Interview with Ariane Cherry of Design Cloud

I’ve been talking to many people about this thing social practice. On this subject, I had the privilege of speaking with someone with a unique perspective and many enlivening comments, Ariane Cherry. Ariane is Gallery Director at Design Cloud LLC.

We discussed social practice as an idea being exchanged between creatives. We touched on public design, urban philanthropy, and the risks associated with socially engaged practices – plus the potential success the endeavor could obtain. Read More below.

Ari_Headshot_1

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Interview with Ariane Cherry of Design Cloud

I’ve been talking to many people about this thing social practice. On this subject, I had the privilege of speaking with someone with a unique perspective and many enlivening comments, …

Arts Management/ Art History Matt Robinson, matthew.robinson1@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” a review of ARTexchange

ARTexchange is an open and free forum that showcases working artist. Artists applied and were chosen in December to be part of the event, which hosts forty or so working artists. I went there last night and here are a few highlights.

Magdal

Magdalena Olszanowski

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“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” a review of ARTexchange

ARTexchange is an open and free forum that showcases working artist. Artists applied and were chosen in December to be part of the event, which hosts forty or so working …

Interdisciplinary Arts and Media First Year MFA Julynn Wilderson, wilderpedia@gmail.com
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

TONITE TONITE: Saturday night options in Chicago

As we round out the final day of the conference, and many of you return home tomorrow, I thought I’d provide some options for non-conference arts events taking place in Chicago tonight:

CAAALTERNATE 2014 at Tritriangle (more info here), a salon of media art. Featuring works by Patrick Lichty, Andrew Blanton, Morehshin Allahyari, Christine Kirouac, Sanglim Han, and Kayla Beth Anderson. As a part of this event Jennifer Chan will be running STUFF ON STUFF ON STUFF, a free-for-all of screen-based work. 6pm, 1550 N Milwaukee Ave Fl 3.

Mana Contemporary February Opening, an evening of art, performance, and merriment on Saturday, February 15. The event is free and open to the public, and food and refreshments will be served throughout. Various performances and receptions will take place between 5pm and midnight (see event page), including works and performances by High Concept Laboratories, Yigal Ozeri, graduate students of University of Wisconsin Madison, Honey Pot Performance, Amber Ginsburg and Aaron Hughes, Industry of the Ordinary, and ACRE. 5pm to 12am, 2233 S Throop St.

Pivot Pop Up! The Sadness Show: An Ironic Valentine’s Day Celebration, featuring Music by Sad Brad Smith (Up In The Air); A Sadness Game Show hosted by Brigid Murphy (Millie’s Orchid Show) with sad works by top playwrights Ike Holter, Noah Haidle, Mickle Maher, Shannon Matesky, Brett Neveu, and Tanya Palmer judged by a panel of “Sadness Experts.” Break-Up Karaoke DJed by Carlo Garcia. 7:30pm, 4101 N. Broadway Avenue

LOVESICK : Art Show, a show at 32Forty including mural painting, watercolor, sculpture, drawing, comic books, artist book, and mixed media. Curated by Michelle Graves, featuring work by Sean Backus, Vyto Grybauskas, Tine Defiore, Angela Erickson, Dana Grossmann, Cathy Hannah, Megan ‘Pain Gwen’ Larcher, Jenna Rodriguez, and Joan McDonald. 7pm, 3240 S Morgan St.

I n c o g n i t o, co-curated by the Pigeon Bench and Jack Collier, featuring art by Heather Marie, Olivia Rogers, Pan Gelic A, and Erik Peterson, and projections by Glen Jennings and Brian Hochberger, as well as music by a variety of objects. 9pm, 3036 N Lincoln Ave.

 

TONITE TONITE: Saturday night options in Chicago

As we round out the final day of the conference, and many of you return home tomorrow, I thought I’d provide some options for non-conference arts events taking place in …

MFA Candidate, Interdisciplinary Arts & Media Sid Branca, sid@sidbranca.com
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

5 Exhibitions To See Before Bidding Chicago Adieu

As the conference is starting to round out here at the Hilton I give you 5 must see exhibitions to experience before leaving Chicago!

