CAA News Today
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
posted by CAA — Mar 21, 2013
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) sent the following email on March 21, 2013. FAIC supports conservation education, research, and outreach activities that increase understanding of our global cultural heritage.
Foundation Supports Ongoing Care of Collections after Devastation of Superstorm Sandy
The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) has completed work at the Cultural Recovery Center (CRC) in Brooklyn, NY after serving a community of artists and organizations in dire need of assistance. The CRC offered space and help at no cost to owners of artworks damaged as a result of Superstorm Sandy. Volunteer assistance and work space was provided to museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, galleries, collectors, and artists. While full conservation treatment was not covered, guidance and assistance in the cleaning and stabilization of art and cultural materials was.
23 members of the AIC Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) contributed 128 days of professional volunteer services in New York and New Jersey. At least 34 additional conservators from the region also volunteered. At the CRC, volunteers worked with nineteen artists on hundreds of items, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, textiles, and multi-media works. Many of the works were at risk because of toxic deposits and potential mold growth.
The Center for Cultural Recovery was operated by The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC), in cooperation with a consortium of organizations:
- Alliance for Response New York City
- Heritage Preservation
- New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
- New York Regional Association for Conservation
- Industry City at Bush Terminal
- Smithsonian Institution
Initial funding for the response and recovery efforts, including initial costs for the Center, was provided by a leadership gift to FAIC from Sotheby’s. A grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allowed the Center to remain open through March 8. Industry City at Bush Terminal provided the space rent-free. Rapid Refile set up containment tents and air scrubbers to prevent the spread of mold from incoming objects to cleaned objects. Collector Systems provided free use of its web-based collection management system. The Smithsonian Institution and a grant to Heritage Preservation from the New York Community Trust, as well as support from TALAS, enabled purchase of supplies. The Center was also outfitted with supplies from Materials for the Arts, a creative reuse program managed by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional donations to FAIC came from PINTA, The Modern & Contemporary Latin American Art Show; Tru Vue; Aon Huntington Block Insurance; Aon Foundation; members of AIC; and others. The American Museum of Natural History and MoMA also provided key in-kind support for recovery efforts and establishment of the CRC.
As the need for conservation continues, those with damaged pieces are encouraged to use AIC’s Find A Conservator tool available for free on the AIC website: www.conservation-us.org/findaconservator. The tool provides a systematic, consistent method of obtaining current information to identify and locate professional conservation services from all across the United States and abroad. It allows users to address a wide range of conservation problems, whether the needs are long-range or short-term and whether the collection consists of thousands of valuable historic artifacts, one priceless work of art, or items of great personal value.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Mar 20, 2013
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.
Biotechnology as Art Form
It’s natural that some artists spend as much time in the lab as they do in the studio. Over the last three decades, in fact, artists have cultivated human tissue, bred frogs, assembled DNA profiles, and used modified bacteria as electrical transmitters. Bio-art—as this type of work is called—has also begun to surface in museums and avant-garde art festivals, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth in Australia. (Read more in ARTnews.)
What Do University Presses Do?
A book published by the University of Minnesota Press, begun as the author’s dissertation, had been discussed in the New Yorker. This journey, from dissertation to published book and beyond, provides a counter narrative to the rhetoric about scholarly publishers these days, rhetoric which paints us as parasites sucking profit and capital out of the work of scholars, structured around a “conflict” between publishers, libraries, and scholars often oversimplified into a binary. Publishers are interested in profit. Libraries and scholars are not. (Read more in the University of Minnesota Press Blog.)
What Do Cats Have to Do with It? Welcome to LACMA’s New Collections Website
Two years ago, we launched an experiment: an online image library where we made 2,000 high-resolution images of artworks that the museum deemed to be in the public domain available for download without any restrictions. This week, we’ve exceeded ourselves with the launch of our new collections website, giving away ten times the number of images we offered in the initial image library. Nearly 20,000 high-quality images of art from our collection are available to download and use as you see fit (that’s about a quarter of all the art represented on the site). (Read more in Unframed.)
What to Do with Artist’s Work after Death Can Be Vexing
Since the Oakland artist Thomas “Glen” Whittaker died last month, his longtime companion, Marcy Pitts, has faced the daunting task of deciding what to do with about thirty-five paintings and other works he left behind. More specifically, she has wrestled with how to catalog, value, transport, store, and market the works, some of which are several feet wide. At the forefront of Pitts’s mind is a desire to earn Whittaker, who was 62, recognition for his work. (Read more in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
Pre-Tenure Leadership
As the dean of a college whose faculty includes many assistant professors, I am frequently asked for advice on how much service they should undertake. The twin horns of their dilemma? They know that service counts for less than teaching or research in annual and promotion evaluations … but they also know that demonstrating leadership potential through community engagement is important. (Read more in Inside Higher Ed.)
Things I Didn’t Learn in Graduate School
For more than thirty years now, I have benefited in my professional practice in student affairs from having attended some terrific graduate programs. It’s important to say that explicitly, upfront, as I’m about to focus on the things I didn’t learn in graduate school. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Help Desk: Lazy Art Critic
An art critic who writes for local newspaper recently approached me to review a recent show I installed at a local gallery. He is essentially asking me to provide him with my thoughts on my work and, after reading several of his articles, it seems as if he will just quote me at length rather than provide an actual review of my work. Should I indulge him in my eagerness to gain press attention or decline in hopes of a future proposal from a more attentive critic? (Read more in Daily Serving.)
