings regarding the difficult budget negotiations that threatened to close down the government that very week, my group managed to meet several of them and speak to the staff of others. In some cases, staffers invited us to leave informational materials provided by Americans for the Arts, which outline major funding issues and, through maps and statistics, pinpointed concentrations of arts-related business in each representative’s district—with actual dollar amounts.

Since my school has already cultivated excellent relationships with several Congressional leaders in my state, I built on that firm groundwork by sharing a sincere “thank you” for the specific ways in which each had already supported the arts, regardless of his party or voting record. These representatives—whether recognized friends of the arts or not—responded supremely to people from their own district, whether by residence or place of employment. On that local turf, there was not one who had not made some effort to demonstrate their concern for arts education and some type of arts programming to their own community. From that point, conversations went one of two ways.

To those who had previously opposed arts funding, I emphasized the significance of the arts to economic development—that is to say, I talked jobs, jobs, jobs. Armed with hard figures that proved how the arts generate substantial employment and investment in specific districts and nationally, I made the case that opposing arts funding puts many people out of work and damages local economies that depend on the arts to attract employers and business activity. Keep in mind that even a single arts event generates not only sales of tickets or art objects, but also uses numerous surrounding services and accommodations, including printers, web designers, restaurants, and hotels. These are not insignificant dollars, and no politician wants to be viewed by constituents as opposing much-needed, economically healthy free enterprise. In addition, staunch supporters of cutting taxes listened with interest when my group spoke about implementing tax benefits that would have a real impact on estates and museum collections. If such representatives were at all concerned about swing votes in their district, it would not cost much in real dollars for them to support some form of arts funding. Even a slight increase would have a dramatic and highly visible effect—something investors might call an attractive “rate of return.”

In the offices of strong supporters of the arts is where I successfully addressed other issues that CAA has been working on. Staffers in Representative John Lewis’s office told me that orphan works was not on their radar before but will be now, promising to research the subject and bring it to Lewis’s attention. Finally, we offered ourselves as resources to these elected officials and asked them for advice on what we could do to assist them.

I was gratified to see a good number of graduate students among the five hundred plus attending Arts Advocacy Day. As a CAA member and an art educator, I was keenly interested in what students had to say, especially when speaking from their personal experience. One young woman finishing her master’s in arts administration made an impassioned plea for assurance of jobs when she graduates. When I described CAA to them, several students in programs of social policy and arts administration were excited about becoming actively involved in the organization, particularly in the area of advocacy. CAA needs to continue building these connections.

As the largest organization for the visual arts in the country, CAA has significant membership numbers—more than 12,000 individuals and 1,800 institutions—that amplify considerably when counting those who belong to the affiliated societies, making us a potentially powerful voice. Congress listens to voting constituents. Although CAA doesn’t vote, it does represent an exponential body of voters. If we want the visual arts better represented on a national level, CAA is an ideal body to do so year round.

This year’s was a success: participants helped preserve federal funding for the arts in large measure, with much smaller cuts than originally proposed, and saw first-hand our full potential reach and influence. I encourage as many members as possible to attend future Arts Advocacy Days.

Arts Advocacy Day

Judith Thorpe is an artist, professor of photography, and head of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. She is also a member of the CAA Board of Directors.

Two years ago, riding on the recent election of Barack Obama and the promise of increased funding for the arts and humanities, participants in Arts and Humanities Advocacy Days felt vibrancy and excitement in the air. The atmosphere in Congressional offices during Arts Advocacy Day in 2011 contrasted with that optimism tremendously. Facing budget and partisanship battles daily, federal legislators threatened once again to not just reduce but extinguish all NEA initiatives and Department of Education programs for Arts in Education. In the end, Congress did not axe the endowment as feared and returned $25 million to Arts in Education for fiscal year 2012. Truth be told, these amounts are so small that their impact on the national budget is negligible. These annual skirmishes, however, continue to reflect the raging ideological battles regarding the arts in this country.

