CAA News Today
Announcing New CAA Board Members for 2022!
posted by CAA — Mar 08, 2022
The results of the 2022 CAA Board of Directors Election were presented at the CAA Annual Business Meeting, Part II on Friday, February 18 at 2:00 p.m. (CST) at CAA’s 110th Annual Conference.
We are grateful to all the candidates who put forward their names for consideration this year.
ABOUT THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The Board of Directors is charged with CAA’s long-term financial stability and strategic direction; it is also the Association’s governing body. The board sets policy regarding all aspects of CAA’s activities, including publishing, the Annual Conference, awards and fellowships, advocacy, and committee procedures.
Thank you to all those who voted!
We would like to congratulate Gregory Gilbert, Nazar Kozak, Karen J. Leader, Adity Saxena, and Victoria McCraven on their election to CAA’s Board of Directors.
Gregory Gilbert
Gregory Gilbert received his BFA degree in Art History from the University of Kansas and his MA and PhD degrees in Art History from Rutgers University. He has taught at Rutgers University, Purdue University and Western Illinois University. He is currently Professor of Art History and Director of the Art History and Art Museum Studies programs at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He also earned MA certification in Museum Studies from Rutgers University and has worked in several art museums, most recently as senior curator at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa. His primary area of research is 20th century American art, specifically Abstract Expressionism. He is currently researching the relationship of Robert Motherwell’s art to Pragmatist philosophy and American poetics and in 2015 received a Dedalus Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Archives of American Art Fellowship for this project. He is also writing a book on Abstract Expressionism and the mass visual culture of World War II and has published articles in the Oxford Art Journal and Arts on this topic. In addition, he has written critical exhibition and book reviews for The Art Newspaper.
Nazar Kozak
Nazar Kozak is Senior Researcher at the Department of Art Studies at the Ethnology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine and Associate Professor of Art History at Ivan Franko University of Lviv. Kozak received a PhD from Lviv Academy of Arts in 2000. His research was supported by scholarships and grants from the Fulbright Scholar Program, Getty Scholar Program, the American Council of Learned Societies, and other organizations. Kozak is working in two subfields of art history simultaneously: medieval and contemporary. His research on the medieval period concerns political iconography and art exchanges in Byzantine and post-Byzantine cultural spheres. He has authored the book (Lviv: Liha-Pres, 2007). In contemporary art studies, Kozak is exploring art’s agency in crisis situations. His essay on the art interventions during the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine (2013–14) received an honorable mention as a finalist for 2018 Art Journal Award. Currently, Kozak is writing a book about global artistic responses to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Karen J. Leader
Karen J. Leader is Associate Professor of Art History and Faculty Associate in the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University. She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and her MA and Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Her areas of interest include art and popular culture in the 19th-21st centuries, feminist theory and practice, and the history and future of the discipline of art history, the humanities, and higher education. She has published on the artist Gustave Courbet, representations of women in popular culture, and 21st-century tattoo culture. She directs the Barb Schmidt Fellowship: Cultivating Community Involvement, Advocacy and Social Change, and is currently the chair of CAA’s Services to Historians of the Visual Arts Committee.
Victoria McCraven
Victoria McCraven is the Programs Manager at NXTHVN, where she recently co-curated the Fall Exhibition Christian Curiel: Between Reveries. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, NXTHVN is an arts non-profit which invites emerging artists from all over the world to participate in its curatorial and studio fellowships. She is passionate about expanding historical narratives through the visual arts and creating community-based dialogue. Victoria earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, majoring in Geography with a minor in Art History. While at Dartmouth, she worked at the Hood Museum of Art where she curated the exhibition Black Bodies on the Cross which included works by Romare Bearden, Kara Walker, and Ashley Bryan. In 2019, Victoria was selected as a U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Postgraduate Grantee to complete her master’s degree in History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Previously, Victoria was the 2020-2021 Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she worked on education and audience development projects across the museum. While completing her fellowship at the Saint Louis Art Museum, she co-curated the current New Media Series Nuotama Frances Bodomo: Afronauts which is currently on view through May 1, 2022.
Adity Saxena
I call myself a messenger of happiness and believe in empathy. Mind-map is my tool for plotting ideas and communicating through stories. In the past 18 years of my professional journey, I have progressed from a design educator of a vocational training institution to a Dean of the Woxsen School of Arts and Design, India. In addition, I have expanded my path from teaching to academic coordination to academic leadership.
Being a first-generation graduate, I have many pauses, slow and fast pace in my journey path, which gives me an understanding of people, culture, and power of empathy. I am a teenage girl’s mother, a certified design thinker, and a mentor.
My experience includes allied fields like working as a Restorative Justice co-facilitator in a school project in the United States and many global research projects. I am India representative of Restorative Justice Education, USA, a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporation) is to promotes the practice of Restorative in school education to create a culture of care.
The social role of art, wellbeing and education are the areas that interest me more. My research has been published globally and many of my research are the outcome of global collaborations. I have been invited to share my thoughts about the challenges in online education, corporate storytelling, and design thinking on many international platforms.
I have been featured in The Academic Woman Magazine, the UK, in Jan-March, 2022 issue. In addition, recently, I have been invited to work as an external member in Design Thinking for Social Change, a project funded by the European Union.
I am privileged to be connected with a global network and believe in the power of collaborations. My dream is to create an enjoyable learning space for students and teachers.
CAA’s Anti-Colonialism Solidarity Statement
posted by CAA — Mar 02, 2022
On February 24, 2022, we witnessed the onset of military action and invasion of Ukraine. The College Art Association (CAA) strongly condemns colonialist aggression and oppression. We stand with our global colleagues, constituents, and friends who are affected by violence and threats to their safety as they struggle for peace and human rights. We recognize and hold firmly the inherent foundations for freedom, justice, and peace in the world. With peace as a central goal, we strongly condemn the deliberate destruction of heritage sites, destruction of art, and attempted hegemonic erasure of culture and history through the actions of oppressors. We encourage our international community of artists, historians, and designers to respond with care, with the aim to de-escalate the violence; and to use actions and words that will reaffirm peace, universal respect, and observance of the spirit of shared humanity. We invite members of our international community and learned societies to support colleagues, to protect scholarship and, with us, to condemn the atrocities to cultural heritage. Destruction of art and history in any one region is an action of erasure of all shared human histories.
CAA holds deep concern for the safety of working people, academic personnel, students, and the culture of the Ukraine, as well as the Global South, Middle East, and Far East and all our international constituencies affected by violence and uncertainty. We additionally support all BIPOC students and peoples and their equal treatment. CAA, its board, and its staff will continue to be in contact with affected members and offer support and advocacy. We stand in solidarity with our international arts community to create, analyze, teach, and promote art as an essential part of our institutions and our lives. We hold your safety, peace, and wellbeing at the forefront of our hearts.
CAA is a signatory of the American Historical Association’s letter condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They write, “We vigorously support the Ukrainian nation and its people in their resistance to Russian military aggression and the twisted mythology that President Putin has invented to justify his violation of international norms.” To read this statement in full, please visit their website.
To read more about CAA’s advocacy, visit this page.
Resources for Displaced Scholars and Students
United States
New University in Exile Consortium
- The New University in Exile is an expanding group of universities and colleges publicly committed to the belief that the academic community has both the responsibility and capacity to assist persecuted and endangered scholars everywhere and to protect the intellectual capital that is jeopardized when universities and scholars are under assault.
- The primary mission of the Consortium is to nurture academics who have been persecuted and uprooted by creating a sense of intellectual community among exiled scholars.