Art without Market, Art without Education: Political Economy of Art
Since the early days of modernism, artists have faced a peculiar dilemma with regard to the economy surrounding their work. By breaking from older artistic formations such as medieval artisan guilds, bohemian artists of the nineteenth century distanced themselves from the vulgar sphere of day-to-day commerce in favor of an idealized conception of art and authorship. While on the one hand this allowed for a certain rejection of normative bourgeois life, it also required that artists entrust their livelihoods to middlemen—to private agents or state organizations. While a concern with labor and fair compensation in the arts, exemplified by such recent initiatives as W.A.G.E. or earlier efforts such as the Art Workers Coalition, has been an important part of artistic discourse, so far it has focused primarily on public critique as a means to shame and reform institutions into developing a more fair system of compensation for “content providers.” It seems to me that we need to move beyond the critique of art institutions if we want to improve the relationship between artists and the economy surrounding their work. (Read more in e-flux Journal.)
Affiliated Society News for March 2013
posted by CAA — Mar 09, 2013
American Council for Southern Asian Art
The American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) invites proposals for papers for its sixteenth biennial meeting, to be held November 7–10, 2013, at the University of California, Los Angeles. In keeping with the organizing committee’s new format, proposals that correspond to the themes outlined by three panel chairs, as well as proposals for individual papers, are welcome.
Relevant paper proposals should be submitted directly to the panel chairs for the following sessions: “Beyond Painting: Other Histories of the Book in South Asia,” chaired by Yael Rice of Amherst College; “South and Southeast Asian Artists in the Western Scene: A Critical Look at Reception,” chaired by Sunanda K. Sanyaya from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University); and “The Built Environment of Death and Cremation in South and Southeast Asia,” chaired by Cathleen Cummings of the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
Individual paper proposals and other queries should be sent electronically to: Alka Patel in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Proposals for papers must be sent to the appropriate panel chairs or to Patel by March 31, 2013. For additional information about these panels and the symposium, please visit ACSAA’s website.
Art Libraries Society of North America
The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS) is hold its forty-first annual conference in Pasadena, California, from April 25 to 29, 2013. The conference theme is “Crafting Our Future” and inspired by Pasadena’s renowned arts and crafts heritage. The event will emphasize the importance of building on organization’s past as it actively shapes the future of art librarianship. The program cochairs are Cathy Billings of the Brand Library and Art Center and Sarah Sherman of the Getty Research Institute.
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) announces three new members of its executive board: Salwa Mikdadi, Alexandra Dika Seggerman, and Patrick Kane, who will respectively succeed Sarah Rogers, Dina Ramadan, and Anneka Lenssen in the roles of president-elect, secretary, and treasurer. AMCA officially welcomed these new officers and acknowledged the invaluable service of the outgoing board members at its annual business meeting at the Middle Eastern Studies Association conference in November 2012.
At the CAA conference, AMCA presented a session, called “A Revolution in Art? The Arab Uprisings and Artistic Production.” The four participants—Saleem Al-Bahloly, Dina Ramadan, Christiane Gruber, and Jennifer Pruitt—presented new perspectives on the role of art in the recent uprisings of the Arab Spring.
Historians of Netherlandish Art
The Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) announces several new appointments for 2013. Amy Golahny of Lycoming College has been elected president, and Paul Crenshaw of Providence College has been appointed vice president. Dawn Odell of Lewis and Clark College will be the new treasurer, and Yao-Fen You from the Detroit Institute of Arts will join the board of directors. Mark Trowbridge of Marymount University succeeds Molly Faries as associate editor of the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, the semiannual, open-access, refereed ejournal published by HNA. The journal welcomes submission of texts to its editor, Alison M. Kettering, at any time.
Italian Art Society
The Italian Art Society (IAS) has announced the speaker of the fourth annual Italian Art Society–Kress Foundation Lecture Series in Italy. Sarah Blake McHam of Rutgers University will speak on “Laocoön, or Pliny Vindicated” at the Fondazione Marco Besso in Rome in late May or early June. Felicia Else, an associate professor at Gettysburg College, has been awarded the first annual IAS Research and Publication Grant to help fund a trip to Florence this summer to complete research for her book, The Politics of Water in the Art and Festivals of Medici Florence: From Neptune Fountain to Naumachia.
The society would also like to congratulate the 2013 recipients of the IAS Travel Grants: Joanne Anderson, visiting lecturer at the University of Warwick, for her paper “Coloring the Magdalene in the Early Renaissance”; and Valentina Pugliano, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin, for her paper “‘Subjects which painting may serve’: How Botany Met Renaissance Art.” These talks will be presented at the Renaissance Society of America’sannual conference in San Diego in April 2013). IAS will sponsor four sessions at the RSA conference; see http://italianartsociety.org/?page_id=191 for details.
