by Jon Lackman | 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.
by Jon Lackman | 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 standpoints and disciplines. World Art encourages critical reflection at the intersections of theory, method and practice. It provides a forum for redefining the concept of art for scholars, students and practitioners, for rethinking artistic and interpretive categories and for addressing cultural translation of art practices, canons and discourses.
Its first three themed issues will be devoted to “Heritage Futures,” “Museums and the Marginalised,” and “Visualising the Exotic.”
For other news, see David Packwood on symposia dedicated to Hubert Damisch and Svetlana Alpers, and this on the FBI’s “appointment-only display called the Evil Minds Research Museum that displays the letters, art and artefacts of serial killers” (via Wired).
by Jon Lackman | 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 C-Span appearance last October, “Professor Gordon talked about the personal life of Dorothea Lange, the social and political content of her work, and about the content of Dorothea Lange’s photographs as she showed examples of them. Linda Gordon also reflected on the gender issues revealed in her book. She responded to questions from members of the audience.”
by Jon Lackman | 24 March 2010 | Career
Art history now has robust online rumor mills for jobs and salaries (now in their third year) as well as a place to discuss both, although there’s not as much to discuss this year, given the relative lack of openings. A few years back, The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article about such sites that detailed their potential for misinformation and star-system propagation as well their upsides: “All of the sites are meant to make the inner workings of the faculty job market a bit more transparent. And they offer young scholars a lifeline during the anxiety-laden process of landing a tenure-track job.” Art historians are taking advantage of their site to hold universities accountable for confusingly written job advertisements, time-wasting pseudo-searches (advertisements intended to conceal the fact that a hire has already been chosen) and exploitative contracts. Incidentally, there seems to be general agreement not to post the names of job-seekers (other than one’s own), although there’s been some debate over the utility of refraining after names have already gone public.
by Jon Lackman | 23 March 2010 | Uncategorized
ARTnews editor Robin Cembalest writes:
In the United States, the art made in Spain’s Latin American colonies used to be considered artistically minor and politically incorrect. Now, as intellectual trends coincide with demographic realities, it’s on the cutting edge of art history – and the wish lists of top museums … The promise, mystery, and challenge of colonial Latin American art are luring not only a growing number of graduate students but also veteran art historians who built their careers in European art … “It’s an intellectually vibrant field with a whole new set of issues, objects, problems,” says Tom Cummins, chair of Harvard’s department of the history of art and architecture … The rise of interest in colonial Latin American art reflects the influence of fields like anthropology, archeology, and cultural studies on art history … Jonathan Brown, an authority on Spanish art … does see Latin American colonial as the first global art form. “At the bottom of this is a major change in the way that art historians are looking at their subject,” he says. “People are starting to conceive of transnational entities that bring into play areas that have been overlooked by Western art historians. There’s a much broader understanding of how art objects are used as commerce, a means of currying favor, of reinforcing belief” … Meanwhile, at LACMA, [curator Ilona] Katzew is organizing the first major survey of images both of and by indigenous peoples across Latin America. “It’s kind of amazing, but it hasn’t been done in a show or a book” yet, she says. That’s the great thing about the field, she adds. “You can just sink your teeth into practically any subject you like, and you’re going to make a major contribution.”
by Jon Lackman | 22 March 2010 | Museums
From Timesonline.co.uk:
Although a serious scholar who made significant contributions in several fields, it is as a great populariser and brilliant lecturer with the ability to hold audiences aged from 9 to 90 entranced that many will remember [Lionel Lambourne] first and foremost … As the [V&A's] unofficial “curator of silly art”, his range of knowledge was unrivalled, embracing so much that was customarily overlooked or dismissed as mere “popular art” … [In recent years, he produced] a steady stream of publications ranging from small books on Victorian Genre Painting, 1982, and Caricature, 1983, to the later mighty compendium Victorian Paintings, 1999. Two substantial studies, The Aesthetic Movement, 1996, and Japonisme, 2005, are both standard works on their subjects in which mature judgment and sparkling wit combine. Curiously, the achievement of which Lambourne was most proud was his creation of the V&A staff pantomime, the first of which was staged in 1981. Based on the classic pantomimes which he adored, he wrote scripts which were daringly satirical of the museum’s management policies … the pantomime became a wonderful tradition that did much — in both difficult and, more recently, in happier times in the museum — to bring staff together and helped to make the V&A what it is today. Few great scholars and curators can also have left such a legacy of laughter.
