Comments on: What’s Eating CAA? http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=3444 News for Art Historians Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:57:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Jeremy Miller http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=3444&cpage=1#comment-140271 Jeremy Miller Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:36:07 +0000 http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=3444#comment-140271 Your questions about CAA's motives are good ones, but it seems clear to me why they would denounce this act. It is both deliberately deceptive and, as those present seem to attest, a waste of everyone's time. It thereby undermines CAA's implicit claims that the conference is a professional, scholarly, and worthwhile activity. What if this person had published a paper under another author's name without that author's permission under the guise of "performance art"? In principle it would be quite similar. And what of the audience members who take this person at their word, and then go on to spread all sorts of misinformation about Jacob and her work, not to mention the nature of CAA? It would difficult to convince my institution that spending money to send me to an event of this nature is an investment in its future. As for Gioni's comment, Western culture clearly still believes very much in authorship, though the nature of the construct may have shifted. I'll line up every time David Fincher makes a film. Art is not necessarily avant-garde, nor should it have to be. Regarding sincerity, the day I stop believing in and looking for it you can put me in my grave. A perceived lack of sincerity is the first sign to me that an artwork is wasting my time. Your questions about CAA’s motives are good ones, but it seems clear to me why they would denounce this act. It is both deliberately deceptive and, as those present seem to attest, a waste of everyone’s time. It thereby undermines CAA’s implicit claims that the conference is a professional, scholarly, and worthwhile activity. What if this person had published a paper under another author’s name without that author’s permission under the guise of “performance art”? In principle it would be quite similar. And what of the audience members who take this person at their word, and then go on to spread all sorts of misinformation about Jacob and her work, not to mention the nature of CAA? It would difficult to convince my institution that spending money to send me to an event of this nature is an investment in its future.

As for Gioni’s comment, Western culture clearly still believes very much in authorship, though the nature of the construct may have shifted. I’ll line up every time David Fincher makes a film. Art is not necessarily avant-garde, nor should it have to be. Regarding sincerity, the day I stop believing in and looking for it you can put me in my grave. A perceived lack of sincerity is the first sign to me that an artwork is wasting my time.

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