National Art Education Association
Spend four art-filled days in Washington, DC, with the National Art Education Association, exploring permanent collections, current exhibitions, and the museum itself as a work of art! Summer Vision DC, now in its fourth year, is a professional learning community for art and nonart educators, offered by NAEA in partnership with area art museums. The aim is to showcase best practices in critical response to art while enhancing creativity through visual journaling. Choose from two sessions: July 9–12, 2013, or July 23–26, 2013. Develop new leadership, pedagogical, and artistic skills for the classroom and beyond through this outstanding professional development opportunity. Go behind the scenes, explore sculpture gardens, examine artworks, and participate in studio and other hands-on learning as you connect with educators at these museums: the National Gallery of Art and Sculpture Garden; the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; the National Museum of African Art; the National Museum of the American Indian; the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Phillips Collection; the National Building Museum; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and the National Portrait Gallery. Registration is limited to twenty-five participants per session. Register and find details at www.arteducators.org/summervision.
New publications from NAEA include: The Heart of Art Education: Holistic Approaches to Creativity, Integration, and Transformation, edited by Laurel H. Campbell and Seymour Simmons III ($39 for members and $48 for nonmembers); and Conversations in Art: The Dialectics of Teaching and Learning, edited by Judith M. Burton and Mary Hafeli ($32 for members and $39 for nonmembers).
Public Art Dialogue
The eponymous journal of Public Art Dialogue (PAD) is now accepting submissions for its upcoming special issue on murals, guest edited by Sally Webster and Sarah Schrank. With this issue, Public Art Dialogue seeks to advance a twenty-first century understanding of wall art by soliciting papers on its history and status as it relates to the built environment, as an expression of community, or its function within the critical discourse of public art. Also welcome are studies on the documentation, conservation, and inventorying of mural painting, explorations of other kinds of wall art such as projections, and proposals for artist’s projects addressing related themes. Please see the journal website for guidelines and send inquiries to Public Art Dialogue’s editorial assistant at SamanthaEdenCataldo@gmail.com. The submission deadline is September 15, 2013.
Society for Photographic Education
The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) is accepting proposals for its 2014 conference, “Collaborative Exchanges: Photography in Dialogue,” through June 1, 2013. Topics are not required to be theme-based and may include, but are not limited to, image-making, history, contemporary theory and criticism, new technologies, effects of media and culture, educational issues, and funding. Membership in SPE is required to submit, and proposals are peer reviewed. There are five presentation formats: Graduate Student (short presentation of your own artistic work and a brief introduction to your graduate program); Imagemaker (presentation on your own artistic work, such as photography, film, video, performance and installation, multidisciplinary approaches); Lecture (presentation on a historical topic, theory or another artist’s work); Panel (a group led by a moderator to discuss a chosen topic); Teach (presentations, workshops, and 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 how to join and for full proposal guidelines.
Society of North American Goldsmiths
The Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) will hold its forty-second annual conference May 15–18, 2013, in Toronto, Ontario, at the downtown historic Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Titled “Meta-Mosaic,” the event will celebrate the multiple industries within jewelry and metalsmithing in the twenty-first century. Toronto is a mosaic of peoples and cultures as well as the center of Canada’s jewelry industry. This conference will examine a fluid identity within art, craft, and design and inspire attendees to embrace our collective mosaic. Join SNAG for presentations and panels featuring industry luminaries from across the globe, rapid-fire presentations by international designers and artists, over twenty exhibitions, the Third Annual Member Trunk Show Sale, social events, and so much more! Registration opened on January 16. Receive low early-bird rates by registering before March 13 and make your hotel reservations by February 15 for a special rate on top of our already reduced room block rates. Visit the SNAG website for all the details.
Reflections on the Annual Conference, the Year Past, and the Year to Come
posted by Anne Collins Goodyear — Mar 05, 2013
Anne Collins Goodyear is president of the CAA Board of Directors.
CAA’s Annual Conference was typically lively and rewarding. With nearly six thousand participants, representing all fifty states—and the District of Columbia—and fifty-three countries, CAA hosted well over two hundred sessions addressing a broad range of topics, including contemporary art practice, criticism, pedagogy, issues in museums, and the history of art. As participation in the conference by colleagues from around the world continues to grow, we were pleased to welcome twenty recipients of CAA International Travel Grants, generously supported by the Getty Foundation, and further discussed by Ann Albritton, Chair of CAA’s International Committee, in an article that will soon be published on the CAA website.
The conference took advantage of new technologies, providing, for the first time, wireless internet access free of charge to conference goers throughout the conference rooms, and making possible the broad spread use of Skype to involve panelists and respondents unable to be in New York. CAA also hosted its first ever THATCamp (The Humanities And Technology) on February 11 and 12, fully subscribed with seventy-five scholars, just before the official start of the conference. A follow up session held during the conference continued a stimulating discussion about the promise and current role of new technologies for art historians.
New technologies are shaping CAA’s publications, two of which celebrate major milestones this year. The Annual Conference enabled us to mark the centennial of The Art Bulletin and the fifteenth anniversary of caa.reviews—both of which were toasted with cake and champagne following our Annual Members’ Business Meeting. In connection with this, each publication, thanks to a $20,000 grant from the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, has undertaken open-access online projects using the Scalar platform. Thelma Thomas, chair of the Art Bulletin Editorial Board, graciously demonstrated her online compilation “Publishing The Art Bulletin: Past, Present, and Future,” (http://scalar.usc.edu/anvc/the-art-bulletin/index) at the meeting. A forthcoming Scalar project by the caa.reviews editor-in chief, Sheryl Reiss, will address the exhibition Bernini: Sculpting in Clay at the Kimbell Art Museum.
