March 1979 CAA Newsletter

newsletter Volume 4. Number] March 1979 1979 annual meeting report studio safety guide soon available Approximately 4,500 of us descended upon Washington January 31-Fcbruary 3 for our annual tribal rite. The gods were kind, our festivities occurring during the week after the first snowstorm partially immobilized the city and the week before the second snowstorm, subsequent floods, and The long-awaited manual, Safe Practices in angry fanners immobilized it even further. Coming as it did the year after our quadrennial ex the Arts & Crafts: A Studio Guide, is now at travaganza in the Big Apple, the Washington meeting seemed less frantic and less frenzied; there the bindery and should be available for distri was perhaps less of a sense of excitement but more of a sense of ease. Everyone we spoke to was bution by the end of April. having a relaxed and a good time; it's possible, of course, that the others just didn't speak to us, This 72-page handbook, published by the In keeping with the more human! e scale of the Washington meeting, Jean Sutherland Boggs, CAA, is an unusual-one might well say in in her Convocation Address, called upon art historians to practice their discipline with "more spiring-example of good works brought to spontaniety and joy" and with "a more sensitive response to humanity - the artists', the public's, reality by a wide constituency of people and and their own. (Excerpts from Dr. Boggs' address appear on page 3.) organizations that care about artists: the CAA; government (through a grant from the Program National Endowment for the Arts); higher education (the University of Illinois Chicago Sessions, somewhat fewer than last year, were Campuses and Cooper Union); corporations all well attended. In the art history program, (York Typesetting Co., Inc. and Champion organized by Alan Fern of The Library of Papers) that donated or drastically cut costs Congress, there was a greater-than-usual em on goods or services; and Local No. 1 of the phasis upon national, as contrasted with Amalgamated Lithographers of America, period, sessions_ Other specialized sessions which donated lithography. tended to emphasize theoretical and socio-po The list of involved individuals is even litical rather than stylistic approaches_ The longer. It begins with former CAA presideI).t studio program, organized by Jane Livingston George Sadek, Dean of the School of Art at of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, reflected our Cooper Union, and Ed Colker, Director of Art location at the seat of government (and all and Design at the University of Illinois, those funding agencies!) by relatively heavy Chicago Circle, who jointly first realized the reliance on museum directors, critics, admin need for this publication, began the project, istrators and lawyers and relatively light par and never let the ball drop. It includes a hard ticipation by working artists_ working author, Gail Coningsby Barazani, a Receptions, coordinated by Abram Lerner never-say-die project director, Ann Good ofthe Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gar fellow, and a host of other people who con den, were gala and numerous, with four dif cerned themselves with the issue of artist's ferent museums-the Corcoran, N.C.F.A., health long before and throughout the pro Continued on p. 4, col. 1 cess of this publication. The purpose of the Guide is clearly stated by Ann Goodfellow in her Foreword: "We CAA awards Continued on p. 12, col. 1 Awards for excellence in art historical her monograph Manet and the Modem Tra scholarship and criticism and in the teaching dition. The Frank Jewett Mather Award for of fine arts and art history were presented at Distinction in Art and Architectural Criti SAFE PRACTICES.' the Convocation ceremonies of the 67th An cism went to John Russell, art critic for The A STUDIO (;UlDE . nual Meeting of the College Art Association, New York Times. The Arthur Kingsley Porter held in the Auditorium of the National Air Prize for the best article by a scholar in early Siligle'(Jopiesf:,'. $,3,~OO, plu,s ',75,¢:each for and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., on career appearing during 1977 in The Art postage: and"handling... Friday evening, February 2, 1979. Bulletin was awarded to David Summers, The Association's newest award (estab· University of Pittsburgh, for "Contrapposto: ,Prepackaged"Cartons :,0£,10: ,(Jopie's:,' lished in 1977), for Distinguished Teaching of Style and Meaning in Renaissance Art." $29.00 plus$S,50per carton for Art History, was presented to H. W. Janson, The citations read as follows: postage' and' handling, New York University. The Distinguished Teaching of Art Award went to Louis Fink Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award 