- If you are affiliated with a college or university and would like your institution to take the next step toward becoming a member of the Consortium, email them at uieconsortium@newschool.edu. There are a few simple criteria for membership, primarily a commitment by your institution to host an endangered scholar. There are no membership dues.
- The Scholar Rescue Fund launched a Ukraine-specific round of the IIE Emergency Student Fund on Monday, February 28, to provide financial support to Ukrainian students studying at US colleges and universities.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships
- The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a scholarship program offered to immigrants and refugees in the United States. In order to qualify for the scholarship program, applicants must be planning to attend a graduate-level degree program at an accredited American university on a full-time basis. The scholarships can be awarded to US citizens whose parents were born abroad or who are not US citizens as well as to individuals who were born abroad but are naturalized citizens, adopted by US citizens, green card holders or refugee status. Those who were born abroad but graduated from an American high school may also be eligible.
The Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
Global
- Scholars at Risk works to protect threatened scholars and promote academic freedom around the world.
- Go to this page to identify ways to help.
The UN Refugee Agency Scholarships
- A campaign to fund talented refugee scholars.
Germany
For colleagues linked to German Universities, the website of DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, provides further information concerning Ukraine. The International Office at your university may be eligible for funding to support scholars from Ukraine by linking them to your university.
Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI)
- Services and opportunities
- Scholarships
- The UNHCR of the United Nations administers the Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI) to help refugees afford the cost of post-secondary education. Through the program, recognized refugees can receive free tuition as well as money for books, transportation, housing, and food. The program is open to applicants who hold a secondary school diploma, have demonstrated financial need, enroll in a program where the likelihood of employment is high, and are under 28 years of age. Only one DAFI award is given out per family. Applicants must be from one of the countries specified by the UNHCR. A full list is available on their website.
Austria
Central European University, Vienna
- Visit this link for ways to donate to Ukranian communities, such as housing and hardship support, as well as a new scholarship fund.
UK
University of Bristol Scholarship
- A scholarship that gives refugees and asylum seekers life-changing access to university education has been expanded, the University of Bristol has announced.
Student Action for Refugees (STAR)
- STAR campaigns for and supports the creation of scholarships to improve access to university for people who have claimed asylum in the UK. At this link, you can find a list of scholarship opportunities in the UK, together with advice for your application and information about other funding opportunities.
Council of At-Risk Academics (CARA) at Risk UK Universities Network
- The Network aims to facilitate cooperation and collaboration between UK higher education institutions in support of persecuted and at-risk academics, and in the defence and promotion of academic and university freedoms worldwide. 125 UK universities are currently working with us to support these aims.
Other Resources
CAA Affiliated societies:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2347 (2017)
UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
IN MEMORIAM: CARMEN HERRERA
posted by CAA — Feb 15, 2022
Image source: The New York Times by Todd Heisler
CAA mourns the loss of artist Carmen Herrera who died February 12, 2022 at the age of 106. Recognized by CAA in 2016 as the Distinguished Artist for Lifetime Achievement, Herrera’s career received attention in the last few decades of her life. Born in Cuba in 1915, she originally studied architecture but switched her focus to painting when she moved to New York City in the 1930s. At the age of 89 in 2004, she had her first major show and review at Manhattan’s Latin Collector Gallery. Now her minimalist and hard-edged paintings, with a focus on line, form, and color, are widely celebrated in the collections of major museums around the world. In a 2009 interview she said, “It’s a compulsion that also gives me pleasure. I never in my life had any idea of money and I thought fame was a very vulgar thing. . . . And at the end of my life, I’m getting a lot of recognition, to my amazement and my pleasure.”
CAA Intern Spotlight
posted by CAA — Feb 10, 2022
This week, CAA spotlights its three amazing interns who have been working with CAA since early fall 2021: Development Intern, Viktoriya Molchanova, Editorial Intern, Keshawna Mooney, and Grants Administration Intern, Astrid Tvetenstand. Learning to work remotely for an organization as a young professional is no small feat and we thank them for their dedication, enthusiasm, and support.
Development Intern: Viktoriya Molchanova
How has your experience at CAA affected you?
As a flutist with a performing arts background, I did not know much about the visual arts. As an aspiring future arts administrator, I wanted to take an internship at CAA to expand my knowledge and work experience specifically in the visual arts. Throughout these months, I have gained a deeper understanding of the visual arts world from its accomplished scholars to its dedicated funders. My great-grandfather was a visual arts scholar and attended many international visual arts conferences. I am happy to continue his legacy through my internship at CAA.
What is your favorite kind of art and why?
My favorite art is The Unicorn Rests in a Garden from the Unicorn Tapestries at the Met. The tapestry reminds me of a time when I arrived in elementary school as a first generation immigrant. It was challenging to learn the English language and assimilate into a new culture. However, the arts education at my school helped me overcome my struggles. My visual arts teacher saw that I enjoyed looking through his art book on unicorns. As a kind gesture, he gave me the book as a gift. After all these years, I still keep book as a reminder of the transformative power of arts education on my life and career.
Viktoriya Molchanova is a graduate student in the Arts Administration Master’s program at Baruch College and holds two Bachelor’s in Arts Management and Classical Instrumental Performance from Purchase College. She won the Nagelberg Family Scholarship in Arts Administration in 2021 and the SAMMIE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Arts Management in 2020. Viktoriya is in her last semester at Baruch College and is writing her Master’s thesis. Viktoriya is happy to connect on LinkedIn.
Editorial Intern: Keshawna Mooney
How has your experience at CAA affected you?
My internship at CAA has been an amazing experience. I have learned so much about the publishing process and become more familiar with specific style guides which were both specific goals I had for myself. It has been great to work with such an encouraging supervisor that has allowed me to advance these skills and grow as a young professional. I am also proud to have been part of the team that assists artists, scholars, and other art lovers in presenting their work and ideas to an audience.
What was something you learned that was unexpected?
I have been amazed to learn the amount of work that goes into journal publishing. Being able to work on all journals simultaneously has been exciting and learning to prioritize while juggling multiple projects has helped strengthen my time management skills even further. I have also discovered that the editing process is a much more collaborative experience as opposed to solitary, and it feels great to know that I have support and guidance when I need it.
What is your favorite kind of art and why?
While I love all forms of art, my favorite kind of visual art would be street art because you can find it almost anywhere and sometimes in the most unexpected places. In addition to its accessibility, street art takes concepts many of us recognize and positions them in ways so relatable that tells us we are seen and maybe even understood. Some of my favorite street artists include DAZE, Bambi, and WRDSMTH.
Keshawna Mooney is an Editorial Intern at CAA. She is a junior at CUNY Brooklyn College majoring in English and Creative Writing. Her goal is to present multilayered characters in their most complicated, contradictory, and raw forms. She is also a winner of the 2021 James Tolan Award for her essay “Lolita: The Unknowingly Irresponsible Girl Child.” She has worked as a supplemental instructor at BMCC working with students to develop and improve their writing skills and as an English literacy volunteer with adult populations. After graduation she hopes to be able to continue doing the work she loves, telling interesting stories and helping others tell theirs. In her spare time, you can find her wandering around art museums, enjoying theater, or curled up with a good book.
Grants Administration Intern: Astrid Tvetenstrand
How has your experience at CAA affected you?
Working at CAA has exposed me to the larger community of art historians outside my discipline. Everyone at CAA is building a productive network of professionals, scholars, emerging leaders in the field who are building each other up and sharing resources. I have learned so much about how grants and awards are administered to simultaneously give people more opportunities for their work.
What was something you learned that was unexpected?