Faith Wilding: Fearful Symmetries Retrospective at Threewalls

Still from Faith Wilding’s “Waiting” performance as seen in the 1974 film “Womanhouse” by Johanna Demetrakas, (1974, USA, 47 min.) (courtesy of Johanna Demetrakas and Three Walls Gallery)

Still from Faith Wilding’s “Waiting” performance as seen in the 1974 film “Womanhouse” by Johanna Demetrakas, (1974, USA, 47 min.) (courtesy of Johanna Demetrakas and Three Walls Gallery)

RISK: Empathy, Art and Social Practice at Gallery Curtain Gallery

Cheryl Pope, Remember to Remember, 36 X 47 X 2" Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo Credit: James Prinz Photography, 2013.

Cheryl Pope, Remember to Remember, 36 X 47 X 2″ Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo Credit: James Prinz Photography, 2013.

The Fifth Dimension at Logan Center Gallery

Installation view: The Fifth Dimension at Logan Center Gallery, featuring work by Pieter Vermeersch (background), and (from left to right) Geof Oppenheimer, Tauba Auerbach and Karl Holmqvist. Photo: Jim Prinz

Installation view: The Fifth Dimension at Logan Center Gallery, featuring work by Pieter Vermeersch (background), and (from left to right) Geof Oppenheimer, Tauba Auerbach and Karl Holmqvist. Photo: Jim Prinz

The Way of the Shovel: Art As Archeology at MCA Chicago

Derek Brunen, Production still from Plot, 2007. Courtesy of the artist.

Derek Brunen, Production still from Plot, 2007. Courtesy of the artist.

William J. O’Brien at MCA Chicago 

Installation view, William J. O'Brien, MCA Chicago, 2014. Left: Untitled, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; right: Untitled, 2007. Collection of Dana Westreich Hirt. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

Installation view, William J. O’Brien, MCA Chicago, 2014. Left: Untitled, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; right: Untitled, 2007. Collection of Dana Westreich Hirt. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

5 Exhibitions To See Before Bidding Chicago Adieu

As the conference is starting to round out here at the Hilton I give you 5 must see exhibitions to experience before leaving Chicago! Faith Wilding: Fearful Symmetries Retrospective at Threewalls RISK: …

BA Art History '14 La Keisha Leek, La.Leek@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

Samantha Hill: On RISK, Artist As Archivist and Arts Education

The much awaited opening of RISK: Art, Empathy, and Social Practice curated by Amy Mooney and Neysa Page-Lieberman, with curatorial assistance from Marcela Andrade happened last night at the Glass Curtain Gallery! I was able to snag artist and activist Samantha Hill to talk about her participation. It is also of note to mention that for those of you who will be out and about tomorrow, Samantha’s satellite exhibition Topographical Depictions of the Bronzeville Renaissance is on view at the Hyde Park Art Center.

Samantha Hill. Image Credit: SAIC Spotlights

Samantha Hill. Image Credit: SAIC Spotlights

La Keisha Leek: Who is Samantha Hill?

Samantha Hill: Samantha Hill is a transdisciplinary artist from Chicago, IL with an emphasis on archives, oral story collecting, social projects & art facilitations.  The focus of my art is to investigate how memory, location and history intersect within society by collecting oral narratives & personal historic ephemera. Public participation is an important component of my artistic process.  I invite individuals as well as communities to collaborate with me in developing new work by collecting personal story and/or photography donations.  By assuming the role of artist as archivist/Socio-Cultural Anthropologist, I apply my research to construct multi-media installations & performances within landmark buildings and community spaces for public interaction.  The location is transformed into an immersive environment, which act as a conductor between the viewer, the narratives/ephemera and location.  I foster collaboration with artists from diverse practices as a part of my creative process.

LL: Tell me about your presence in RISK: Empathy, Art and Social Practice and how the work for you ties in to the ideas of empathy and socially engaged art?

SH: My project for RISK is to investigate the current cultural renaissance occurring in Bronzeville.  The basis of my work is to collect untold histories of a community to represent to the public in a poetic way.  I begin this process by collecting interviews about significant events in a person’s life.  I usually ask general questions during my interviews that allow the participant to share details about their life which they believe are important to the project’s theme.  I usually discover important details about historic moments by using this interview technique.

A Jeli's Tale:  An Anthology of Kinship. Photo credit:  Meredith Jones/McColl Center for Visual Art

Great Migration (installation with Faheem Majeed’s How to Build A Shack). Image Credit: Tony Smith.

