Jon Lackman is a PhD student at NYU. His dissertation (in progress) is “Invective in Mid-1800s French Art Criticism.” He has written for Slate, Harper’s, and The New Yorker. He sometimes tweets.
Lackman's Posts:
14 April 2010 | Career, Contemporary
In a recent issue of American Art (23:3), Joshua Shannon writes that the field of contemporary art history is now producing more job openings than “Nineteenth-Century Art and the Art of the United States combined – the two boom fields of a generation ago,” but that it is also changing rapidly. For starters, its center [...]
12 April 2010 | Conferences
In the blog Experimental Philosophy, Eric Schwitzgebel writes about recent studies he’s done of conference audiences. He concludes that “most audience members, listening to most academic talks, spend most of their time with some distraction or other at the forefront of their stream of experience. They may not remember this fact because when they think [...]
12 April 2010 | Journals
In a recent issue of Open (n. 16) devoted to “The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon,” Jorinde Seijdel writes … the art biennial, which was originally an instrument within a politics of nation-states, is increasingly deployed for developing and marketing cities and regions. In order to compensate for this, biennials often put political issues [...]
12 April 2010 | Uncategorized
From the Washington Post: Toiling in the bowels of the National Gallery, CASVA’s intrepid scholars shape what all the rest of us will someday believe about art. We may think we come at pictures with fresh eyes and ideas, but our everyday insights are likely to echo the thoughts, once esoteric and radical, of some [...]
9 April 2010 | Uncategorized
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9 April 2010 | Museums
The Guggenheim Museum is digitizing archives and blogging about the highlights. Particularly exciting: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Reel-to-Reel collection holds recordings of artists’ talks, symposia, lectures, interviews, and performances. Programs highlight artists such as Pablo Picasso, Vassily Kandinsky, Robert Motherwell, Juan Gris, and Vincent Van Gogh. Speakers include Thomas Messer, director of the Guggenheim [...]
9 April 2010 | Asia, Books, Islamic, Theory
From the introduction of Finbarr Barry Flood’s recently published book Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Encounter (Princeton, 2009): … I am aware of the paradox inherent in adopting linguistic models for a book that champions the value of material culture. I am also aware that, in doing so, I am to some [...]
9 April 2010 | Uncategorized
(FYI: This post will remain atop the site for a week. New posts will appear directly underneath.) Now — for a short time only! — this is your opportunity to join the family of Art History Newsletter contributors. The Art History Newsletter, until now essentially a one-man operation, will soon become a group blog. Such [...]
8 April 2010 | Architecture, Journals
The online edition of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians is going high tech: The new illustrations include zoomable color photographs [and] videos, some of which are clips from historic films or works under review, while others represent three-dimensional models in a convenient way. Music, spoken word, and ambient noise are also part [...]
8 April 2010 | Conferences
From CAA News: The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California, has received a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to convene an international task force of art librarians, scholars, and information specialists from Europe and the United States to discuss the future of art bibliography. Recent events, including discussions of art-library closures, scant [...]
5 April 2010 | Theory
In the Brooklyn Rail, Sasha Suda interviewed Willibald Sauerländer: … the time will come when you study the art of the other civilizations with equal right as European art. With the global art world there’s one difficulty I spoke with [Hans] Belting about: In a deep structural sense art history was a European project because [...]
3 April 2010 | Uncategorized
We recently discovered the audio archives at ArtOnAir.org, which includes interviews with various scholars such as Tom Huhn, David Joselit, Tom McDonough, and Hal Foster, as well as a recording of a Museum of Modern Art panel discussion on the Institutionalization of Feminism.
2 April 2010 | Americas, Conferences, Modern
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote this in advance of last weekend’s Romare Bearden symposium: Artist Romare Bearden … is the subject of a symposium … at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Downtown. “Bearden in the Public Realm,” include[s] a Friday conversation with novelist John Edgar Wideman … Saturday’s keynote speaker will be Mary [...]
2 April 2010 | Career, Museums
The New York Times profiles nine emerging curators: Rajendra Roy, Hao Sheng, Jen Mergel, Alison Gass, Diane Waggoner, Scott Rothkopf, Diane Waggoner, Clara Drummond, and Samantha Rippner. MoMA film curator Roy says, “When I first heard they were looking for someone I was convinced I was NOT the person. I was too young, too out [...]
1 April 2010 | Uncategorized
In full: DATE: April 1, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THE GETTY PROVIDES FREE ACCESS TO THE BHA ON ITS WEBSITE LOS ANGELES—As of April 1, 2010, the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) will be available free of charge on the Getty Web site at http://library.getty.edu/bha. Free Web access to BHA is an advantage [...]
1 April 2010 | Uncategorized
According to a Getty press release, it “decided to act on its commitment to the scholarly community by providing access to BHA directly from its own Web site.” Alas, that still leaves open the question of who will continue updating and maintaining the BHA. The Getty and its research institute are undoubtedly experiencing difficulties adjusting [...]
1 April 2010 | Uncategorized
Souren Melikian writes in Art+Auction: Art is all about perception. The sales of Old Masters at Christie’s and Sotheby’s New York in January offered a fascinating illustration of how shifts in perception can influence prices. As greater works become rarer, substitutes of lesser quality are being upgraded in status. At the same time another, more [...]
1 April 2010 | Uncategorized
From Culturegrrl: This just in from Thomas Gaehtgens, director of the Getty Research Institute, in response to my query yesterday about the BHA’s fate: The Getty will send out a press release tomorrow [Thursday] with very good news. The GRI has worked hard to make this possible.
29 March 2010 | Conferences, Journals, Museums
Routledge has announced a new journal World Art, edited by George Lau, Daniel Rycroft, and Veronica Sekules: In the context of the reassessment of the collecting, display and interpretation of cultures, the study of art as a global human activity challenges categories of mainstream and marginalised arts and allows new histories to emerge, highlighting different [...]
26 March 2010 | Awards, Books, Photography
Historian Linda Gordon has been awarded a Bancroft Prize (her second) for her book on the photographer Dorothea Lange, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits. The prize is “awarded annually by the trustees of Columbia [University] to the authors of books of exceptional merit in the fields of American history, biography and diplomacy.” In this [...]