I learned that juries make hard decisions and are ultimately trying to celebrate and grant as many projects as possible. Before working at CAA, I had only ever experienced the application process and had not given too much thought to what happens after you click the submit button. Listening to the juries’ debate was illuminating and FUN. The process is complex, intellectual, and ultimately much more nuanced than I previously thought.
What is your favorite kind of art and why?
I love nineteenth-century American landscape painting because it is beautiful, complicated, and speaks to so many important themes and topics within our shared history.
Astrid Tvetenstrand is a fourth year PhD candidate in the American & New England Studies program at Boston University. She studies the history of American painting, decorative arts, and architecture. She explores these fields through practices of collection, economic development, and the consumption of American property. Her dissertation examines late nineteenth-century American landscape painting’s role in the creation of seasonal colonies. By investigating art’s relationship to the development of property, she analyzes the socioeconomic framework which shaped both the visual content and physical market of landscape painting. She looks at the role of nature in the lives of nineteenth-century Americans and how it influenced the creation of art and commerce in the United States.
CAA 2022 Awards for Distinction
posted by CAA — Jan 24, 2022
CAA announces the 2022 recipients of Awards for Distinction. By honoring outstanding member achievements, CAA reaffirms its mission to encourage the highest standards of scholarship, practice, connoisseurship, and teaching in the arts. With these annual awards, CAA seeks to honor individual artists, art historians, authors, museum professionals, and critics whose accomplishments transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large.
Among the awards, the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement is presented to Betye Saar who has not only forged a singular practice for six decades but has also influenced generations of artists, makers, and thinkers. Calling upon the legacies of artists like Joseph Cornell, her symbolic and potent assemblages, of which she’s best known, reflect on the lives, experiences, and identities of African Americans, spirituality, and cultural connectivity.
The Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art is presented to Wu Hung. Perpetually interested in the shape of time, in relation to the time of the world, he has authored many books, essays, and exhibition catalogues that bring Chinese visual culture into different orders of focus, taking into account the changing conditions of tombs, screens, performances, and protests. The scope of his work has an epic quality, allowing arguments to unfold across centuries without losing sight of the very human presence of artists and audiences.
Art Journal Award
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
Frank Jewett Mather Award
Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
Elina Gertsman, The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books, Penn State University Press, 2021.
Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize
Artist Award for a Distinguished Body of Work
Kent Monkman
CAA/AIC Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
Zahira Véliz
Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
Betye Saar
Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
Wu Hung
Distinguished Feminist Award – Artist
In lieu of the Distinguished Feminist awards, we will recognize leaders in the field of feminist art and art history in our 2022 programming highlighting the 50th Year Anniversary of feminism at CAA.
Distinguished Feminist Award – Scholar
In lieu of the Distinguished Feminist awards, we will recognize leaders in the field of feminist art and art history in our 2022 programming highlighting the 50th Year Anniversary of feminism at CAA.
Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
Fred Hagstrom
Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
Terry Smith
Excellence in Diversity Award
Citations:
Art Journal Award
In organizing a course of study predicated on the ontological challenge to discourses of art offered by trans and nonbinary positions, David J. Getsy and Che Gossett have generously identified a major lacuna in the field and provided a toolkit for its amelioration. The jury unanimously selected their “A Syllabus on Transgender and Nonbinary Methods for Art and Art History” as the most distinguished contribution to the Art Journal in 2021. The syllabus not only identifies, positions, and summarizes critical scholarship in the field of transgender and nonbinary studies, it also demonstrates the fruitful integration of pedagogy and emerging research methodologies. Noting the relative dearth of art historical scholarship that has taken up trans methods and histories, the authors suggest the ways in which key themes and terms from art might be critically reevaluated in light of transgender studies. An introduction to each section’s bibliography synthesizes complex debates and individual arguments with remarkable clarity. Sensitive to the necessary intersections of trans analytics with critical approaches to race, ability, and class, the authors highlight readings from Black feminist thought and abolition optics, among other transversal concerns, that elucidate points of fracture within and strategies of resistance to the regulatory gender binary. At once rigorous and accessible, Getsy and Gossett’s contribution offers an adaptable blueprint for researchers and educators.
Committee:
Omar Kholeif, Sharjah Art Foundation
Tilo Riefenstein, School of the Arts, York St John University
Phil Taylor, George Eastman Museum (Chair)
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
America is haunted. Genocidal policies unleashed on Native Americans; the horror of the transatlantic slave trade; war, racism, and social injustice; dark passages in community and individual histories – these traumas and more have left behind a trail of spirits. Taking as its topic the paranormal in American art, Supernatural America reveals the myriad ways in which citizens and artists have sought to see, understand, or come to terms with the ghosts of the past. Lavishly illustrated, with many images never seen before, Supernatural America breaks new ground in presenting the paranormal as a historical subject of wide-ranging importance. Incisive essays by scholars and artists cover painting and sculpture from the late 18th century to the present, spirit photography, art channeled through mediums, spiritualist paraphernalia, folk and outsider art, UFO-inspired materials, video and installation from a range of perspectives. This revealing, thought-provoking investigation into an emerging scholarly field gives proof to William Faulkner’s well-known line: ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past’.
Committee:
Susan Aberth, Bard College
Benjamin Anderson, Cornell
Karen Lang, University of Arizona
Andrew Saluti, Syracuse University (Chair)
Joyce Tsai, Clyfford Still Museum
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
In 2015 the Ryerson Image Centre acquired the archives of Berenice Abbott, including more than 6000 photographs and 7000 negatives, her papers, correspondences, and manuscripts. One of the key figures in the history of documentary photography, Abbott is now known as an archivist as well as an artist. It was Abbott who preserved Eugene Atget’s archives at the end of the twenties and published his work. Her own photographs, taken while working for the WPA, consolidated her reputation as a documentary photographer. What exactly is that reputation? In order to answer that question, Documentary in Dispute meticulously reconstructs the manuscript of the book Changing New York, first published in 1939 by Dutton & Co, with photographs by Berenice Abbott and text by renowned art critic Elizabeth McCausland. In a tour de force of archival research and scholarly presentation, Sarah M. Miller reveals how the project was altered to obscure the aesthetic, political and ethical values of photographer and author. Miller’s beautifully written, highly focused essay on Abbott and McCausland situates them in an international avant-garde which recognized the potential of image and text to transform, even to break, our habits of seeing and being. Miller’s overall approach recalls Walter Benjamin’s own in the 1930s. Not coincidentally, Benjamin was inspired by Abbott’s archival and photographic achievements.
Committee:
Susan Aberth, Bard College
Benjamin Anderson, Cornell
Karen Lang, University of Arizona
Andrew Saluti, Syracuse University (Chair)
Joyce Tsai, Clyfford Still Museum
Frank Jewett Mather Award
The jury has unanimously selected Kaira M. Cabañas’ Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art. Cabañas has written a highly readable volume addressing the material relations between objects and subjects as well as addressing the limiting institutional conventions of academic art history. Her work draws upon theories of new materialism, an animating force that, when attended to, requires rethinking binary categories such as living and inert or life and matter. Cabañas’ volume traverses histories and hemispheres: from the perceptual doubts engendered by the force of color in Alejandro Otero’s paintings to the enmeshed material contingencies of Gego’s metal sculptures, from the sensorial therapeutic propositions of Lygia Clark’s relational objects to the curatorial entanglements of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck’s challenges to the grid, and from the affective agencies Mario Pedrosa located in the paintings of Djanira da Motta e Silva to the documented rituals of care obfuscating boundaries between the organic and the inorganic in Matheus Rocha Pitta’s Polaroids. Cabañas proposes an alternative to the kind of nation-bounded analyses that often burden studies of modern and contemporary art of Latin America. She addresses academic art history’s tendency to isolate along geographic lines, marginalizing practices and scholarship. Cabañas’ text thus models a critical strategy for assessing not just artworks but the field itself.