by Jon Lackman | 22 March 2010 | Uncategorized
To add to our last post on this topic, a few more discoveries:
Also on Twitter (sometimes, anyway): Art History Newsletter contributors Jon Lackman and Benjamin Lima.
by Jon Lackman | 19 March 2010 | Uncategorized
From Artdaily: “In celebration of the conferral of her doctorate, art historian and publicist Marjan Unger donated to the Rijksmuseum nearly 500 pieces of Dutch jewellery which she had personally collected over the last few decades.”
by Jon Lackman | 19 March 2010 | Uncategorized
Word is going out that the venerable Bibliography of the History of Art will fold at the end of this month, as the result of cost-cutting at the Getty Research Institute. In the words of the Cornell University library, “The BHA is the decisive periodical citation index for art history scholarship, and this is certainly a very unfortunate decision. Many of us had been holding out hope that another entity would be willing to take over the management of the database from the Getty, but apparently those ‘quiet’ negotiations have now failed.”
What’s your source?
http://blog.library.temple.edu/liblog/archives/2010/03/bibliography_of.html
Also this, which is out of date, but provides the rationale:
by Jon Lackman | 19 March 2010 | Asia, Contemporary
The Japan Times interviews “Shihoko Iida, who late last year resigned from one of Tokyo’s most progressive contemporary art venues, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, and is now six months into a two-year sojourn at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia”:
Working in Australia has also opened Iida’s eyes to how her nation’s art is viewed from abroad. “Everyone is really interested in Japanese art,” she explained, “but, for them, the dominant discourse is still Takashi Murakami and his Superflat theory.” Murakami’s mid-1990s theory that playfulness, decorativeness and lack of depth are the dominant characteristics of Japanese visual expression — from classical painting and ukiyo-e through to manga, anime and contemporary art — is still, it turns out, the key reference point for the international audience. “It’s really a problem of translation,” Iida explained. “There’s nothing else they can refer to. (Art historian) Shigeo Chiba’s books aren’t translated, and for a long time catalogs and Web sites weren’t bilingual either.”
by Jon Lackman | 17 March 2010 | Career
The “CV Doctor” at The Chronicle of Higher Education has returned and last December ministrated to a soon-to-be-minted art-history PhD who fields two CVs, one for academic jobs and another for nonacademic jobs. “Lucy Scholar,” who specializes in Chinese art, is “applying for tenure-track faculty posts at small teaching universities, and for postdoctoral fellowships at large research universities. Outside of academe, she is looking for museum, media, education, and other arts-related jobs that would make specific use of her Chinese language skills and humanities background.”
According to The Chronicle, “Lucy … had a busy fall, having been on the road for three weeks, and trying to apply for jobs, meet with dissertation advisers, and deliver conference papers … She’s mentioned to us that the tenure-track market for Asian art positions is good this year, and she is excited about her prospects.”
It’s easy enough to discover that “Lucy Scholar” is in fact Harvard graduate student Kristina Kleutghen (pdf of her actual CV is here), despite the changes made to some identifying details, which makes you wonder why she and The Chronicle bothered — no one need apologize for getting help with a CV. She does by the way have a blog (not updated since November) and a Twitter feed.
So, while it may make you wonder why the Chronicle bothered to disguise her identity, does it really make a difference knowing it? I feel like she’s been “outed” for no discernible reason — and given that I really like your blog, I am slightly disappointed to see this here.
I mostly agree with Aruna’s comment. The last paragraph of this post was unnecessary. While I’ve no idea how the student might in question might feel, the fact that it’s easy enough to find out someone’s true identity behind even a light disguise means that it’s polite or kind to publish it. Obviously I’m self-interested here, but nevertheless, it’s not very nice.
I worried that that paragraph would have the appearance of malice, but none was intended. I felt that the before/after comparison was rendered more interesting by knowing the actual person and her actual accomplishments. And I couldn’t see where the harm was in publishing her name.
I don’t want to pretend that it’s the biggest deal in the world. I don’t even know who was responsible for the decision to conceal her identity or why. So I’m not sure what harm there might be, but personally, I wouldn’t feel it was up to me to judge.
Amusing appreciation of Leonardo da Vinci’s “resume”: http://www.cenedella.com/stone/archives/2010/01/leonardo_da_vincis_resume.html
by Jon Lackman | 17 March 2010 | News
Art historians appear to be embracing Twitter with all of the unenthusiastic hesitation and hand-wringing with which they greeted the once-novel technology of blogging. Nonetheless, a few have taken the plunge. Tweeting art historians include modernist August Jordan Davis, photography historian William Allen, Roman art scholar Francesca Tronchin, art/garden historian S.E. Gordon-Salway, and Renaissance specialist Alexandra Melissa Korey. Be warned that not all tweets will be art-history-related; some art historians choose to tweet about most everything except their day jobs. A broader list of Twitter users interested in art history can be found here.
