March 2003 CAA News
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NEWS NEWSLETTER OF THE COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION Volume 28, Number 2 MARCH 2003 The Great Mosque’s spiral minaret in Samarra, Iraq (detail) 2003 AWARDS FOR DISTINCTION RESOLUTION OF THE CAA BOARD y honoring outstanding member achievements, CAA reaffirms its mission to OF DIRECTORS encourage the highest standards of scholarship, practice, connoisseurship, and teaching in the arts through its annual Awards for Distinction. With these awards, e artists, art historians, and art Bwhich were presented this year by CAA President Michael Aurbach at Convocation of the professionals of the Board of 91st Annual Conference in New York, CAA seeks to honor individual artists, art histori- Directors of the College Art ans, authors, curators, and critics whose accomplishments transcend their individual disci- WAssociation are deeply concerned about plines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large. the threat to human life, cultural heritage, This year was the first in which CAA presented the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement and freedom of expression in the name of Award for Art Writing, which went to Robert Farris Thompson. CAA also gave two patriotism and the war on terrorism, par- Special Awards for Lifetime Achievement; honored this year are the renowned art and film ticularly as the prospect of war in Iraq historian Rudolf Arnheim, and the editor and publisher Milton Esterow. gains momentum. While reading the following award descriptions and citations, keep in mind that CAA The curtailment of civil liberties and members can help decide award recipients each year by nominating colleagues and profes- human rights at home and abroad has a direct impact on our members and our sionals to the various Awards Committees (see “How To Get Involved” on page 18). With ability to achieve CAA’s core values and your nominations, CAA will continue to celebrate the dynamic individuals in our field. goals to create open forums that encour- age international dialogue and open SPECIAL AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT exchange of different points of view. We are deeply concerned about the fate With this special award, CAA acknowledges the extraordinary of that country’s archaeological sites, contribution of Rudolf Arnheim to the understanding of the antiquities, and cultural property. In 1972, CAA urged the United States to visual arts through a lifetime of teaching and writing. He has pio- ratify the 1954 Hague Convention on the neered the field of the psychology of art and, as a critic beginning Protection of Cultural Property in the in Berlin in the 1920s and continuing to the present day, has sub- Event of Armed Conflict, and we reaf- stantially shaped the language of film criticism nearly from its firm that aim today. inception. His book Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of In addition, current policies also have the Creative Eye (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954) serious implications for government is a tour de force of theoretical analysis, laying out a thorough funding for the arts and humanities, Rudolf Arnheim taxonomy of the psychological determinants in the perception of higher education, philanthropy, freedom the visual arts. Both Art and Visual Perception and Arnheim’s of expression, and conditions in the famous Film as Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957) are still in print after university, museum, and other workplace almost half a century and remain landmark texts in art schools and among broad-based and environments of CAA members. —Adopted by the College Art Association theoretically intelligent art historians, critics, filmmakers, and artists. Arnheim’s best- Board of Directors, February 23, 2003, known books include (with the dates of their first English editions; all are published by New York City University of California Press except where noted): Art and Visual Perception; Film as Art; The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso’s Guernica (1962); Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays (1966); Visual Thinking (1969); Radio: An Art of Sound (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972); The Dynamics of Architectural Form (1977); The Power of the Center: IN THIS ISSUE A Study of Composition in the Visual Arts (1982); New Essays on the Psychology of Art Iraq’s Cultural Patrimony at (1986); Parables of Sunlight: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest (1989); 3 Risk, Again CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 9 Advocacy Update Action Alert INSIDE: CAA.REVIEWS INTRODUCES REDESIGNED Solo Exhibitions by Artists 19 Members WEBSITE. See Page 5 FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR A RESPONSIBILITY TO SPEAK OUT AA’s advoca- oppose its ratification.” cy policy Anne Coffin Hanson, then president was of CAA, received a letter from a State Capproved by the Department attorney, Ronald J. Bettauer, Board of Directors in response to her letters to President PHOTO CREDIT: HANNAH HENRY six months before Richard Nixon and Secretary of Defense Janet Kaplan and Steven