As the terrain of scholarly publishing continues to evolve, the high cost of scholarly publications, due in large part to the necessity of obtaining copyright and other clearance permissions for reproductions, concerns all of us. CAA is thus deeply appreciative of a one-year Meiss/Mellon Author Grant for $69,698 to offer subventions to emerging scholars who are publishing monographs in art history and visual studies and to advertise the award. Applications for the first round of the Meiss/Mellon Author’s Book Award are now being accepted. The deadline for spring submissions is March 15, 2013. Fall applications are due October 1, 2013. For more information see: http://www.collegeart.org/meissmellon/.
The larger question of when copyrighted material may be used without licensing in accordance with the principles of fair use is at the heart of a major initiative by CAA to establish Fair Use Best Practice Guidelines, undertaken with the assistance of generous support from the Kress and Mellon Foundations. The project is addressed in greater depth in Jeffrey Cunard’s article, published today. See: https://www.collegeart.org/news/2013/03/05/caas-task-force-on-fair-use-meets-during-annual-conference/.
As the Strategic Plan for 2010–2015 draws to its conclusion (available at http://www.collegeart.org/about/plan), the Board of Directors has now embarked, having convened a task force for the purpose, on the development of a 2015–2020 Strategic Plan. We are eager for your input into the plan and to hear from you about what you feel is working well within the organization and where our services could be strengthened. A related survey will be distributed later this year, and key issues will be discussed with the CAA membership next February at the 2014 Annual Members’ Business Meeting.
As always, CAA welcomes input from its membership on any topic of interest to the field. Please feel free to consult directly with the staff and board and/or to take advantage of CAA’s Facebook page to share your views. See: https://www.facebook.com/collegeartassociation.
Final Report of the Task Force on Annual Conference Technologies
posted by CAA — Mar 05, 2013
Submitted by: Jacqueline Francis, Vice President for Annual Conference
February 17, 2013
This report is a revised and updated version of the preliminary report delivered to the Board of Directors at its October 28, 2012 meeting. It is offered in four parts:
A. The Task Force Origins and Goals
B. Relevant Task Force Discussions and Findings
C. Future Research and Considerations
D. The Task Force’s Accomplishments and Recommendations
The Task Force members:
Jacqueline Francis, California College of the Arts; Vice President for Annual Conference; Chair
Anne Collins Goodyear, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; CAA President and past-VP for Annual Conference
Randall Griffin, Southern Methodist University; CAA VP for Publications
Patricia McDonnell, Wichita Art Museum; CAA VP for External Affairs
Sabina Ott, Columbia College Chicago; CAA Board Member
Emmanuel Lemakis, CAA Director of Programs
Lauren Stark, CAA Manager of Programs and Archivist
Michael Goodman, CAA Director of Information Technology
Paul Jaskot, De Paul University; CAA Past-president
Bruce Robertson, University of California–Santa Barbara; CAA Past-VP for Annual Conference
Katherine Behar, Baruch College
Conrad Gleber, LaSalle University
Mark Tribe, Brown University
On behalf of CAA, I thank the Task Force members for their service to our organization.
A. The Task Force Origins and Goals
Discussion began in December 2011. The initial meeting was chaired by Anne Collins Goodyear, then Vice President for Annual Conference. At this early stage, Task Force members considered historical perspectives on the Conference, offered by Bruce Robertson, the first CAA Vice President for Annual Conference, and CAA’s Director of Programs, Emmanuel Lemakis. In this collegial and productive discussion, the possibility of providing new member benefits whether via live stream and interactive broadcasts or as a post-conference recorded archive (audio and/or video) arose right away. It was useful to be reminded by CAA Director of Information Technology, Michael Goodman, that our organization’s technology infrastructure is mostly used for communication. For this reason, video recording sessions would require CAA to find volunteers to undertake the task, hire new personnel to do so, or contract outside service providers. Starting in January 2012, the Task Force researched, reviewed, and reported on available information technology strategies. The Task Force considered current strategies in use by other learned societies and professional organizations that regularly host conferences and symposia, and by cultural institutions whose goals resonate, overlap, and are coeval with CAA’s.
B. Relevant Task Force Discussions and Findings
1. Distributing Annual Conference Sessions
Presently CAA members can purchase audio recordings of conference sessions whose participants agree to be recorded. Initially, the product was audiocassettes, and presently, CDs and MP3s (digital) are available. Other available technologies include podcasts in MP4 (Quick Time files), Flash Video format which delivers video on the Internet, Windows Media Video/WMV format for streaming (constant delivery provided to a user), and webcasts (media presentation streamed live or distributed on demand on the Internet). Live streaming and video sharing of conference sessions were at the center of many Task Force discussions.
The benefits of distributing session proceedings online during the conference and in its aftermath include:
- a. offering content to CAA members, including those who attended the sessions and simply want to revisit their subjects, and those who did not attend at all;
- b. attracting new members to CAA who may not ever attend a conference, such as those living outside of the U.S. and/or persons with limited resources;
- c.- generating revenue by making online content a membership benefit;
- d.- expanding and broadening its audience by providing some or all of our online content for free.
- e.- documenting conference proceedings and session participation, which, in the UK is regarded as active research that is assessed in academic promotion and tenure cases, and other performance reviews.