Committee:
Julia Bryan-Wilson, University of California, Berkeley
Kim Theriault, Dominican University
Andrew Wasserman, Dominican University (Chair)
Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
Elina Gertsman, The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books, Penn State University Press, 2021.
Countering the customary interpretation of late medieval art as relentlessly profuse and exuberant, Elina Gertsman’s The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books, explores different constructions of emptiness ranging from the presentation of voids in illustrations to represent the unrepresentable to the deliberate inclusion of physical holes in manuscript pages designed to reveal portions of other pages. Gertsman’s investigation of the “fecundity of emptiness” is a generative and compelling topic for scholars of art history/visual studies across areas, both within and outside Medieval Studies. She argues and demonstrates that, between 1200s and 1500s, the broad circulation of scientific thought and its engagement with theology and formal and literary discourses on emptiness, absence, and negation account for visual, cognitive, and material expressions on the pages of medieval books. Cross-disciplinary in its approach, Gertsman’s book simultaneously draws attention to the visual and material aspects of the manuscripts, phenomenological experience, and philosophical, religious, and scientific theories of the period. In doing so she uncovers an unexpected kinship between the medieval artists and the modernist avant-garde, where the void is regarded as the locus of the sublime and of boundless possibility. Her erudite writing and compelling approach to the subject poses questions throughout that magnify the relevance of her study and stimulate personal inquiry—as a reader reflects on other areas of consideration across time called out in the text. The book is lavishly illustrated and artfully designed with a shape and size complementary to the subject of study.
Committee:
John Cunnally, Iowa State University
Christina Hellmich, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Laura Anne Kalba, University of Minnesota
Lisa D. Schrenk, University of Arizona
Dorothy Wong, University of Virginia (Chair)
Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize
Marius Hauknes offers a riveting and multi-layered interpretation of the role of spectatorship in the production of meaning in the 13th-century crypt of the Anagni Cathedral. Rather than consider a viewer as a passive onlooker, he devotes attention to multiple aspects of embodied spectatorship: movement, (shifting) angles/perspectives, (in)visibility, temporality, and knowledge. These offer a powerful vantage point from which to consider the intersection of the painting program with the body itself. Drawing attention to contemporary concerns and interests in the body’s health, its cognitive capacities (and limits), and its place in the universe, Hauknes places the paintings into conversation with medicine and astrology. The images emerge as intellectual acts in a religious and political setting that grappled with problems of temporality and being. Hauknes evinces deep and extensive scholarly research, and is able to draw precise and appropriate insights from contemporary cultural and historical contexts, without losing focus on the artwork itself. While offering compelling readings of specific scenes — showing how they could connect, overlap, or echo with one another — Hauknes posits that comprehensive spectatorship was not possible. Instead, human comprehension and temporality contrasts with the divine, creating a space for reflection on the need for medicine and astrology.
Committee:
Nathan T. Arrington, Princeton University (Chair)
Susanna Berger, University of Southern California
Rachel Miller, California State University, Sacramento
Artist Award for a Distinguished Body of Work
Kent Monkman
There is a long-standing history in the visual arts of artists bearing witness to atrocities: Goya’s painting “The Third of May,” Picasso’s “Guernica,” to name but two. Toronto-based Cree artist Kent Monkman’s exhibition “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience” follows this tradition, with a few notable updates. On the occasion of Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017, Monkman’s paintings featured in a cross-country touring exhibit that culminated at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, August 6, 2020 – January 3, 2021, provides a searing critique of Canada’s colonial policies past and present, including, in the artist’s accounting: “the signing of the numbered treaties, the reserve system, genocidal policies of the residential schools, mass incarceration and urban squalor.” This is a body of work that, though tackling a grim subject matter, is often a blend of subversive humor, fantasy, and homoeroticism. And, although appropriating the form of Western history painting, Monkman’s artwork breaks from tradition by subverting and de-centering the Western gaze and re-presenting a perspective of history from the vantage point of the Indigenous peoples. Albeit, a history filtered through the particular lens of an artist who identifies as both queer and two-spirit, and through his trickster alter-ego, Miss Chief Share Eagle Testickle, the protagonist within much of Monkman’s paintings and performances. Through his use of history painting, Monkman’s project is one that reminds us of the potency of images, and the potential of the artist to provoke and challenge history and its representations.
Committee:
Stephen Fakiyesi, Independent Artist, Toronto
Jessica Hong, Hood Museum, Toledo Art Museum
Beauvais Lyons, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, (Chair)
CAA/AIC Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
Zahira Véliz
Zahria (Soni) Véliz has enhanced our understanding of art through her numerous, scholarly publications to the fields of art history and paintings conservation. Dr. Véliz has strengthened the methodological approaches of scholars who work on Spanish artists and Franz Kline through her publication record as well as her generosity as a colleague.
Through the translation and dissemination of Spanish texts, Dr. Véliz’s has made contemporaneous information about early modern painting accessible to researchers who do not read Spanish. Artists Techniques in Golden Age Spain (1987) is often cited in technical studies of Spanish paintings. More recently, Dr. Véliz edited a translation of Jusepe Martínez’s 1673-75 Practical Discourses on the Most Noble Art of Painting (2017). These publications, along with others by Dr. Véliz on subjects including blue pigments, wooden panels, and drawing practice, have been foundational to the study of Spanish art in the United States.
Dr. Véliz’s PhD dissertation on Alonso Cano served as a foundation for many publications on the artist. In addition, Dr. Véliz’s knowledge and skills of connoisseurship regarding Spanish drawing enriched her drawings catalogues for the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Asturias. As Senior Paintings Conservator for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Dr. Véliz published her research into a newly attributed painting to Diego Velázquez as well as technical and art historical research on Franz Kline’s paintings that are models of collaborative research.
Committee Members:
Jim Coddington, American Institute of Conservation
Tiarna Doherty, University of Delaware, (Chair)
Fernanda Valverde, Amon Carter Museum
Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
Betye Saar
Betye Saar (b. 1926, Los Angeles, CA) has not only forged a singular practice for six decades but has also influenced generations of artists, makers, and thinkers. Calling upon the legacies of artists like Joseph Cornell, her symbolic and potent assemblages, of which she’s best known, reflect on the lives, experiences, and identities of African Americans, spirituality, and cultural connectivity. Part of the broader Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, Saar also confronted issues of racism and sexism in groundbreaking and radical works like The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972). Saar contends the continual thread in her work is her “curiosity about the mystical.” As she wrote in 1998, “I am intrigued with combining the remnant of memories, fragments of relics and ordinary objects, with the components of technology. It’s a way of delving into the past and reaching into the future simultaneously. The art itself becomes the bridge. Curiosity about the unknown has no boundaries. Symbols, images, place and cultures merge. Time slips away. The stars, the cards, the mystic vigil may hold the answers. By shifting the point of view an inner spirit is released. Free to create.” By foregrounding the mystical, Saar sees people, cultures, contexts, temporalities as part of a larger, interconnected spiritual fabric, an understanding that is needed in a time of extreme ideological polarization, inequities, and geopolitical strife. Saar and her practice continue to resonate and inspire current generations and those to come.