Events of a week in which Congress canceled appropriations hearings and a budget stalemate nearly closed down the federal government subdued advocacy meetings with senators, representatives, and their aides. My group from Connecticut found it difficult to advocate more than flat funding for the NEA, but we asked the offices of Senators Joseph Lieberman and Richard Blumenthal and Representatives Rosa L. DeLauro, John Larson, Joe Courtney, Jim Himes, and Chris Murphy to renew their commitment to the arts and to join or continue serving on the Congressional Art Caucus and the Senate Cultural Caucus.

In order to benefit the arts and humanities—and the interests of CAA in particular—we must develop a means to send advocates to meet specifically with key members of Congress during the annual Arts, Humanities, and Museums Advocacy Days. CAA’s vast number of professionals in academia, museums, and elsewhere should be heard in a focused manner, and members of the CAA Board of Directors may need to get more involved in organizing participation in the three national advocacy days.

Attending this year sharpened my awareness of how members of Congress perceive the role of the arts differently in this country. That said, I was heartened to see bipartisan support for the arts and encouraged to advocate continued and greater support for the arts. It was quite a civics class!

Arts Advocacy Day

A member of the CAA Board of Directors, Jean Miller is associate dean of administrative affairs of the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas in Denton. She also oversees her school’s Design Research Center in Dallas.

I became acquainted with Americans for the Arts and attended Arts Advocacy Day for the first time in 2009 as a representative of CAA’s Professional Practices Committee and a resident of the state of Maryland. This year, I represented CAA as a board member and cochair of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans (ICFAD) Advocacy Task Force. Now a Texas resident, I also made efforts to cultivate a relationship with members of Texans for the Arts.

Although Arts Advocacy Day has a similar structure and comparable messages from year to year, the underlying sense of urgency during the 2011 proceedings made it markedly different from those of 2009. This was due in part to the possibility of the government shutting down during the budget talks. All advocates intensely felt the charged atmosphere during the Americans for the Arts–sponsored Congressional Arts Breakfast and later on Capitol Hill when meeting representatives and their staff.

Like my colleagues above, I was impressed by the record attendance of over five hundred advocates from around the country, gathering to communicate a consistent message about the value of art and culture in our lives to Congress. Actors Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin and several other celebrities joined attendees over the course of the two days to lend their voices in support of the arts and artists. As they spoke candidly about their mentors and career opportunities, these individuals served as great moral support and inspired us to strategize together to position the arts better in the national budget conversation.

To help frame discussions with legislators and their staff, advocacy leaders urged us to take a practical, bipartisan approach to all conversations. At the same time, they also encouraged us to send a clear, strong, and persistent message to Congress about sustaining NEA funding—not increasing it as we had asked in the past—and to share stories about how the NEA has had a strong impact on our communities and states.

Were we successful? I believe that yes, as a committed group of arts professionals and students, we took the time to study current issues, applied an advocacy framework to discuss important points, and stood up as citizens to increase visibility for the arts locally and nationally. Was it enough? Unfortunately no. What else could CAA do as an organization? Perhaps we can strengthen ties with its affiliated societies, which in sum represent over 300,000 people, and use a large collective voice in support of advocacy efforts. With the affiliates, CAA can design strategies to reach the political leaders who are in positions of making the tough budget decisions. With many CAA staff and board members involved in strengthening connections to affiliated societies and working on advocacy and outreach, I think this is entirely possible.

Filed under: Advocacy — Tags: Government and Politics, Government Funding for the Arts and Humanities, Government Leadership —

NEA Awards $25,000 Grant to CAA for ARTspace

posted by Nia Page — May 23, 2011

CAA has received a $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the next ARTspace, taking place during the 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration in Los Angeles, February 22–25, 2012.

Designed to engage CAA’s artist members and the general public, ARTspace offers program sessions free of charge and includes diverse activities such the Annual Artists’ Interviews, screenings of film, video, and multimedia, performances, and presentations that facilitate a conversational yet professional exchange of ideas and practices. Held at each conference since 2001, ARTspace is intended to reflect the current state of the visual arts and arts education.

The grant, which is the NEA’s third consecutive award to CAA for ARTspace programming, will help fund, among other things, ARTexchange, a popular open-portfolio event for artists, as well as [Meta] Mentors programming, which has covered topics such as do-it-yourself curatorial and exhibition practices, international networks for artists, and assistance with grants, taxes, and promotion.

