March-April 1990 CAA News

N E 5 NEA/NEH Controversy he National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities Act, T which empowers both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Hu manities, is up for reauthorization in Congress. If the act is not renewed, the endowments will loose the funding and Hunter College hosted the New York authority to carry out their programs. Area MFA exhibition, which was curated The issue is not only reauthorization, by Susan Edwards, curator of Hunter but also whether reauthorization will College Galleries, to coincide with the CAA 1990 78th CAA annual conference in New include amendments that hamper York. Over 2,000 people attended the freedom of expression. There is opening on February 15. The exhibition Conference justified concern among supporters of brought together almost 200 works in a wide range of media. the NEA and NEH that the crusade by Senator Jesse Helms, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and others to put support of the NEA and NEH. Letter he 78th annual conference of the endowments in handcuffs will writers should cite specific projects, the College Art Association was succeed. A primary argument focuses supported by either or both endow T held in New York, February on whether the endowments engender ments, that benefited scholars, stu 14-17, at the New York Hilton. Atten creativity and scholarship. The debate dents, and others in their states. Please dance was at a record high of some over content, and the efficacy of the urge other leaders-college presidents, 5,500 people. Art history and studio art peer-review process, are central in the trustees, influential constituents-to sessions were filled to capacity, and reauthorization process. Congress is write. Also, you can meet with local their diversity and depth were praised lining up on both sides of the issue, media to convince them to write stories by all who participated. There were 70 with certain members attacking specific in support of the endowments, and art history sessions, including 14 current artists and projects as obscene, sacrile you can write letters to the editor and research sessions, dealing with topics as gious, or immoral. op-ed pieces for local newspapers. diverse as scatology in art, Latin The CAA is urging its members to Take action immediately, and American art, and censorship-and 25 generate immediately as many letters please send copies of all advocacy studio art sessions. The art history and as possible to their congresswomen and efforts to the CAA (to the attention of studio art programs cosponsored two men and to their senators to express Susan Ball). sessions. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 The global nature of the pragram 11990 CONFERENCE forty years I have witnessed many It has become as problematic to sell ICONTINUED FROM PAGE I this year reflected the interests of the Convocation epidemics of artist-baiting. They peak one's work as not to sell it. The Robert membership and the issues it considered I The placement bureau bustled with around election time like flu viruses. The Ryman/Sandra Chia/Saatchi stories are Volume 15, Number 2 important. -Patricia Mainardi, chair, Iactivity, as artists and art historians cities change as do the artist-victims, but but two of a myriad of ways that artists Mard,jAprill990 Art History Program Ceremony . interviewed with the participating insti the identical epithets--pornographic, lose self-determination. Nor do we have tutions, and both candidates and subversive, sacrilegious, immoral-are residual rights, and our copyright is de~ NEA/NEH Controversy interviewers competed for each other. Currenl Research at the hurled at abstraction, expressionism, manded as a shameful precondition of 1990 ConferCllce 1 The exhibitors' hall, located on two Sessions surrealism, minimalism, every style of purchase by most museums, corpora floors of the hotel, had a constant stream At the 1990 CAA conference we insti Metropolitan art and every kind of artist. No one is tioos, and collectors. Every sale becomes Cmrvocntion/ immune when a demagogue politician is an eventual boomerang no matter how June Wayne Speech of visitors who examined books, art sup tuted an innovation of scheduling 3 plies, and other items from among the fourteen 11/2(insteadof21/2)hour on the rampage. well-intentioned the first buyer may be. 133 exhibitors. The conference was very sessions, each one planned as an open Museum of All of us here-artists, critics, The life of a collector or a collection 5 CAAAwards successful, and we look forward to session devoted to current research on a historians, librarians, curators, adminis even in museums-is brief compared trators~live in a state of nervous alert, I seeing you at next year's meeting in general topic or period. They were Art with the life of a work of art. Sooner or albeit cloaked in professional calm. As later, usually within two decades but CAANews Washington, D.C., February 20-23,1991. among the best attended sessions in the 11 entire conference, overflowing their artists we compete against each other for often in a matter of months, the work rooms and spilling out into the halls collectors even as academics compete moves on to other hands that owe no Art History Sessions against each other for jobs, tenure, and loyalty to the artist and offer none. 13 Fellowships & Taxes with standing-room-only attendance. his year's CAA convocation Because in art history, as in politics, the Scheduling them in two series, fifteen was held at the Metropolitan recognition. Our museums and universi In the last two years the arts have Solo Exhibitions by hegemony of the West has given way to minutes apart, meant that the session Museum of Art, Friday eve ties compete against each other with been battered in Washington. Even a more global world view, we empha T little regard for the common good, like though the arts caucus fights for us, 14 Artist Members chairs had to be ultra-responsible in ning, February 16. June Wayne, founder sized the non-Western areas in this organizing and structuring the sessions, of Tamarind Lithography Workshop, international corporations fighting for political tactics are predictable-one year's art history sessions. More sessions the same markets. deflects an attack with a compromise People in the News since they had to end promptly, the delivered a rousing convocation address 15 than ever before were devoted to such rooms had to be cleared, and a new that censured Senator Jesse Helms for Adversarial thinking, the modus less painful than the blow itself. areas as Asia, Africa, and-a new first~ operandi of big business, has taken over Sometimes even well-intentioned com Programs, New & Revised audience and panel set up within a very his witch-hunt of artists, while he con Latin America and the Caribbean. the arts and humanities--along with the promises become dangerous over the 17 Grants, Awards, & Honors short time. With one exception every tinues to support the tobacco industry. The meetings offered art historians thing went smoothly, and chairs and Her talk was followed by the presenta given that to be a winner is the same as long term. I will mention two. of various specialties the opportunity to being right. The game is crack-the-whip, Conferences & participants are to be commended for an tion of CAA awards for excellence in A compromise made in 1969 has 18 Symposia meet in the many thematic sessions extremely successful experiment. In the visual arts and art-historical scholarship. not ring-around-the-rosy. To win, no come home to roost in the museums. crossing chronological and geographical one case in which the chair scheduled The event concluded with a reception in matter what or how, has become an The three most powerful visual arts boundaries. Issues of censorship, racism, too many presentations and allowed the museum's Temple of Dendur. addictive "high" that must be endlessly organizations representing museums 19 Opportunities and gender, all of national significance them to run over, the last speaker was repeated, undennining the long-term and academia, in unified testimony this year, arose in several sessions in obliged to begin at the time the session values of scholarship and creativity. before the Senate Finance Committee, Information Wanted forms ranging from the scholarly to the When someone else is flung into traded away the right of artists to tax Corrections should have been winding down and June Wayne Speech 22 engage. We also stretched the traditional had to be interrupted and the session June Wayne asks us to note that her oblivion, we sigh in relief even as we deduct their gifts to museums in return boundaries of our discipline by includ fear being next. The means have become for continuing deductibility for art Classified Ads brought to a close. It was one for the convocation speech represents her personal the ends, a style better suited to dictator collectors. That precedent enlarged itself 24 Datebook ing such topics as commercial art and memory book to witness the bedlam of view, not that of allY organilJltiol1. illustration, film and television, festivals, several hundred people milling about ships than democracies. into the eventual loss of all market popular art, and scatology. And yet, outside the door trying to enter the next The College Art Association is the value deductibility of art gifts in the Tax along with the increasingly popular session with CAA administration and backbone of academia in the visual arts. Reform Act of 1986. Now that collectors thematic interdisciplinary approaches, subsequent panelists and chair all barred I am honored to speak here, the more so compare their profits at auction to the we maintained a commitment to special from entering.

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