Committee:
Stephen Fakiyesi, Independent Artist, Toronto
Jessica Hong, Hood Museum, Toledo Art Museum
Beauvais Lyons, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, (Chair)
Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
Wu Hung
Trained in both China and the United States, Wu Hung’s writing brings perspectives native to both cultures to bear on aesthetics, art history, and archaeology. His arguments ground the cultures of China, from the earliest ancient survivals to the interventions of our own time in structures of mind that defy the progress narratives of the West. He has received countless awards for work that has transformed the study of East Asian art and drawn attention to the relationship between images and the spaces within which they are observed, from the Dunhuang caves to the double screens to Zhu Jinshi’s Fangzhen: A Cubic Meter of Canvas in Berlin.
Overall, his writings explore the many, restless transitions across time and space. Perpetually interested in the shape of time, in relation to the time of the world, he has authored many books, essays, and exhibition catalogues that bring Chinese visual culture into different orders of focus, taking into account the changing conditions of tombs, screens, performances, and protests. The scope of his work has an epic quality, allowing arguments to unfold across centuries without losing sight of the very human presence of artists and audiences. He works in the discipline of art history as a poet-scholar who knows the brushstroke from the inside out, crafting prose of great clarity and nuance that opens the field to specialists and new readers alike.
Distinguished Feminist Award – Artist
In lieu of the Distinguished Feminist awards, we will recognize leaders in the field of feminist art and art history in our 2022 programming highlighting the 50th Year Anniversary of feminism at CAA.
Committee:
Robin Cass, Rochester Institute of Technology (Chair)
Delinda J. Collier, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Midori Yoshimoto, New Jersey City University
Distinguished Feminist Award – Scholar
In lieu of the Distinguished Feminist awards, we will recognize leaders in the field of feminist art and art history in our 2022 programming highlighting the 50th Year Anniversary of feminism at CAA.
Committee:
Robin Cass, Rochester Institute of Technology (Chair)
Delinda J. Collier, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Midori Yoshimoto, New Jersey City University
Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
Fred Hagstrom
Fred Hagstrom, a member of the Carleton College faculty since 1984, is the 2022 recipient of the CAA Distinguished Teaching of Art Award. Hagstrom’s nomination included endorsements from former students and colleagues, including a listing of 341 former students who have taken his printmaking, book arts, and drawing classes. Hagstrom also directed a bi-annual study abroad 10-week trip for students to Australia, New Zealand, and the Cook Islands twelve times over twenty years, where students learned about South Pacific and Maori art and culture. Based on this experience, Dylan Yvonne Welch (BA, ‘08) recalls “Each trip, he candidly and humbly facilitates conversations about colonial history, racism and art. As a student, this was a breath of fresh air as I had found that many other professors seemed uncomfortable or simply avoided discussing those topics.” Eleanor Jensen (BA, ’01) credit him with teaching her to both see and draw, while also observing that “Fred is deeply sensitive to his students and is always ready to stand up for somebody who has been harmed or overlooked.” Students observed that Hagstrom’s classes were interdisciplinary, challenging them to connect their studies in other disciplines as well as their life stories to their studio work. Jade Hoyer credits Professor Hagstrom with being a mentor long after she graduated in 2007. Fred Hagstrom has profoundly impacted his students, many of whom have pursued careers as artists and educators. We are pleased to recognize Fred Hagstrom’s more than three decades of teaching with this award.
Committee:
Stephen Fakiyesi, Independent Artist, Toronto
Jessica Hong, Hood Museum, Toledo Art Museum
Beauvais Lyons, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, (Chair)
Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
Terry Smith
Terry Smith has long written, curated and taught across borders, in the beginning coming from Australia to study and work in New York as both a scholar and an active member of Art & Language. He has been expanding his sights ever since. He has long advocated for the study of indigenous art. For the past twenty years, starting with projects such as Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s -1980s at the Queens Museum, he was the trusted collaborator of Okwui Enwezor. He has always insisted that the past and the present be given their due consideration and global perspectives.
All of this came to his teaching. Students have understood the breadth of his expertise and curiosity; they have used them as inspiration for their own paths; they have appreciated his warmth, his encouragement and the gift of his time. The example he has set as an art historian and a curator has had visible effects in the ranks of university professors and museum curators in the United States and abroad. They do not conform to a single, theoretical way. His students repeatedly speak of his belief in the independent existence of the art object and at the same time his insistence that it be grounded and imbricated in its own real time social relations. Art is allowed its scale, its interior place in our minds, and its exterior place in our world.
Committee:
Shirin Fozi, University of Pittsburgh (Chair)
Joseph Masheck, Hofstra University
Molly Nesbit, Vassar College
Excellence in Diversity Award
Committee:
Carmelita Higgenbotham, Virginia Commonwealth University
Kelly Murdoch-Kitt, University of Michigan
Sohl Lee, Stony Brook University
In Memoriam: Jonathan Brown
posted by CAA — Jan 19, 2022
Image source: Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
CAA mourns the loss of Jonathan Brown, an art historian and curator who has had an immense impact on the study of art in the Hispanic world. With over fifty-one years of teaching, eight at Princeton and forty-three at the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), Brown’s influence was far-reaching. As he put it, “Without modesty, I believe I have made a mark in my field—Hispanic art—and in the wider world of art history.”
As a student at the beginning of his career, Brown studied Spanish literature at Dartmouth College and studied abroad in Madrid, where he discovered and cultivated his lifelong interest in Velázquez and Spanish Baroque art. After finishing his doctorate at Princeton in 1964, he joined the Princeton Department of Art and Archeology from 1965–73 and then ultimately decided to pursue scholarship and teaching, publishing his first book in 1973 based on his dissertation, Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting. He said that he was told “that it fell like a bombshell in the ranks of Spanish art historians. Implicitly, the book created a bridge between the iconographical approach of Panofsky and a contextual reading . . . ” This was just the start of a long career that included exhibitions at major museums, scholarly publications, awards, and other accomplishments. In his tenure, his work shaped the study of Spanish Baroque art and defined the practice of Velázquez, producing texts and surveys that have become standard references for the field. In the last decades of his life, as the Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at the IFA, he expanded his practice to include Hispanic and colonial art in the Americas.
In 2011, Brown served as the Distinguished Scholar for CAA’s Annual Conference. This honor invites preeminent scholars in the field to participate in a session at the conference along colleagues and former students. The session can therefore be viewed as the equivalent of a living Festschrift: an occasion for applauding, examining, and extending a distinguished career in art history and an opportunity for encouraging dialogue between and among several generations of scholars. In recognizing the significance of this moment, he said that he had “received many awards for my contributions to the field, of which the most important is the Distinguished Scholar by the College Art Association . . .”
Read more about the remarkable career of Jonathan Brown here.
Announcement: CAA’s 110th Annual Conference Pivots to Virtual
posted by CAA — Jan 07, 2022
Meme Omogbai, CAA’s Executive Director and CEO, and Laura Anderson Barbata, Vice President for Annual Conference and Programs discuss the pivot to a virtual conference.
Dear CAA members,
First and foremost, we want to wish you a happy New Year and hope that you found a way to celebrate with loved ones during this challenging period of the pandemic. It’s essential that we continue to honor traditions, express gratitude, and maintain connections that are important to us.
As we continue to prepare for our Annual Conference beginning in February, the health and safety of our members is our primary concern. We prioritize member feedback and continue to be responsive to your needs and preferences in a way that is scalable. This past year, many of you expressed the desire for an in-person gathering in 2022, complemented by virtual components increasing accessibility. We have worked diligently to provide an experience that meets your expectations.