Of course, there are many challenges around recording and webcasting content:
- a. the costs of streaming and delivering high quality visual recordings and limited CAA resources for undertaking this expense at present. The hourly rate for professional videographers in New York is at least $500/hour.
- b. Fair Use limitations for broadcasting modern and contemporary art presented in Power Point, Keynote, Prezi, and other presentation formats. [Fair Use is a limitation and exception to federal copyright laws that allow one to use a text, image, recording, etc., without the permission of the copyright holder.]
There are companies that webcast conference and symposium presentations,c.amplifying (as one website proclaimed) these events. Among the prominent video hosting sites are Vimeo, Art Babble, and YouTube. Making use of these sites, the Institute of Fine Arts (New York University), the National Gallery of Art, the Getty Research Institute, and the Arts & Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom) presently offer streamed and/or recorded content online. All are committed to this kind of programming because it has increased their visibility.
The Getty’s strategy in developing policy that allows it to distribute its event online is exemplary. Advised by its attorneys, the Getty has scripted a release form that each guest speaker must sign; this document informs guest speakers that their presentations may be visually recorded and distributed on Getty sites, which included its YouTube channel, Facebook page, social media sites that might carry the Getty name, and the getty.edu website. In addition, the Getty posts signs in its auditorium, advising the audience members at events that they may appear in video, still photography, etc., and on Getty websites. The Getty’s approach to recording speaker presentations that include works of art is to shoot around such images.
Following the Getty’s model, CAA might visually record session participants (and not any of the presented images prepared by panelists) who agree to be recorded. Major public sessions at the conference—the convocation, the distinguished scholar session, artist interviews—could be streamed live with presented images relegated to the background or not shot at all. CAA Counsel Jeffrey P. Cunard has confirmed that there would be no issue in visually recording (1) session speakers who have signed release forms, (2) separate Power Points (text only) presented, and (3) the work of an artist who is speaking. The costs of live streaming and recording sessions will be considered, including the possibility of contracting with a company which could both visually record and host captured media on its own server. Investigating the costs of such undertakings remains to be done, and the decision regarding prioritization for future Annual Conference’s falls to the board, in consultation with the executive director.
C. Future Research and Considerations
1. Conference Technologies
- a. CAA could organize and sponsor another session using Skype (or another innovative presentation technology that allows distance participation).
- b. CAA might investigate the possibility of a conference “app” that might make the gathering easier to navigate for participants, re: finding sessions, making use of the conference space, etc.
- c. CAA might weigh the benefits of (a) launching the splash/landing page for the conference further in advance of the gathering, and (b) revising the page with the goal of highlighting certain events.
- d. CAA might consider holding electronic roundtables.
- e. CAA could encourage greater use of social networking services and platforms, e.g., Twitter, Tumblr, etc., at the conference and in the lead-up to it. CAA Board members might host blogs based on their particular interests and affiliations, and interest groups within CAA might take up blogging. To create a stream of comments generated and carried forth by a conference session, CAA might add a Twitter hashtag to each session, or to a limited number of sessions related to particular interest groups. (Notably, artists place great importance on facilitating relationships in sessions.) Hashtags might be published in the conference program or announced at the start of a session. Overall, tweeting, which is like taking notes, gives people a feeling of belonging to a social network, and would signal a change in CAA’s relationship with conference participants.
- f. CAA could consider a price for access to conference recordings. Access might be a benefit of conference registration, set as a charge for non-registrants, or granted following a pay-per-view price for a single recording or a package of recordings downloaded from a CAA-branded website. A disclaimer stating that the quality of the recorded media will vary might be necessary.
- g. Regarding streaming and recorded technology under consideration, CAA might have to accept some loss of control over them for it will not be possible to review all conference media slated for distribution. While CAA strives to provide and distribute high quality recordings to members, determining, assessing, and meeting that standard are responsibilities that our body might share with session participants, including session chairs.
- h. CAA could pursue the prospect of live streaming several sessions that will be distributed either on our website or on another server.
- i. CAA might consider a universal opt-in format for consent related to recording sessions and distributing them. That is, by agreeing to participate in the conference, all participants (presenters and audiences) would agree to be recorded, photographed, etc., and have their images used on CAA sites. Those who do not agree to any or all of these terms would have to submit forms stating their refusal by a set, pre-conference deadline.
2. Post-Conference Documentation of Conference Sessions
CAA’s identity is that of a member organization, and it can further capitalize on its capacity to facilitate relationships within our community. Specific to the visual recording of conference sessions, a Task Force member suggested this design for implementation:
- a. Session chairs could self-document (visual and audio recording, distribution of papers and presentations, setting up URL links, etc.) and post the media to a website they design and control.
- b. The CAA website could provide links to the session websites with abstracts and biographical information about the participants.
Some strategies for implementation:
- a. CAA requests, encourages or requires participation in such documentation.
- b. CAA starts small and works to support the initiative through outside funding.
- c. CAA make copyright issues the session chairs’ responsibility.
Participation in the visual recording of conference events for distribution may be low at first and may require CAA support to reach 100%. Without question, increasing the availability of the conference sessions will be a benefit to members. It also will influence creative, scholarly, and professional interest groups who exist outside of CAA and include individuals who have not or do not attend the Annual Conference. There is unlimited potential for CAA to facilitate the development of new networks and relationships.
