Programs » Annual Conference

DIRECTOR'S WELCOME LETTER

Greetings,

Welcome to the 107th Annual Conference, taking place in New York from February 13 through 16, 2019. This year’s conference will include over three hundred themed sessions. In reviewing the proposals for 2019, Charlene Villaseñor Black, Professor of Ibero-American Art and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA and CAA Annual Conference Chair, noted that the conference continues to grapple with global topics. In a report to CAA’s Annual Conference Committee, Villaseñor Black wrote that “a significant number of panels focused on Latin American and Asian art. The coverage of US art was inclusive, with submissions highlighting Latinx, African American, Native American, and LGBTQ artists. Historical panels also seemed to be on the rise. There are a large number of panels on early modern (including the colonial Americas), medieval, ancient, and eighteenth-century art. There were several nineteenth-century panels dedicated to more traditional subjects, such as Courbet or Impressionism. I noticed timely and relevant threads emerging, threads that transcend traditional disciplinary categories, such as submissions focused on migration, immigration, and globalism. There were many proposals on activism, the political role of artists and the arts, and the impact of public scholarship and teaching.” This report was music to our ears at CAA.

For the past few years we have worked diligently to bring more diversity and a wider array of panels into the Annual Conference. Something must be working. And while Villaseñor Black was writing about the Annual Conference, her findings resonate across all of CAA. Organization-wide, we’ve worked to expand programs and offerings to reach and support as many professionals in the visuals arts as we can.

One example of this is the new series of professional development workshops at the conference. The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation awarded CAA a grant to stage workshops led solely by MFA candidates and adjunct faculty. The program will create teaching experience opportunities for emerging professionals and strengthen practical, hands-on skills for studio artists. CAA will also offer ten professional development workshops selected from submissions by members and CAA professional committees.

Debuted last year, CAA is again offering the Cultural and Academic Network Hall, where organizations, students, alumni, and faculty can connect to discuss programs, jobs, and the field in general. Idea Exchange will be located inside the Cultural and Academic Network Hall and will remain a place in which both informal and pre-organized conversations on current topics can take place.

We are thrilled to have as this year’s Distinguished Scholar Dr. Elizabeth Boone, the Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Studies at Tulane University. Dr. Boone specializes in Pre-Columbian art and early colonial art of Latin America. In addition, we have worked to provide you with a multitude of opportunities outside the New York Hilton Midtown, with scheduled tours and events at The Frick Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, The Jewish Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Art Foundation, the Rubin Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, The Neue Galerie, and many other locations. We will also offer free admission with your CAA Annual Conference Badge to many local New York City cultural institutions. Check the Annual Conference web pages for the full list.

We look forward to seeing you in New York.

—Hunter O’Hanian

Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer

Learn more about the Annual Conference proposal process

Meet Charlene Villaseñor Black, the CAA Annual Conference Chair