Focusing on meeting our commitment to members, based upon quantitative and qualitative analysis, surveys, and other feedback consistent with the fundamentals of our strategic repositioning, we have been closely monitoring the COVID pandemic and the rapidly developing Omicron strain as well as CDC guidelines. Given this information and the recent feedback we’ve received from you regarding concerns about convening in person, the travel advisory issued by the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) this week, and the uncertainty of the weeks and months ahead, we have decided to make the CAA 2022 Annual Conference entirely virtual. All in-person sessions and activities scheduled for February 16–19 in Chicago will now become virtual on the same dates. Virtual sessions and activities scheduled for March 3–5 will remain the same. All recordings will also remain available through April 14 as previously planned and communicated.
Our history, as described in CAA’s centennial publication, The Eye, the Hand, the Mind, has shown that we can change and adapt. The pandemic has once again shown us how nimble we can be as we pivot for the future. CAA staff will work in the coming days to seamlessly shift programming to an all-virtual format.
If you have already registered for the conference at any paid level—all-access, presenter, or virtual-only—your registration will automatically be converted to all-access for all sessions at the current virtual rate. Current all-access registrants may also choose to be credited or refunded for the difference between the prior all-access and current virtual rates. Alternatively, we would greatly appreciate your considering donating this amount to CAA to help offset the costs related to this change. Those currently registered for all-access will receive an email in the coming days with a form to select their credit, donation, or refund preference.
We continue to be committed to fulfilling your expectations and to providing a conference that suits your means of engagement, provides a wealth of scholarly content, and allows multiple ways to connect with others. In contrast with last year’s conference, all presentations during the 2022 conference will be presented live via Zoom, rather than prerecorded. This will allow for more questions and spontaneous discussions.
During the all-virtual conference, we will have three opportunities to share with you our vision for CAA as we continue to reposition the organization for the twenty-first century. The Town Halls will give us an opportunity to hear from you so we can continue to meet your needs and accommodate your preferences.
- Convocation, on Wednesday, February 16, officially begins the 2022 conference. It will be a chance to hear from CAA leadership about where we are in the repositioning process and our vision for the future. We will also recognize the Distinguished Award recipients and hear from keynote speaker, Juan Salgado, Chancellor, City Colleges of Chicago, on improving education and economic opportunities for individuals in underserved communities.
- The Town Hall, on Friday, February 18, will provide an opportunity to hear the financial report of the association, the results of board elections, and other important business matters, including plans for the publications redesign and our restructured membership.
- The Town Hall on Saturday, March 5, will be another time to share information and address any outstanding items.
Please watch the short video discussion between Meme and Laura Anderson Barbata, Vice President for Annual Conference and Programs, which provides more information on the pivot to an all-virtual format.
Our website, registration portal, and FAQs will reflect the shift to an all-virtual format, and we will continue to update you through our newsletter and social media accounts. Thank you for your patience and flexibility during this time. You may contact us with any questions or concerns at info@collegeart.org.
We look forward to when we can once again meet safely face-to-face. Until then, we will continue to make positive use of virtual platforms and integrate them in ways that will benefit CAA members in the years to come, allowing us to broaden our reach across geographic and technological borders, and to emerge as a stronger organization.
Sincerely yours,
![]() Meme Omogbai |
N. Elizabeth Schlatter |
Finalists for the 2022 Morey and Barr Awards
posted by CAA — Jan 03, 2022
CAA is pleased to announce the 2022 finalists for the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award and the two Alfred H. Barr Jr. Awards. The winners of the three prizes, along with the recipients of other Awards for Distinction, will be announced in January 2022 and presented during Convocation in conjunction with CAA’s 110th Annual Conference, February 16–19, 2022.
Charles Rufus Morey Book Award Shortlist, 2022
Monica Bravo, Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico, Yale University Press, 2021
Elina Gertsman, The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books, Penn State University Press, 2021
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award Shortlist, 2022
Dorothy Moss, Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, 2021
Sarah Roberts and Katy Siegel, Joan Mitchell, Yale University Press, 2021
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions Shortlist, 2022
Julie L. McGee, David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History, Rizzoli, 2021
David S. Areford, Strict Beauty: Sol LeWitt Prints, Yale University Press, 2020
Meet the 2022 CAA-Getty International Program Participants
posted by CAA — Dec 22, 2021
We’re pleased to announce this year’s participants in the CAA-Getty International Program. Now in its eleventh year, this international program supported by the Getty Foundation will all twelve new participants and four alumni to participation in the 2022 Annual Conference. Learn more about the first ten years of the program in our online publication.
At a pre-conference colloquium, the new participants will discuss key issues in the international study of art history together with CAA-Getty alumni and US hosts. The program will delve into topics as postcolonial and Eurocentric legacies, interdisciplinary and transnational methodologies, and the intersection of politics and art history.
Alumni invited back to the 2022 conference will present in the session Can Art History Be Affective? Empathy, Emotion and the Art Historian, chaired by Getty alumni and International Committee members Nora Veszpremi and Cristian Nae, while also providing an intellectual and social link between new participants and our burgeoning group of CAA-Getty International Program alumni.
The goal of the CAA-Getty International Program is to increase international participation in CAA’s activities and the field of visual arts in academia, thereby expanding international networks and the exchange of ideas both during and after the conference. We look forward to welcoming the following participants.
2022 PARTICIPANTS IN THE CAA-GETTY INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM
Tatiana Muñoz Brenes is an art curator and researcher. She has combined the exercise of cultural management with Social Sciences by having degrees in Art History and Psychology, both from the University of Costa Rica. Her training has allowed her to work on the topics of community museums, sustainability, collection research, curating exhibitions and curatorial accompaniment for artistic production. Currently, her work focuses mainly on queer art and the LGBTIQ+ community in Latin America. In addition, she has extensive experience in international projects, lectures, publications and museum training in Scotland, Portugal, Spain, China, Japan, Ecuador, and other countries. Projects can be found at www.arthistorylady.com
Simona Cupic is Professor at the Department of Art History, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Her fields of research and teaching include art and culture between the World Wars, and the 1950s and 1960s. She is particularly interested in the visual and popular culture between 1920s and 1960s. She is the author of Mona Lisa & Superman. John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier of the Culture (2016), Elain de Kooning. Portraits (with Brandon Brame Fortune, Ann Eden Gibson, 2015), The JFK Culture (edited volume, 2013), and Bourgeois Modernism and Popular Culture. Episodes of the Fashionable, Faddish and Modern (1918-1941) (2011), among others.
Anica Draganić is an architectural historian, conservator and multimedia artist who currently serves as an Associate Professor at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. She received her PhD in Architectural History and Heritage Preservation from the University of Belgrade with a dissertation on Austro-Hungarian historical breweries. Her work focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European architecture, with particular emphasis on industrial heritage and identity issues in the intercultural context of Central Europe. Her extensive research on the architectural heritage of the Vojvodina region has been published in journals, conference proceedings, and books, but also presented in numerous exhibitions. Her most recent book, Shadows and Silhouettes of Industrial Past of Vojvodina, shows the complexities of the socio-political context in which the industrial architecture of a specific multicultural region emerged, developed and disappeared. She is currently particularly interested in European architecture from the socialist period, exploring its historical values and contemporary potential.
Heba Khairy Metwaly is an Exhibition coordinator at the Grand Egyptian Museum. She Oversees and provide rigorous, accurate and efficient exhibition coordination and follow up all aspects of exhibition development between all partners in the GEM. She is a PhD researcher specialized in the Collection Management and Documentation Practices in different museums. Heba has participated in many international and national field projects and studies focusing on the tangible and intangible material culture preservation and local community engagement and development. Heba has participated in the development of the daily life gallery “P34” at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, the European Union Funding Project of Transforming the Egyptian Museum. In 2017 she participated in the British Museum International Training Program, where she curated the Object in Focus temporary exhibition. She Also participated in many international conferences focusing on the preservation of museum collection and exhibition design.