Nelson received an Utne September 11, 2001. Melvin Laird. “The major difficulty,” Independent Press Award on behalf of Art Journal at the PHOTO CREDIT: ANDREI RALKO Venetian Room at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel Susan Ball, CAA It was also in March wrote Bettauer, “is that adherence to the Executive Director 2001 when the Convention would seriously limit the Taliban demolished options of the United States in the event ART JOURNAL WINS the two monumental sandstone Buddhas in of nuclear war or even in some cases of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, despite pleas by the conventional bombardment.” UTNE INDEPENDENT United Nations Secretary-General, the To this day, the U.S. has not ratified Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Hague Convention. However, it did PRESS AWARD and many other international organizations. sign the 1970 UNESCO Convention on In some ways, it was a different the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing rt Journal has won an Independent world two years ago. Even as CAA the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Press Award from Utne, the nation’s defined a set of priority issues for advoca- Ownership of Cultural Property. Article leading magazine of alternative cy—including government funding for 11 of that convention reads: “The export Aideas. Art Journal was cowinner with The the arts and humanities, freedom of and transfer of ownership of cultural Comics Journal for coverage in arts and expression and resistance to censorship, property under compulsion arising direct- literature. Utne said, “Visually compelling and intellectual-property rights—the issue ly or indirectly from the occupation of a without glitz, rich in ideas without suc- of protecting cultural heritage was com- country by a foreign power shall be cumbing to art-theory-speak, Art Journal ing to the fore. regarded as illicit.” presents substantial essays and wide- Recently, responding to the growing As we saw, tragically, at the Afghan ranging Q&As that bring readers deep into likelihood of a U.S.-led military action in site of Bamiyan, a nation’s cultural her- the minds of today’s artists.” Iraq, the Archaeological Institute of itage can be attacked, directly or indirect- Since 1989, winners of the Utne America issued a statement urging “all ly, by the regime in power as well as by Independent Press Awards (which can be governments, working in accordance with outside forces. In 1989, when Phyllis found online at www.utne.com/uipa) have the terms of the Hague Convention [of Bober was CAA president, she wrote to been chosen exclusively by the editors of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural UNESCO’s Director-General regarding the magazine through extensive reading Property in the Event of Armed Conflict], the vandalization and theft of art in north- and careful examination, rather than by in concert with recognized experts in the ern Cyprus and to the president of the entry forms and fees. All winners of the scholarly community, to develop and European Parliament regarding the 14th annual awards were published in the implement carefully researched programs destruction of “cultural properties in January/February 2003 issue of Utne. to protect ancient sites, monuments, Romania—whether they be of ‘high’ art Janet Kaplan, former editor of Art antiquities, and cultural institutions in the or of folk art traditions” under the gov- Journal, and Steven Nelson, current case of war.” The full statement, which ernment of Nicolae Ceausescu. reviews editor, attended the awards ban- also refers to the looting of Iraqi sites and In addition to the destruction of sites quet cohosted by Utne with the museums after the Gulf War in 1991, is and monuments and the theft of objects, a Independent Press Association (IPA) on available at www.archaeological.org. third area of concern to CAA is the pro- January 18, 2003, during the first annual As the leading organization of visual- tection of artists and scholars during IPA convention in San Francisco. arts professionals in the U.S., CAA has a armed conflict. We are all familiar with responsibility to speak out on issues of cases of harassment, incarceration, and Volume 28, Number 2 cultural-heritage protection, as it has in murder of artists and intellectuals—both CAA News is published six times per year by the College Art Association, 275 Seventh Avenue, 18th Floor, New the past. In 1972, a resolution was passed citizens and foreign nationals—by gov- York, NY 10001; www.collegeart.org at CAA’s Annual Conference stating that ernments that perceive them as a threat. Editor-in-Chief Susan Ball Managing Editor Christopher Howard the members “are greatly disturbed by the CAA is one of twenty-five member Graphic Designer Tom Brydelsky repeated failure to submit the [Hague] organizations of the Network for Material for inclusion should be sent via email to Convention to the United States Senate Education and Academic Rights (NEAR), Christopher Howard at [email protected]. Photographs and slides may be submitted to the above for ratification” and calling for “a full and a London-based group that monitors street and email addresses for consideration.