I also ask community members to allow me to access their personal photography archives to build conceptual self-portraits of the interview participant.  This process allows me to connect with the interviewee to share their stories, memories and philosophies in a multi-media artwork.

LL: I believe it is significant to note the artists in RISK all have Chicago-based practices. What is your Chicago and how has that part of you affected or influenced your work as an artist?

SH: I am originally from Philadelphia, which is a city of neighborhoods.  Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods and I have explored several communities since I moved here.  Each neighborhood has it’s own culture.  I love to interact with people from these communities to discover what engages their interests.  These conversations inspire new visual concepts as well as public engagement processes for my work.

A Jeli's Tale:  An Anthology of Kinship. Photo credit:  Meredith Jones/McColl Center for Visual Art

A Jeli’s Tale: An Anthology of Kinship. Photo credit: Meredith Jones/McColl Center for Visual Art

LL: As a practicing artist, why do you feel it is important to work in arts education?

SH: As an artist/educator, I have an opportunity to conduct engaging discussions about the construction of visual culture with my students.  This allows my students to evaluate the significance of how information is transmitted to the public and how the arts are an integral part of that system.  My goal as an instructor is to inspire my students to add their creative concepts and philosophies to visual culture to contribute to the exchange of ideas.

LL: What exhibitions or programs going on during CAA would you recommend to conference attendees?

SH: Jan Tichy: aroundcenter, a site-specific exhibition composed of nine installations, each of which stands on its own, yet at the same time relate, deriving from and leading to the others. Through this exhibition, Tichy will lead visitors to a more integrated experience of the Chicago Cultural Center, including access to unrevealed areas and resources of the building. Using light as his primary expressive tool – through a variety of media including photography, sculpture, video and video projection – Tichy illuminates and makes accessible the history and current mission of the landmark building.

Samantha Hill: On RISK, Artist As Archivist and Arts Education

The much awaited opening of RISK: Art, Empathy, and Social Practice curated by Amy Mooney and Neysa Page-Lieberman, with curatorial assistance from Marcela Andrade happened last night at the Glass Curtain …

BA Art History '14 La Keisha Leek, La.Leek@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

In the West Loop: Nick Albertson at Aspect Ratio Projects

On view at tonight’s West Loop Gallery Art Walk is an artist named Nick Albertson.
This is Albertson’s first solo exhibition, taking place at Aspect Ratio Projects.

Nick Albertson on the opening night of Single Use.

Nick Albertson on the opening night of Single Use.

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In the West Loop: Nick Albertson at Aspect Ratio Projects

On view at tonight’s West Loop Gallery Art Walk is an artist named Nick Albertson. This is Albertson’s first solo exhibition, taking place at Aspect Ratio Projects.

Arts Management/ Art History Matt Robinson, matthew.robinson1@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

OPEN ACCESS OR BUST: A LIGHTNING POST

Ambassadors

 

For Day 2 of my CAA experience, I’m working at the Columbia College Graduate Admissions booth at the book fair. I’m stoked and totally prepared for questions like, “Are the kids in grad school cool?” “Do you learn a lot?” “Does grad school prepare you for the real world?” “Will you be rich, famous, or both after you finish?” But for the first hour, only two folks come by. “Can I have this pen?” a woman asks. The second is a tweed-vested middle-age dude with a goatee who walks up and is all, “let me fire this one at you.” (Okay.) “Is Columbia College Chicago related to Columbia University?” I look at him for a second. “I know two guys named Mike,” I tell him. “Do you think they’re related?” Well, I wish I’d actually thought of that, but I haven’t had my third cup of coffee yet. And also I have to say, they are pretty cool pens.

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OPEN ACCESS OR BUST: A LIGHTNING POST

  For Day 2 of my CAA experience, I’m working at the Columbia College Graduate Admissions booth at the book fair. I’m stoked and totally prepared for questions like, “Are …

Daniel Scott Parker MFA Poetry Daniel Scott Parker, danielsparker@gmail.com
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

Forget Chocolates and Roses, I Want Artist Books

CAA Book and Trade Fair Exhibitors

I spent hours inside the CAA Book and Trade Fair which hosts more than 120 publishers, art materials manufacturers, and services in the arts. I explored their wares and projects. I perused through brilliantly orchestrated artist books. An illuminating and transformative experience, collecting artist books create an intimate opportunity to connect with cherished artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages. Since tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, I decided to give a very special person in my life the following treasures.