3. Digital Communication and Distribution of Scholarship
Digital content is still being driven by individual members. CAA must continue to investigate the benefits and challenges of digital communication and distribution of scholarship using such technologies. The Modern Language Association (MLA) has recently established a new Office of Scholarly Communication with the goal of using digital platforms to promote member communication. MLA’s model of membership privileges openness, rather than the conventional closed dynamic of scholarly associations. A key benefit of membership is the opportunity to use MLA resources to find and communicate with likeminded scholars. Previously, a benefit of MLA membership was sharing one’s work with a relatively small number of people in attendance at an annual conference, or through publication in a journal (itself conceived as a benefit of membership). Now, MLA members will be able communicate with each other throughout the year, and publish digitally through MLA Commons, an open-source, blog-like platform that is being developing in partnership with the City University of New York Academic Commons (and with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation). MLA believes that the open practices and flexible network of MLA Commons will cultivate the best scholarship.
D. The Task Force’s Accomplishments and Recommendations
1. Accomplishments
- a. There will be a CAA Board-sponsored session at the 2013 conference on participatory art, curated by Task Force member Mark Tribe and led by Pablo Helguera. A New York based artist, Helguera is an author and multi-disciplinary artist working in unconventional formats, including experimental symposia, audio recordings, exhibition audio-guides, and nomadic museums.
- b. THATCamp CAA (in association with Columbia University and Smarthistory at Khan Academy) will be held on Monday, February 11, 2013 and Tuesday, February 12, 2013. This unconference will be an informal, discussion-based, collaborative meeting to be held at Macaulay Honors College (35 West 67th Street, NY). Attendance is free. THATCamp CAA focuses on digital art history scholarship and is open to those with an active interest in that area. Seventy-five participants were accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. A limited number of Kress Fellowships were made available for graduate students to help defray travel costs to THATCamp CAA. Lastly, there will be a CAA Board sponsored session at the 2013 Conference dedicated to the findings and outcomes of THATCamp CAA.
- c. There is wireless access at the 2013 Conference (NY) in all session rooms; our 2014 Conference (Chicago) also will offer this benefit for participants. CAA director of programs, Emmanuel Lemakis, deserves special recognition for negotiating with Hilton New York Hotel representatives for this perk.
- d. CAA is negotiating with a New York-area university to have student videographers record two to three sessions at the 2013 Conference. Session participants will permit video recording of themselves at the podium (but not their images as presented in Keynote, Power Point, Prezi, etc.). These videos will be made available after the conference. (See Task Force Recommendations section below.)
2. Recommendations
- a.. In 2013 CAA should undertake a pilot project to present two to three visual recordings of Conference sessions on Vimeo. Key CAA staff, the CAA President, and the VP for Annual Conference should review the recordings. High quality video should be uploaded to Vimeo by mid-March 2013 and promoted on CAA’s website.
- b.. Post-2013 conference, CAA should apply for a grant to fund a three-year initiative to research and present best practices of live streaming, audio and video recording, and archiving records of scholarly and professional presentations in which Fair Use is an issue. Grant requests could be made to the Kress Foundation and to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to position CAA as an organization well-suited to create a model for streaming online content. Our grant application should stress both the benefits to CAA and to the cultural sector in which we operate, especially in working out costs and other challenges to presenting images that are under copyright.
3. Budget items may include the following:
- (a) a temporary employee’s salary to professionally visually record a limited number of sessions, upload video to a media hosting site, and pursue image permissions used in a limited number of conference sessions, starting in 2014;
- (b) production costs related to streaming, visual recording, archiving, and posting conference videos for online distribution, live stream or on demand;
- (c) the costs of contracting with recording company that would visually record CAA sessions and host the recordings on its server;
- (d) research on permissions costs to session speakers to reproduce images at conference sessions/events starting in 2014 Conference and extending to 2017.
- e. CAA should identify a suite of conference sessions, presentations, and events suitable for live streaming and video recording, and secure participants’ permission to record, broadcast, and/or archive their discussions (and not their images), starting with the 2014 Conference. The cost of doing so should be recouped from conference fees.
- f. Four sessions at the 2014 Conference—selected in advance by CAA executive director, deputy director, director of programs, director of information technology, director of membership, development, marketing, CAA President, CAA Vice President for Annual Conference—should be streamed live during the conference and made freely available. Cost of doing so should be recouped from conference fees. The Task Force suggests streaming the conference’s keynote speaker’s address and the distinguished scholar session.
- g. The unconference format should be part of the 2014 Conference, and might be organized around the topic of contemporary artists’ use and engagement with emergent technologies. This unconference could be scheduled to run concurrently with the Annual Conference; limited to 60-75 participants in the THATCamp format, the unconference would not compete with the Annual Conference.
- h. CAA should encourage the growth of interest blogs and assign hashtags to our conference sessions. Task Force members recently attended conferences and symposia where social media enhanced the event for participants. The CAA director of programs will contact museum professionals and information management experts who have organized and/or used Twitter in conference settings, and the Annual Conference Committee will investigate the viability of the hashtag proposal.