Roma Madan Soni is an art historian with a PhD from the University of Wolverhampton, an Assistant professor at Box Hill College Kuwait, an ecofeminist-artist, and a researcher. Her art, teaching, and research are interdisciplinary, positioned at the node of ecofeminism: practice, theory and history, and contemporary visual politics. Her articles are published in Journal of Visual Art Practice, Feminist Media Studies, Ecofeminism and Climate Change, Crafts Research, Art & The Public Sphere, Necsus, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Journal of Gender Studies, Swasti, and a chapter in Cambridge Scholars. She collaborated for conference presentations and conducted workshops at CAA, SVIMS-Pune, JNU, LSR, Raza Foundation, University of Wolverhampton, Kuwait-Nuqat, KISR, TEDx Global Day- Gulf University of Science and Technology, Dar Al Athar-Yarmouk, Kuwait University, American University of Kuwait, Box Hill College Kuwait, American Open University, UN Habitat and Beit Sadu. She has exhibited at Kunsthaus-Steffisburg, TAPRI-Finland, DarAlAthar AlIslamiyah, The Scientific Centre Kuwait, MOMA-Kuwait, Masaha13, Artsy, Mayinart, Artling, Saatchi galleries, and painted the book-cover for Routledge Handbook of Feminist Peace Research (2021). Research grants, commissions and awards from The Scientific Centre Kuwait, Kuwait Foundation of Advanced Sciences, Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research, UN Habitat, and Arab Open University aided her research and creations. She is a member of the Museum Committee and a Reader for the Council of Readers at CAA. I chair the “Transformative Education Think Tank”-Collective Impact Coalition-Konrad Adenauer Stiftung to address Kuwait’s academic challenges. Her work has been accepted at the Venice Art Fair and Florence Biennale 2021.
Patricia D. Meneses is an assistant professor of Art History at the University of Campinas (Brazil). She earned her PhD in History of the Visual Arts at the University of Pisa (2009). She is the author of Baccio Pontelli a Roma. L’attività dell’architetto per Giuliano Della Rovere (Felici Editore 2010) and editor of several books, such as Arte Não-Europeia. Conexões historiográficas a partir do Brasil (Esta ção Liberdade 2020), and A imagen como experimento. Debates contemporaneous sobre o olhar (Milfontes 2021). Recently, she was Hans Jonas visiting professor at the University of Siegen (2019), where she taught a course on “exotic” materials in Art History. She is currently part of a Connecting Art Histories project sponsored by the Getty Foundation (“Teaching Non-European at Brazilian Universities”). Her research focuses on the connections between art, science and ecology in the nineteenth-century. She is presently developing a book project about hummingbird’s ecology in Brazilian visual culture.
Akinwale Onipede is an art historian, researcher and teacher at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He trained at the University of Benin, and, the University of Lagos, where he works in the area of the interface of global and local cultures and identities as expressed in visual arts. His main interest is in how developments globally in the philosophies, techniques, products and opportunities in visual arts, have affected its contemporary practice and direction in Nigeria. The universalization of cultures, consequent upon globalization, he argues, is skewed in favor of the West, whose culture is endorsed, whose pocket is deepest and whose machinery is most efficient, in the promotion of the direction of visual arts studies, practice, articulation and documentation. He is of the position that the continent that produced the great pyramids, the Nok, Igbo Ukwu, Ife and Benin masterpieces should play crucial roles in contemporary promotion of the arts.
Melissa M. Ramos Borges is an art historian with a predilection for the (re)vision of the discipline. She obtained her doctorate from the Programa de Estudios Artísticos, Literarios y Culturales with a specialty in Art History at the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, where she presented the first comprehensive study of avant-garde art produced between 1960-1980 in Puerto Rico. She is a professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez and Río Piedras Campus. In addition, she is an independent researcher and curator who has published and presented her exhibitions and articles in various international platforms. She curated SUZI FERRER, the first retrospective exhibition of the groundbreaking feminist avant-garde artist, presently on view at the Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar. She is currently working on publishing a catalogue with contributions from various scholars which will accompany an upcoming traveling SUZI FERRER exhibition.
Shenouda Rizkalla is a trained archaeologist with extensive experience in archaeological fieldwork, database and collections management, and community outreach. His current research focus is the museum’s role in preserving the local community identity, applied to the content and display of the Sharm El-Sheikh museum and build up a sustainable community outreach program by engaging the local population with the collection and relate the results to wider discussions of repatriation and post-colonial heritage management in Egypt. Rizkalla is an Egyptology PhD graduate from Helwan University-Egypt. His research to date has been diverse, working on recording and translating Ptolemaic Period hieroglyphics, creating and executing site management strategies, and addressing the looting of archaeological sites. He is a member of many excavations and site management missions inside Egypt since 2012. He has many Presentations and Invited Talks, Academic Reports and Publications.
Nsima Stanislaus Udo is a Nigerian and an Africanist scholar. He completed his BA in History and International Relations in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He then proceeded to South Africa where he completed his Honors and MA degrees (cum laude) at the University the Western Cape in Visual History and Theory. He lives in Cape Town and is a doctoral candidate at the University of the Western Cape. His research interest is in African cultural studies: in thinking around visual representations, histories and meanings of African cultural and festival practices. His doctoral research is currently looking at the history of Calabar Festival and Carnival, Nigeria. He is exploring the multiple-layered cultural, visual, aesthetic, economic and secular representations of this complex and elaborate festival. Nsima Stanislaus Udo presently serves as a teaching and research assistant at the Faculty of Art in the same university.
John Kelechi Ugwuanyi is a senior lecturer and the coordinator of postgraduate studies in the Department of Archaeology and Tourism, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He had his PhD in heritage studies at the University of York and MA and BA in Archaeology and Tourism at the University of Nigeria. His research interest is critical heritage studies, museum, indigenous knowledge systems, tourism, and contemporary archaeology. He is the co-editor of Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies and sits on the editorial board of the Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory book series published by the Archaeopress in Oxford as part of the British Archaeological Report series of monograph. Kelechi has published in national and international journals of repute. He is a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and a recipient of other scholarship/grant including the Overseas Research Scholarship of the University of York, UK.
Elizabeth Catoia Varela holds a PhD in History and Criticism of Art from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2016). She worked at the Research and Documentation Center of the Modern Art Museum of Rio de Janeiro – MAM Rio (2009-2021). Her dissertation was published as a book in 2017 (Concrete Art Beyond Europe: Brazil, Argentina and the MAM Rio). She published other three books about the history of the museum. Varela was the curator of the exhibition “MAM: its history, its heritage” (2013-2016). She was awarded in 2020 with the AAM-Getty International Program/American Alliance of Museums and is a member of the College Art Association (CAA) and the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
PARTICIPATING ALUMNI
Nadhra Shahbaz Khan is Associate Professor of Art History and the Director of the Gurmani Centre for Languages & Literature at LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan. A specialist in the history of art and architecture of the Punjab from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, Dr. Khan’s research covers the visual and material culture of the region during the Mughal, Sikh, and colonial periods. Her interest lies in investigating levels of human agency behind artefacts and architectural spaces, both as creators and consumers to understand their political, religious and socio-economic ambitions at different historical intersections. Her publications, conference papers and other research activities spread over more than a decade, especially her book titled Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi in Lahore: A Summation of Sikh Architectural and Decorative Practices has successfully brought Sikh art and architecture to the forefront of Pakistan’s heritage discussions and conservation activities.