In other news, find “twitter art” here and here.
Hey there! thanks for posting about my tweeting. My tweets on @arttrav can be sometimes off-topic (more italian lifestyle than art these days) because I am now employed to tweet and write about Italian art from @TuscanyArt (which is related to the official blog for the arts in Tuscany, TuscanyArts – see link on my name).
Interesting to read. Thanks for the mention.
Thanks. Remember that museums and galleries tweet. Search for either will bring up many.
by Jon Lackman | 12 March 2010 | Uncategorized
We belatedly take note of another death … From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
John Walker McCoubrey, 86, an emeritus professor in the department of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, died … Dr. McCoubrey became Penn’s first James and Nan Farquhar Professor of the History of Art in 1988, and for several years was the chairman of the department. He retired in 1995 … Dr. McCoubrey wrote widely on American, English, and French art of the 18th through the 20th centuries. His doctoral dissertation was on French still-life painting, and he was an authority on the British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner. He was the editor of American Art 1700-1960 and wrote the influential American Tradition in Painting … When American Tradition in Painting was reissued in 1999, sociologist Richard Sennett wrote, “The reappearance of this book is an event in American studies, the resurrection of a classic” … Dr. McCoubrey served on the boards of the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was a member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s painting and sculpture committee and its committee for 20th-century art.
by Jon Lackman | 12 March 2010 | Uncategorized
From Timesonline.co.uk:
Lesley Lewis made distinguished contributions to the history of art and architecture as an author and by serving on numerous influential heritage bodies … Lesley Lewis was born in 1909 … she was educated at home by governesses, the last of whom introduced her to the study of the history of art. At the age of 17 she was sent to finishing school in Paris … She followed her [Courtauld Institute] undergraduate degree with a postgraduate thesis on the rise of Neo-Classical architecture in England … She exchanged the frugality of English postwar life for the rigours of trekking with [husband] David [Lewis] all over the Sudan [for 11 years], so that he could investigate insects that transmit tropical diseases. Finding that she had time on her hands, she started to read law by correspondence and was called to the Bar in 1956 … she put together a well-received book, Connoisseurs and Secret Agents in Eighteenth Century Rome (1961) … Lewis was elected in 1964 to the Society of Antiquaries, which became her spiritual home … She was awarded the society’s medal for outstanding services in 2002.
by Jon Lackman | 10 March 2010 | Baroque/Neoclassical, Renaissance
From The New York Times:
By at least one amusing new metric, Michelangelo’s unofficial 500-year run at the top of the Italian art charts has ended … That’s according to an art historian at the University of Toronto, Philip Sohm. He has studied the number of writings (books, catalogs and scholarly papers) on both of them during the last 50 years. Mr. Sohm has found that Caravaggio has gradually, if unevenly, overtaken Michelangelo. He has charts to prove it … Mr. Sohm, who announced his findings during a talk at the College Art Association conference in Chicago last month, focused on publications, not tourist revenues or exhibition attendance figures, and his study says nothing about how Michelangelo and Caravaggio stack up against box-office greats like Rembrandt and van Gogh.
Caravaggio’s work is definitely more interesting that Michelangelo’s, but I don’t think it had the same technical prowess…
I disagree, having seen the Supper at Emmaus.
by Jon Lackman | 9 March 2010 | Conferences
The 2011 College Art Association conference will be in New York, February 9–12, 2011. CAA has just released the Call for Participation. Paper proposals are due May 3. Session titles include:
by Jon Lackman | 9 March 2010 | Books, Theory
In caa.reviews, Kjell Wangensteen considers Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting, a new book by David Summers:
In contrast to the vast scope (and scale) of his 2003 book Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism (New York: Phaidon), David Summers has dramatically focused his investigation in his newest volume, Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting, choosing instead to examine a few discrete moments in the history of Western art. Over the course of four chapters, Summers traces the development of optical theory and its related fields, describing their changing relationship to Western painting from ancient Greece to the Renaissance. According to Summers, the depiction of light and its interaction with representational forms is a phenomenon unique to Western art that has been gradually refined over the course of Western figurative painting with the invention of other optical devices such as foreshortening, modeling, and the portrayal of shadow and highlights. While the development of optics is the principal unifying theme of the book, some of Summers’s most interesting insights stem from his discussion of the metaphysical dimensions of vision and perspective … Vision, Reflection, and Desire is an original and important contribution to the growing body of literature on the relationship between optics and art. Readers looking for an exhaustive treatment of the subject may be disappointed: originating from a series of lectures, Summers’s book provides a well-researched but somewhat disjointed collection of case studies … Vision, Reflection, and Desire nevertheless offers several compelling arguments for the ways in which Western art has been shaped by more than two millennia of inquiry into vision and optics.