1.

Betye Saar, born in Los Angeles in 1926, emerged in the 1960s as a powerful figure in the redefinition of African American art. Over the past forty years, she has injected African American visual histories into mainstream visual culture by blending spiritual, political, and cultural iconography to create complex works with universal impact. This beautifully illustrated book accompanies an exhibition of Saar's work, showcasing the extraordinary depth and breadth of her achievement. It provides multiple vantage points from which to gain a richer understanding of Saar's career, American art of the 1960s, feminism, contemporary art, and California culture and politics.  Copub: University of Michigan Museum of Art

Betye Saar, born in Los Angeles in 1926, emerged in the 1960s as a powerful figure in the redefinition of African American art. Over the past forty years, she has injected African American visual histories into mainstream visual culture by blending spiritual, political, and cultural iconography to create complex works with universal impact. This beautifully illustrated book accompanies an exhibition of Saar’s work, showcasing the extraordinary depth and breadth of her achievement. It provides multiple vantage points from which to gain a richer understanding of Saar’s career, American art of the 1960s, feminism, contemporary art, and California culture and politics.

2.

Description Featuring over 200 color illustrations, the catalogue Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist accompanies the first full-scale survey of the work of Archibald Motley, on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University from January 30, 2014, through May 11, 2014. Archibald John Motley, Jr. was an American painter, master colorist, and radical interpreter of urban culture. Among twentieth-century American artists, Motley is surely one of the most important and, paradoxically, also one of the most enigmatic. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1891, Motley spent the first half of the twentieth century living and working in a predominately white neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, just blocks away from the city’s burgeoning black community. During his formative years, Chicago’s African American population increased dramatically, and he was both a witness to and a visual chronicler of that expansion. In 1929 he won a Guggenheim Fellowship, which funded a critical year of study in France, where he painted Blues and other memorable pictures of Paris. In the 1950s, Motley made several lengthy visits to Mexico, where his nephew, the well-known novelist Willard F. Motley, lived. While there, Motley created vivid depictions of Mexican life and landscapes. He died in Chicago in 1981. Motley’s brilliant yet idiosyncratic paintings – simultaneously expressionist and social realist – have captured worldwide attention with their rainbow-hued, syncopated compositions. The exhibition includes the artist’s depictions of African American life in early-twentieth-century Chicago, as well as his portraits and archetypes, portrayals of African American life in Jazz Age Paris, and renderings of 1950s Mexico. The catalogue includes an essay by Richard J. Powell, organizer and curator of Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, as well as contributions from other scholars examining the life, work, and legacy of one of twentieth-century America's most significant artists.  Contributors. Davarian L. Baldwin, David C. Driskell, Oliver Meslay, Amy M. Mooney, Richard J. Powell, Ishmael Reed. Publication of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University About The Author(s) Richard J. Powell is the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University. He teaches courses in American art, the arts of the African Diaspora, and contemporary visual studies, and writes extensively on topics ranging from primitivism to postmodernism. His books include African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and Beyond (with Virginia Mecklenburg), Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, and Black Art: A Cultural History. He was Editor-in-Chief of The Art Bulletin from 2007 until 2010.

Featuring over 200 color illustrations, the catalogue Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist accompanies the first full-scale survey of the work of Archibald Motley, on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University from January 30, 2014, through May 11, 2014. Archibald John Motley, Jr. was an American painter, master colorist, and radical interpreter of urban culture. Among twentieth-century American artists, Motley is surely one of the most important and, paradoxically, also one of the most enigmatic.

3.

inda Haverty Rugg explores how nondocumentary narrative art films create alternative forms of collaborative self-representation and selfhood. Lively and accessible, Self-Projection sheds new light on the films of iconic directors and on art cinema in general, ultimately showing how film can transform not only the autobiographical act, but what it means to have a self.

Linda Haverty Rugg explores how nondocumentary narrative art films create alternative forms of collaborative self-representation and selfhood. Lively and accessible, Self-Projection sheds new light on the films of iconic directors and on art cinema in general, ultimately showing how film can transform not only the autobiographical act, but what it means to have a self.