Halyna Kohut is an associate professor in the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine, where she teaches history of art, contemporary art, feminist art, and history of theatrical costume. Educated as an artist, she received her Ph.D. from the Lviv National Academy of Arts. Kohut is the CAA-Getty International Program alumna and a recipient of scholarships and grants from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Austrian Agency for International Mobility and Cooperation, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, and the Queen Jadwiga Foundation at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Kohut specializes in eighteenth-century East European carpets and kilims. Her most recent research interest focus on woman art in Soviet Ukraine. She is especially interested in how ideology informed the identities of women artists and how they challenged that ideology with their art practices.
Irena Kossowska graduated from the Warsaw University in 1980. She obtained a Ph.D. degree and Habilitation at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in 1990 and 2001 respectively. Currently she is Full Professor of Art History at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, and at the Polish Institute of World Art Studies in Warsaw. She specializes in the field of nineteenth- and twentieth-century visual arts, art theory, and criticism. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including from the Bogliasco Foundation, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, National Humanities Center, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Henry Moore Institute, and the British Academy. She has written extensively on Polish and European art, including Artistic Reconquest: Art in Interwar Poland and Europe, The Search for Cultural Identity in Eastern and Central Europe 1919-2014, Symbolism and Young Poland; Reinterpreting the Past: Traditionalist Artistic Trends in Central and Eastern Europe of the 1920s and 1930s; and The Beginnings of Polish Original Printmaking 1897-1917.
Ana Mannarino is an art historian and a professor of art history in the School of Fine Arts and the Visual Arts Postgraduate Program at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she received her PhD in history of arts and visual arts. Her research focuses on Brazilian modern and contemporary art, particularly on the relationship between text and image, art and poetry, and the production of artists’ books.
Affiliated Society News: December
posted by CAA — Dec 17, 2021
Many of CAA’s affiliated societies will be presenting sessions at our 110th Annual Conference from February 17-19 and from March 3-5. Check out a list of their sessions to preview!
To attend these sessions and more, make sure to register for the conference and learn more at its registration page.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Announcements
Bibliography Week 2022 Schedule & Registration
From January 25–28, 2022 the Bibliographical Society of America will celebrate Bibliography Week with a series of events designed to demonstrate bibliographical practice and its relevance to interdisciplinary scholarship in the humanities.
Tuesday, January 25, 4-5pm Eastern – Materialities of Tibetan Buddhist Texts
Within the diverse traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, the power of books—both printed and hand-written—lies not only in their contents, but also in their materiality as objects. The three scholars on this panel will share bibliographical studies of Tibetan texts that highlight how text production, circulation, and replication within architectural spaces has been utilized by Tibetan religious and political leaders to assert and solidify their power.
Wednesday, January 26, 4-5pm Eastern – Meet the Editors of Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
Please join Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA) co-editors Dr. Sarah Werner and Dr. Jesse Erickson for an online Q&A session on January 26. Drs. Werner and Erickson will discuss their vision for the journal and how it can be part of an expanded field of bibliographical scholarship. They will also answer questions that you might have about publishing in PBSA, such as the submission and review process, image permissions, special issues, and open access.
Thursday, January 27, 11-12pm Eastern – In-Person, Center for Book Arts Tour
Guests are invited to a tour of the Center for Books Arts in New York (28 W 27th St., 3rd Floor). For nearly 50 years, CBA has supported artists and uplifted the book arts by presenting exhibitions, lectures, readings, and performances; providing opportunities for artists, writers, curators and scholars through residencies, fellowships, publishing, and collecting; and empowering the creation of new book art by providing courses on book art related technique and history.
Thursday, January 27, 2-3pm Eastern – Bound Images: Maps and Books
This panel offers three case studies to explore what changes theoretically and in practice when we dethrone the ‘sovereign map’ and engage with the production, circulation and reading of maps as bound images, a hybrid graphic and textual part of the stories told by authors and publishers which is experienced by readers through materiality, context, and significance: Giuseppe Rosaccio’s Il mondo e sue parti (Florence, 1595), Johann Jakob Scheuchzer’s Physica Sacra (Augsburg and Ulm, 1731), and Jorge Juan and Antonio Ulloa’s Relación Histórica del viage a la América meridional (Madrid, 1748).
Friday, January 28, 12:00 pm Eastern – 2022 BSA Annual Meeting & New Scholars Program
- Christopher Adams, Malkin New Scholar – ‘Could you make it rather more of a He and She picture?’: The Queer Dust-Jacket and Postwar British Fiction
- Eve Houghton, Pantzer New Scholar – ‘I am always sorry to antagonize collectors’: Henrietta Bartlett and the 1916 Census of Shakespeare Quartos
- Liza Mardoyan, BSA New Scholar – Decorative Bird Initials in the Medieval Armenian Manuscript Culture
- Learn more about the 2022 New Scholars and read their talk abstracts here.
Friday, January 28, 1:30 pm Eastern – Keynote Lecture by Dr. Elizaveta Strakhov: What Makes Bibliography Critical? A Medievalist’s Response
What makes bibliography critical for a Western manuscripts scholar? Medievalists have, after all, enshrined bibliography to the point of developing the specialized subdisciplines of paleography and codicology. How does a Western medievalist breathe new life into bibliography, that bread-and-butter of their scholarly pursuits? This talk offers a case study of two manuscripts of bilingual Anglo-French poet Charles d’Orléans’s work: not the two collections notoriously supervised by him, but two later fifteenth-century, largely neglected manuscripts of his work, one made for European humanist circles and the other circulating with English Tudor royal audiences.
AHNCA (Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art)
Events
Virtual Salon Series: Rethinking the Visual and Material Culture of Enslavement
January 19, 2022 at 7 pm EST
The Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and the Dahesh Museum of Art present a Virtual Salon, “Rethinking the Visual and Material Culture of Enslavement,” featuring Jennifer Van Horn (University of Delaware), Adrienne L. Childs (The Phillips Collection), and Phillip Troutman (George Washington University). Register at this link.
Virtual Salon: Decorative Arts and Materiality
February 9, 2022 at 7 pm EST
Please join us on Wednesday, February 9, at 7 pm EST for our Virtual Salon on the Decorative Arts and Materiality. This series of online events is co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) and the Dahesh Museum of Art. The panel will feature Amy F. Ogata (University of Southern California), Lee Talbot (The Textile Museum, George Washington University), and Christine Garnier (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts/Harvard University). Registration information forthcoming!
SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF COLLECTING
Event
As part of its continuing series of Zoom lectures focusing on the collections of university museums, the next Society for the History of Collecting–West Coast chapter event will take place on January 28, 2022:
Collectors’ Clothing Caches: Selections from the Texas Fashion Collection
Annette Becker
28 January 2022, 10:00 AM, PST; 6 PM BST
This talk traces the history of the Texas Fashion Collection through three collections and collectors who have shaped its holdings. The Collection was originally conceived by Stanley and Edward Marcus, of the Neiman Marcus luxury department stores, who in 1938 created the Neiman Marcus award to recognize national and international talent in all areas of fashion and design. The talk then focuses on Claudia Heard de Osborne, whose passion for Balenciaga resulted in a gift of hundreds of garments by the designer. The final spotlight will be on brothers Scott and Stuart Gentling, visual artists who collected historic garments as part of their artistic practice.
Annette Becker is a material culture historian and arts educator committed to bridging popular and academic understandings of fashion history. She currently serves as the director and curator of the Texas Fashion Collection, an archive of nearly 20,000 garments and accessories housed at the University of North Texas.
To register for this event please email: events@societyhistorycollecting.org