Image: ARTexchange participants at the 2011 Annual Conference in New York (photograph by Bradley Marks)

Filed under: Annual Conference, Grants and Fellowships —

CAA Receives Getty Grant to Fund International Conference Travel

posted by Emmanuel Lemakis — May 16, 2011

The Getty Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to CAA in support of international travel for twenty applicants to attend the 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration, taking place February 22–25, 2012, in Los Angeles. Through the new CAA International Travel Grant Program, CAA will provide funds for travel expenses, hotel accommodations, per diems, and conference registrations. Recipients will also receive one-year CAA memberships. Applicants may be art historians, artists who teach art history, and art historians who are museum curators; those from developing countries or from nations not well represented in CAA’s membership are especially encouraged to apply.

The goal of the project is to increase international participation in CAA and to diversify the organization’s membership (presently sixty-five countries are represented). CAA also wishes to familiarize international participants with the submission process for conference sessions and to expand their professional network in the visual arts. Members of CAA’s International Committee have agreed to host the participants, and the National Committee for the History of Art will also lend support to the program.

CAA will publish an official call for grant applications on its website on Friday, July 8, 2011; the program will also be publicized in CAA News. A jury will select the twenty grant recipients.

Filed under: Annual Conference, Centennial, Grants and Fellowships, International —

Affiliated Society News for May 2011

posted by CAA — May 09, 2011

American Society of Hispanic Art Historical Studies

Janice Mann

Janice Mann’s Romanesque Architecture and Its Sculptural Decoration in Christian Spain, 1000–1120 won the 2011 Eleanor Tufts Award

The American Society of Hispanic Art Historical Studies (ASHAHS) has announced the recipients of two annual awards, with one honorable mention, at a business meeting held during the CAA Annual Conference in February 2011. The Eleanor Tufts Award, which recognizes an outstanding English-language publication in Spanish or Portuguese art history, went to Janice Mann for Romanesque Architecture and Its Sculptural Decoration in Christian Spain, 1000–1120: Exploring Frontiers and Defining Identities (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). In addition, the jurors selected Giles Knox’s The Late Paintings of Velázquez: Theorizing Painterly Performance (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009) as an honorable mention. The winner of the ASHAHS Photographs Grant is Kelly Watt of the University of Louisville, who is conducting research for her dissertation, “Medieval Churches on the Spanish Frontier: How Elite Emulation in Architecture Contributed to the Transformation of a Territorial Expansion into Reconquista.”

Art Libraries Society of North America

The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) has awarded its 2010 George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award to Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles: The Mary Hunt Kahlenberg Collection (New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2010). Edited by Ruth Barnes and Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, this large, beautifully produced catalogue includes stunning, detailed photographs of many rare and unique textiles and essays by expert art historians and anthropologists that seamlessly connect the history and cultural significance of these aesthetically beautiful weavings for the reader. Aimée Brown Price’s Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) received the honorable mention. Her exceptional two-volume set includes a scholarly monograph on the artist and a catalogue raisonné of his painted works. ARLIS/NA presented the two awards at a joint conference with the Visual Resources Association, another CAA affiliated society, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 25, 2011.

Association for Latin American Art

The Association for Latin American Art (ALAA) announces the election results for its executive committee: Margaret A. Jackson of the University of New Mexico holds the office of president; Elisa Mandell of California State University, Fullerton, is the new vice president; and Paul Niell of the University of North Texas becomes secretary-treasurer. As advocates for all areas and periods of Latin American art, committee members hold office for a three-year term (2011–13).

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries

The Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) will hold its next annual conference, “Who’s Muse? Challenges to the Curatorial Profession in Academic Museums,” on May 21, 2011, at the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum in Texas. Curatorial practices in academic museums and galleries are sometimes highly experimental. Faculty members from a wide variety of fields and with limited curatorial experience periodically recommend and help lead exhibition projects. The organization of exhibitions likewise engages both graduate and undergraduate students, museum-education professionals, librarians, and even area school classes in project leadership roles. Exhibitions thus generated offer unorthodox approaches to curatorial planning and execution. Appropriate to a scholarly mission, they can stretch disciplinary boundaries, cross-fertilize disciplinary methodologies, and generate wholly new paradigms for knowledge. Academic museums and galleries thus become vital centers of original research, interdisciplinary dialogue, and participatory learning. While this democratic and laboratory approach to curatorial practice contributes in significant ways to the groundbreaking research and all-important teaching missions of universities and colleges, it can also challenge conventional standards of the curatorial profession. Through the presentation of outstanding case studies and lively roundtable discussions, the 2011 conference will explore the pros and cons of the broad curatorial approaches found in academic museums and galleries.