- i. New technology is created regularly and must be continuously discussed and considered for adoption. A Board-sponsored session at the conference is an appropriate Fostering sustainable and ongoing review of conference In addition to harvesting ideas introduced or technologies tried in conference sessions soon after the forum for such discussion technologies should be the charge of the Annual Conference Committee, which would add some members with expertise in this area and comprise a subcommittee annual meeting’s conclusion, the subcommittee would evaluate older technologies to determine if modifications are necessary or if they have outlived their usefulness.
2013 Annual Conference Report
posted by Nia Page — Feb 27, 2013
CAA hosted its 101st Annual Conference from February 13 to 16, 2013, at the Hilton New York in midtown Manhattan. 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 professional lives, a Book and Trade Fair, and a host of special events throughout the region. Preceding the Annual Conference was CAA’s first THATCamp, an “unconference” on digital art history that took place at Macaulay Honors College, City University of New York.
Attendance
Close to six thousand people from throughout the United States and abroad—including artists, art historians, students, educators, curators, critics, collectors, and museum staff—attended 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 two hundred sessions, developed by CAA members, affiliated societies, and committees.
Career Services
Career Services included four days of mentoring and portfolio-review sessions, career-development workshops, and job interviews with colleges, universities, and other art institutions. Approximately 230 interviewees and forty mentors participated in Career Services.
Book and Trade Fair
This year’s Book and Trade Fair presented 110 exhibitors—including participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Belgium, Mexico, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Canada—that displayed new publications, materials for artists, digital resources, and other innovative products of interest to artists and scholars. 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 and ARTexchange
ARTspace, a “conference within the conference” tailored to the needs and interests of practicing artists, presented programming free and open to the public, including this year’s Annual Artists’ Interviews with Mira Schor and Janine Antoni. Over three hundred people attended this extraordinary event.
ARTspace also featured four days of panel discussions devoted to visual-arts practice, opportunities for professional development, and screenings of video work curated and produced by graduate students from the New York region. 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.
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 15. Nearly fifty artists participated in ARTexchange this year.
Convocation and Awards
More than five hundred 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. The recipients of the 2013 awards are:
- Ellsworth Kelly, Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
- Elaine Sturtevant, Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work
- T. J. Clark, Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
- Hal Foster and Claire Bishop, Frank Jewett Mather Award
- Harmony Hammond and Martha Rosler, Distinguished Feminist Award
- Mary K. Coffey, Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
- Philipp Kaiser and Miwon Kwon, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
- Joanne Pillsbury, Miriam Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara-Brito, and Alexandre Tokovinine, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
- Buzz Spector, Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
- June Hargrove, Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
- Lance Mayer and Gay Myers, CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
- Yukio Lippit, Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize
- Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art Journal Award
Robert Storr of Yale University delivered the keynote address. His provocative address will be posted on CAA’s website in the coming weeks.
Special Events
Following Convocation, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum hosted CAA’s Opening Reception on Wednesday evening, February 13. Hundreds of attendees gathered to celebrate the conference while enjoying a preview of the exhibition Gutai: Splendid Playground.
CAA celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of The Art Bulletin and the fifteenth anniversary of caa.reviews after the Annual Members’ Business Meeting on Friday, February 15.
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 New York staff; NYC and Company; the museums and galleries that opened their doors to conference attendees free of charge; and everyone involved in helping to make the 101st Annual Conference such a tremendous success!
Save the Date
CAA’s 102nd Annual Conference will be held in Chicago, Illinois, February 12–15, 2014.
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.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Feb 20, 2013
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.
Move Over Galleries: Artists Sign with Agents
The British artist Stuart Semple has signed a contract for worldwide representation with the fashion agency Next Management, a move that highlights again how the traditional artist–gallery relationship is changing. Several artists, including Damien Hirst and Keith Tyson, have agents or managers who provide financial advice and handle their business dealings with galleries, but Semple says his collaboration will more closely resemble relationships in the music industry, where managers act as a buffer between their acts and the outside world, helping to promote their work and negotiate their projects. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)
Help Desk: Art Consultant
I was just approached by an art consultant who asked me “how I normally work with art consultants.” I think what the person wanted to know is how I want to divide sales, like a percentage ratio, and I just don’t know what is normal. I tried to find online standards for art consultant–artist relationships that develop without a gallery being involved, but everything was all over the place and contradictory. (Read more at Daily Serving.)
The Humanities, Unraveled
Let me start with the bad news. It is not even news anymore; it is simply bad. Graduate education in the humanities is in crisis. Every aspect, from the most specific details of the curriculum to the broadest questions about its purpose, is in crisis. It is a seamless garment of crisis: if you pull on any one thread, the entire thing unravels. Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Four Common Misconceptions on Creative Thinking in Research
Research is a creative activity. In essence, to solve your research question, you will need to take a step outside the boundaries of current knowledge. If you are expected to develop a new theory as part of your research, you certainly need to get your creative juices flowing. When we read the work of great scientists, it sometimes seems as if they possess of some extraordinary tweak in their brain that makes them capable of taking a visionary leap and pushing their field to new advances. In reality, however, all creative solutions are simply the result of a long process of trying, researching, and chewing at the end of pencils. Read more at Inside Higher Ed.)