I know that I will love them!

 

 

 

Forget Chocolates and Roses, I Want Artist Books

I spent hours inside the CAA Book and Trade Fair which hosts more than 120 publishers, art materials manufacturers, and services in the arts. I explored their wares and projects. I …

InterArts Janelle Dowell, janelle.dowell@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

Kirsten Leenaars: Aesthetics and Social Practice

I had the pleasure of conversing with artist Kirsten Leenaars. We talked social practice, aesthetic, people, the post office, and what’s next for Leenars. As one of the artists involved in the exhibition RISK: Empathy, Art, and Social Practice – which is open Feb 10th – April, 26th, at Glass Curtain Gallery – I thought it appropriate to get her take on the complicated practice of a socially engaged artist. Leenaars will exhibit in the RISK, the exhibition featuring contemporary artists whose work “invites the outside in,” blurring “the lines between public and private space.” Click Read more for the full interview.

Kirsteen Leenars (left) and Lise Baggesen in Boulevard Dreamers

Kirsten Leenaars (left) and Lise Baggesen in Boulevard Dreamers

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Kirsten Leenaars: Aesthetics and Social Practice

I had the pleasure of conversing with artist Kirsten Leenaars. We talked social practice, aesthetic, people, the post office, and what’s next for Leenars. As one of the artists involved in the …

Arts Management/ Art History Matt Robinson, matthew.robinson1@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605

Shannon Stratton: On Feminism, Faith Wilding and CAA

Image Credit: Elsewhere

Image Credit: Elsewhere

I am always in constant thought on the interdisciplinary universe in which I am embedded. In addition to social practice, for me Chicago seems to be at the center of that place at the moment. Those closely connected to this are practicing artists-art administrators-educators-curators.

Before a short lunch break and attending the ARTspace session Services to Artists Committee Meta Mentors: The Deluge at 12:30pm today, I offer this interview with Shannon Stratton.

La Keisha Leek: Who is Shannon Stratton?

Shannon Stratton: The Executive Director (and founder) of Threewalls, a grass-roots arts organization for contemporary art founded in 2003.

LL: Tell me about your curatorial practice?

SS: It is probably accurate to say it is all over the place. I am interested in a lot of things, too much of the time, so I get to curate what comes together in time, with a venue, artists, funding etc. I don’t get to curate at Threewalls that often. The program is primarily curated by the arts community, through an advisory board made up of artists from emerging to established. I probably put a show together there once a year, sometimes not at all. I curate outside the gallery, but that can take a couple years to get an idea accepted by another organization, the funds raised and the project executed. But besides all that: I’m interested in curatorial constraints, I’m interested in space, I’m interested in finding ways of developing exhibitions with artists not around them. I was an artist once too, so curating keeps me involved in studio practice in a way that is very fulfilling because I get to be in so many studios, to develop projects with artists I love.

 LL: When did feminism enter the discourse for you and how has that continued to inform the ways in which you approach exhibition making and thinking about contemporary art?

SS: I was a Fiber graduate student, as well as studying it in undergrad. That discipline tends to be heavily informed by feminism, so I think my mentors really provided that backbone from an early age, both overtly and unintentionally. I also identified as a feminist as a teen and never wavered from that, never felt shy about it, so I think that identification must run deep in all that I do. At the same time, I can’t point to any professional undertakings and say: this has a feminist agenda, even though if one looks at Threewalls exhibition history as notices the high percentage of female and feminist artists in our exhibition archive. It’s interesting to me that that is the case, and frankly says more about the continued discrepancies in the visual arts. I have an artist advisory board of all genders, races and ages, making most of these decisions, and they are looking for the strongest work, that needs exposure, that is the most important work to support and see now. Its interesting that the results are predominantly women, at all career stages, whose work is still under-represented yet undeniably strong. But as far as Faith goes, this was a decision I made that felt important and close to me. Faith Wilding is an artist that I think most young artists, especially young feminist artists learn about and read. When I learned of her Women’s Art Caucus award I was sort of floored to realize she had never had a retrospective of her work, at 70! So that’s how that started.