Association of Art Historians

Art History, the flagship journal of the Association of Art Historians (AAH), has just published a special issue on “Creative Writing and Art History.” Guest edited by Patricia Rubin of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Catherine Grant of the Courtauld Institute of Art and Goldsmiths, University of London), this collection of articles and projects considers the ways in which the writing of art history intersects with creative writing, from the creative writing of art history to dialogues between modes of creative and art-historical writing. Essays range from the analysis of historical examples of scholarship that have a creative element to presentations of contemporary modes of creative writing about art.

Association of Historians of American Art

The Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) has announced the names of new board members: Peter John (P. J.) Brownlee of the Terra Foundation of American Art is chair (2011–12); Jenny Carson of Maryland Institute College of Art is cochair (2011–12); Elizabeth Kuebler-Wolf of the University of Saint Francis is web coordinator (2011–14); and Melissa Renn of the Harvard University Art Museums is membership coordinator (2011–14).

AHAA has named the winner of the $500 AHAA Travel Grant: Maggie Cao, a graduate student at Harvard University and a predoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She delivered a paper, “Invisible Color: Abbott Handerson Thayer and Camouflage,” in the AHAA-sponsored scholarly session, “Color and Nineteenth-Century American Painting,” at the recent CAA Annual Conference in New York.

Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art

Edouard Manet

Édouard Manet, Summer or the Amazon, ca. 1882, oil on canvas, 73 x 52 cm. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (artwork in the public domain)

The Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) held its eighth annual graduate-student symposium in nineteenth-century art at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, on March 4, 2011. Speakers included ten doctoral candidates from the United States, France, Spain, and Switzerland. AHNCA will also hold a special event for its members this summer in conjunction with the current exhibition, Manet, the Man Who Invented Modernity, at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey

Created in honor of a dear friend and colleague, Rhonda A. Saad (1979–2010) and sponsored by donations from numerous generous individuals, the Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA) has established the Rhonda A. Saad Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Modern Arab Art. The award, which aims to recognize and promote excellence in scholarship on modern and contemporary art, is offered annually to a graduate student (defined as predissertation) working in any discipline whose paper is judged to provide the most significant contribution to Middle Eastern studies and art history. Papers will be evaluated according to the originality of research and methodological approach, cogency of argument, and clarity of writing. The submission must be written in English by a single author. AMCA will award $500 to the winner at the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting in December 2011. The paper must have been produced between June 2010 and June 2011; must not exceed thirty-five pages, excluding notes and bibliography; and must not be or have ever been submitted for publication. Applicants should send their entry for the inaugural prize to info@amcainternational.org by June 30, 2011.

Historians of British Art

Marcia Pointon

Marcia Pointon won an HBA prize for post-1800, single-author book for Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery

The Historians of British Art (HBA) recently announced the winners of its 2011 Book Prizes for publications on British art. Kevin Sharpe received the award for pre-1800, single-author book for Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). Marcia Pointon won the prize for post-1800, single-author book for Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery (New Haven: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, in association with Yale University Press, 2010); and Elizabeth Prettejohn, Peter Trippi, Robert Upstone, and Patty Wageman received the multiauthor publication honor for J. W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2009).

The HBA awarded its Publication Grant to Leon Wainwright for Timed Out: Art and the Transnational Caribbean, forthcoming from Manchester University Press in 2011. Lyrica Taylor received the HBA Travel Grant to present a paper, “Winifred Knights and Interwar Artists at the British School at Rome, 1920–1925,” at the Association of Art Historians’s 2011 conference, held at the University of Warwick, March 31–April 2, 2011.