Fire at Pratt Institute Destroys Studios and Artwork of Students
Maria De Los Angeles, a twenty-four-year-old student at Pratt Institute, has an admissions interview at Yale University’s graduate art school next month and was planning to show the officers there some of her one hundred paintings and three hundred prints. But in last Friday’s early hours, a fast-moving fire ravaged the top two floors of the historic main building at the private art, design, and architecture college in Brooklyn, destroying dozens of art studios and the precious works they contained. (Read more in the New York Times.)
Will You Lose Your Museum Job to a Robot?
OK, maybe not to a robot, but to increasingly sophisticated automation. This question is prompted by a report released last month by the Associated Press forecasting the effect of technology on the economy and employment. The thesis of the authors is that the world is experiencing the first real “jobless recovery” in history, as we bounce back from the great recession of 2008. They argue that the millions of jobs that went away in the past few years not only are not coming back, even more jobs will be lost as automation takes over more work. (Read more at the Center for the Future of Museums.)
A Critic’s Take on Arts and Entrepreneurship
“Arts entrepreneurship” certainly isn’t an oxymoron, unless your definition of art is so narrow that any business success disqualifies it—the attitude of the stereotypical rock snob for whom the little-heard indie debut is always better than the major-label follow-up. On the other hand, the conflict between art and commerce is age old, and there’s no question pandering to an audience can undermine artistic quality. But there’s no magic formula for striking the balance. (Read more in Audience Wanted.)
Sotheby’s Sued over Caravaggio Attribution
Sotheby’s is being sued for damages over a work it attributed to a “follower” of Caravaggio that sold at auction in London to the late collector and scholar Denis Mahon in 2006, for a hammer price of £42,000. Mahon subsequently identified the painting as a work “by the hand of Caravaggio” and obtained an export license for it that gave an estimated selling price of £10 million, according to a claim filed at London’s High Court of Justice. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)
People in the News
posted by CAA — Feb 17, 2013
People in the News lists new hires, positions, and promotions in three sections: Academe, Museums and Galleries, and Organizations and Publications.
The section is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
February 2013
Academe
Peter Chametzky, formerly professor of art history and director of the School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, has been appointed professor of art history and chair of the Department of Art at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
Irene V. Small, formerly an assistant professor in art history at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, has joined the faculty of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Museums and Galleries
Austen Barron Bailly, previously head of the American Art Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California, has been named George Putnam Curator of American Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Susan L. Beningson has joined the Brooklyn Museum in New York as assistant curator of Asian art. She will help with a major reinstallation of the museum’s permanent galleries of Asian and Islamic art, scheduled to open in 2015.
Katherine A. Bussard, associate curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has been named Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography at the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, New Jersey. She will begin work at the museum on April 15, 2013.
Nicholas Capasso, deputy director of curatorial affairs at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, has become the new director of the Fitchburg Art Museum in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
Anne Collins Goodyear, associate curator of prints and drawings for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, and president of the CAA Board of Directors, has been appointed codirector of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. She will lead the institution with her husband, Frank H. Goodyear III.
Alisa LaGamma has joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as curator in charge of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. On April 1 she will succeed Julie Jones, who is retiring at the end of March 2013.
Lauren K. O’Neal, a faculty member of the Graduate Arts Administration Program at Boston University in Massachusetts, has been appointed director of the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.
Lynn Orr, curator in charge of European art for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in California, has left her position after twenty-nine years of service.
Valérie Rousseau, an independent curator and scholar, has been chosen to serve as curator of twentieth-century and contemporary art at the American Folk Art Museum in New York.
Exhibitions Curated by CAA Members
posted by CAA — Feb 15, 2013
Check out details on recent shows organized by CAA members who are also curators.
Exhibitions Curated by CAA Members is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
February 2013
Reni Gower. Papercuts. Ritter Art Gallery, University Galleries, School of the Arts, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, January 19–March 2, 2013.
Andreas Marks. Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art. Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington, November 13, 2012–February 3, 2013.
Barbara McPhail. No Land Escapes. Ink Shop, Ithaca, New York, February 1–March 29, 2013.
Stephen Petersen. Gertrude Käsebier: The Complexity of Light and Shade. Old College Gallery, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, February 6–June 28, 2013.
Workshop Participants Needed to Script a Panel Discussion
posted by Christopher Howard — Feb 07, 2013
Pablo Helguera seeks participants for a preliminary workshop to help script his 2013 Annual Conference session, “A General Theory of Last Night: A Constructed Panel Discussion.” The workshop will take place on Thursday, February 14, 4:00–7:00 PM; registration is required. The session, scheduled for February 15, 9:30 AM–12 NOON, is free and open to the public.
“A General Theory of Last Night” is a scripted panel written collaboratively in the context of CAA’s conference. On the day before the panel, a group of twenty participants will gather to draft a document that will identify and address issues being discussed at the conference and articulate those positions in a clear and concise manner. The objective of the workshop is to provide a vehicle for immediate reflection and the chance to respond in an op-ed approach to current concerns. Participants will be joined by professional actors, who will deliver the scripted content the following morning.
To participate in the collaborative workshop session, please send an email to Helguera with your CV, information about your background, and the reason(s) for your interest in this session. Keep in mind that space for the workshop is very limited.
Pablo Helguera is an artist and the director of adult and academic programs in the Education Department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The author of Education for Socially Engaged Art (2011) and Art Scenes: The Social Scripts of the Art World (2012), he has presented and performed his work in many biennials and museums worldwide.