by Jon Lackman | 4 March 2010 | Books, Theory
We recently discovered the scholarly book review Metapsychology which covers a fair number of art-related books. Recently reviewed:
Art/Porn, A History of Seeing and Touching, by Kelly Dennis. “This is an unusual book, far removed from the writings of conventional art historians whom the author dubs ‘patriarchal’. She is anxious to make clear that hers is not a survey history but rather ‘an attempt to understand a constellation of discourses on aesthetics, representation, femininity, and class, and the ways they impact and are impacted by technologies of vision’. This formulation at once points to Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and feminist theorists as the inspiration for her radical ideas, though she does not use these sources uncritically … The writing is densely packed, but not obscure. The work sparkles with fresh ideas, many of them admittedly speculative; and the overall drift of the argument is readily accessible to non-specialists. Moreover, it is lavishly illustrated and can be recommended to anyone interested in the historical context of the fuzzy boundary between erotic art and pornography.”
Beauty by Dave Beech (Editor). “Beech’s excellent anthology examines what he now considers to be the tense and estranged relationship between beauty and art in contemporary society. As he notes in his introduction, the collection is concerned with the politics of beauty after the development of Ricoeur’s ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ in which the subject of beauty, along with its subjective nature, has become dangerously controversial. The controversy that gives to rise to this collection, then, is that of beauty’s politicization; a controversy embedded in the relationship between an individual’s subjective response to beauty and the idea that their very own subjective response to beauty is socially inscribed by the higher powers of capitalist society … This is well-edited, rich, collection by an artist who is not only aware of the current complexities surrounding the beauty debate, but also the historical context from which they arose … I highly recommend it as an accessible and well-structured survey of the contemporary debate, with numerous thought provoking and controversial articles.”
Lacan at the Scene, by Henry Bond. “Henry Bond’s Lacan at the Scene blazes a welcome trail into the intersection of photo theory and post-Freudian, ostensibly Lacanian, psychoanalysis. The volume handles an engagement with several series of crime scene photographs of murders committed between 1955 and 1970 using the lens of Lacanian diagnostic criteria: perversion, psychosis, and neurosis … Lacan at the Scene comes in the form of five chapters buffeted by a brief introduction, afterword, and a foreword by the series editor Slavoj Žižek … Lacan at the Scene is a fascinating and sometimes gruesome read. Although some of the photographs Bond chose to include retain abject depictions these always remain objects of a most critical and tasteful engagement … [I] highly recommend Lacan at the Scene for psychoanalysts, philosophers, legal theorists, criminologists, photographers, art historians, theoreticians, and any other reader that is looking for a new take on murder, psychoanalysis, and the history of photography.”
by Jon Lackman | 2 March 2010 | Career
The Chronicle of Higher Education writes about a “new cross-disciplinary survey of humanities departments”:
The teaching work force in the humanities is tilting more and more toward the nontenured … Survey results indicate that a low turnover rate among faculty members, combined with hiring freezes at many institutions, mean fewer academic career opportunities for graduate students … And now for the good news: The great majority of the humanities departments surveyed—87 percent—said that their discipline was included in the core requirements at their college or university. The survey collected numbers on undergraduate concentrations and found that the enduring appeal of the humanities translates into minors as well as majors.
According to the survey’s report on art history departments (pdf),
The 329 departments that award a degree in Art History employ about 2,830 faculty members … Overall, about 60% of the faculty members … are women, about three-fourths are employed in a full-time position, and 70% are either tenured or in a tenure-track position.
These 329 departments award about 5,400 bachelor’s degrees in art history each year. Another 4,030 will graduate with an art-history minor. There are 3,920 graduate students in art history. Upper-division undergraduate course sections average 24.8 students per section; graduate sections average 7.1 students. Every year, about 80 tenure-track professors receive tenure, while 35 are denied or leave prior to coming up for tenure.
by Jon Lackman | 1 March 2010 | Uncategorized
I’ve taken the plunge too!
David