'Pret>a~ent, requited. Seu'd o'iders':to, ~lstein, Professor of Art at Queens College, CAA,16 East 52 Street,N.Y.G. :"U.N.Y. The CAA's major award for art With felicity, the Oxford Dictionary de l0022;:.. N .. Y;, State:tesidents ada.:,ap~ i:istorical scholarship, the Charles Rufus fines the verb "to teach" as "to enable by in pli~able 'sales 'tax'~ Morey Book Award for 1977, was presented to struction" and that has certainly been the Anne Coffin Hanson, Yale University, for Continued on p. 2, col. 1 {CAAawards towards a more humane art history greatest gift: he enables students to achieve Charles Rufus Morey Book Award Excerpts from the Convocation Address delivered at the 67th Annual trat9r$ to forget the museum visit9r.;;' c:;;<;ep~ as t)umb~~s. Even tq.e autonomy of mind and action. But, ultimate Meeting of the College Art Association ofAmerica, February 2, 1979. readers of our books may seem remote, except for the carping editor or ly, Peter captures our imaginations because The members of the Committee unani the damning critic. And yet these publics are not anonymous. They he is the very type of homo ludens. His exam mously acclaim Anne Coffin Hanson's Manet One of the virtues in the reinvigorated College Art Association is are intelligent and unexpected. .. The actual love of art and pIe teaches that a predisposition to free men and the Modern Tradition. With a painter's that it reminds us of the most human element behind works of art -the readiness to draw so much from it is very real. The danger is that we art tal play seems to be a necessary condition of insight, the author has captured the full artists themselves. There have been periods when artists have calculat historians are in positions to discourage it, thwart it, even stunt it, profound insight. complexity of Manet's work, which juxtaposes edly tried to erase their personalities from works of art - and this has when we should be encouraging it to bloom. The verb "to teach" comes from the Old symbolism and formalism, boldness and re been true of certain post-war artists. But at the moment many seem English tac{e)n which is cognate with the Ger finement of technique. She has linked these to thrust themselves upon us through video, performance, or the We art historians are the moderators between the work of art and man "zeigen" (to show) and "Zeichen" (a sign contrasts in tum with the French striving to reproductions of their own faces. We cannot escape the essential the public. We make it available. We document it. We interpret it. humanity of works by Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, or Chuck or symbol) and, thus, with the English reconcile reverence for tradition with the pur We explain it. ... But whatever we do we should do with gusto and Close. The knowledge of their works and the presence of artists all "token" as well. Your enabling instruction, suit of progress. Her monograph skillfully love. Our own humanity should be apparent. ... Restraint is possible, Peter, what you have shown us, has made us constructs a new reading for Manet, combin around us at the meetings, as well as their studio sessions, prepare us to even desirable, but impersonality should not be the hallmark of our all your students in one way or another and ing contemporary criticism and latest schol look for the man or woman, even when he or she seems to retreat in work as teachers, writers, or museum people. has earned you the admiration and respect of arship, in which the content of his art, the works as austere as Donald Judd's. the art-historical world. Today, however, we craft of his luminous surfaces, and the poetry present this award to you also for something of his cool realism are interpreted as reflecting We acknowledge that it is important for art historians to have some There probably also needs to be more self-criticism if we are going to that cannot be earned, only freely given: af both the optimism and the loneliness of La vie direct knowledge of the active artist. We have allowed for it in many speak humanely to the public. I realize that I am beginning to tread on fection for that sharp eye, that hard head and moderne in nineteenth-century France. dangerous ground. Perhaps I need to reassure you that I agree with the that soft heart. college curricula by having studio classes or making use of resident art Committee: Alessandra Comini, Chair; ists. Some others may do what I did this past semester at Harvard concept of elitism expressed by Shennan Lee at the address last year, Committee: Kathleen Weil-Garris, Chair; Wayne Dynes; John R. Martin - give a seminar on contemporary art in which each student studies that I believe in the acquisition and exhibition of the finest if otherwise Leopold Ettlinger; William R.

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