Faith Wilding, Fresno Feminist Art Program, 1971. credit: Isadora Duncan. Collaborative costume image, staging Nancy Youdelman Photography: Dori Atlantis

Faith Wilding, Fresno Feminist Art Program, 1971. Image credit: Isadora Duncan. Collaborative costume image, staging Nancy Youdelman Photography: Dori Atlantis

 LL: Faith Wilding’s first retrospective exhibition Faith Wilding: Fearful Symmetries Retrospective documenting the past forty years of her studio practice is currently up at Threewalls. How did this exhibition come to fruition at your space?

SS: To piggy back on the last question – really through the recognition that she hadn’t had this kind of exhibition before and it was time. It was time for Faith, but also it was time for art. Feminism is on people’s minds, as it should be – back with a vengeance perhaps? And so looking at the work we were going to show it was apparent that these images needed to be seen, some again, some for the 1st time. In part because some of this image making really resonates with drawing and painting practices that are emerging again, now, and in part to see what 40 years of being a feminist looks like, privately, in an art practice that has been consistent alongside all of Faith’s other activities of teaching, lecturing, collaborating and so on.

LL: The presence of Virginia Wolfe appears several times throughout the exhibition, as language and as portrait. The same is to be said for a few other themes. With such a vast body of work to pull, tell me about the honing in process and how certain forms and ideas came to be those that would speak to Wilding’s practice in this exhibition?

SS: What was amazing to me was how consistent the work was over 40 years, even if there were a few stylistic shifts. Across 4 decades the work maintained these themes about the body and emergence and recombination: cocoons, moths, mermaids and other hybrid creatures, wombs, leaves/pods, etc. They occur again and again. And they form an interesting trajectory away from Womb Room and Waiting, Faith’s iconic early work. Really, waiting, transforming and emerging are consistent throughout – whether that waiting is anticipating or resting, so it became very easy to make selections that highlighted different times in her practices without resulting in a tangled show. Also Faith’s material handling and use of color is quite consistent throughout her lifetime. She is a fabulous colorist.

LL: As a curator and arts administrator whose work extends far beyond an academic institution, how important do feel the role of arts education to be?

SS: I think arts education, for everyone, from grade school onwards is a necessity. The art encounter is where new understandings emerge – it doesn’t have to be pretty either, the art encounter can bring forth ugly stuff too. Arts education is valuable, not to teach people exactly what an art work means, but to get them comfortable with approaching art, with hanging out with it, with having complex feelings towards it. Beyond that – the cost of a BFA or an MFA at the vast number of schools that keep adding and expanding arts programs is problematic. It makes art look like an elite product. This imbalance has to be corrected.

 LL: In what ways does CAA’s annual conference assist in this effort for emerging art historians, curators and artists?

SS: I’m not sure of CAA’s value at this point. I think it’s an old model that needs some serious rethinking. The panels could be of great benefit to students, but its prohibitively expensive to attend. (Unless you go to just Artspace stuff)  And even those who work in the field are hard pressed to afford attendance unless their institutions pay for it. I could go on, but I’ll leave at that. Who is it for as a professional organization and is it really meeting those needs? And further to that, what ways are artists, critics, curators getting together to talk about work that are more accessible? More contemporary? There is a huge emphasis in institutions that their faculty or students join and attend CAA rather than an acknowledgement that artists are doing plenty of interesting things outside this model to support one another. Art historians of course, are welcome to feel differently. Maybe there are just too many ways people work in the arts these days to have one professional arts organization that can serve everyone.

LL: What exhibitions or programs going on during CAA are you looking forward to attending while in Chicago?

SS: I am looking forward to going to the Center Will Not Hold panel at SAIC on Thursday. Faith is reading from her memoirs on Friday, so of course I’m excited about that. Anthony Romero and Jillian Soto have organized an event The People in Dining Room 5 Wish to Have Your Attention at the Hilton that is parallel to the conference – a kind of intervention event, which I’m going to check out Saturday morning. And as always I look forward to seeing old friends and getting caught up in the hotel bar. You don’t have to register for that.

Shannon Stratton: On Feminism, Faith Wilding and CAA

I am always in constant thought on the interdisciplinary universe in which I am embedded. In addition to social practice, for me Chicago seems to be at the center of …

BA Art History '14 La Keisha Leek, La.Leek@loop.colum.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605