Fostering strong scholarship and promoting collegiality within the vital field of contemporary art history.
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Fostering strong scholarship and promoting collegiality within the vital field of contemporary art history.
un-CAA Panel
2022 College Art Association Annual Conference
SCAH’s Executive Board decided to retract our panel from the official proceedings of 110th annual CAA Annual Conference after our request to offer it free and open to the public was denied. SCAH instead organized the following un-CAA Panel and issued its our Open Letter to CAA.
Un-CAA Panel: Fighting Back to Reclaim Institutions
2022 College Art Association Annual Conference • Free Public Conversation
Organized by John Tyson and Anna Mecugni, with panelists Nic Aziz, Tatiana Flores, Pablo Helguera, and Christine Y. KimThursday, March 3, 2022 • 3:15 PM ET • Zoom
Over the past decade, layers of capitalist exploitation have continued to shape the ethos of the contemporary art-industrial complex, perpetuating its economic and racial inequities; nonetheless, artists and other art workers have been fighting back with increasing coordination and success. Key moments in these struggles have been the founding of Black Lives Matter and Decolonize this Place; more recently, the coronavirus pandemic outbreak and the viral video of George Floyd’s murder have further precipitated the urgent need to effect more ethical, sustainable communities. While institutional leaders’ responses to financial uncertainty and social unrest have been mixed, often prioritizing profit over equity in academia, museums, and other art organizations, art workers have mobilized in remarkable ways, comparable to the civil rights era. For instance, recent years have seen important revisions and a rethinking of museums’ purpose as well as a heightened sense of accountability to diverse publics. Thus, there have been calls for the resignation of leadership and board members, staff unionization, discrimination lawsuits, and artists removing their works from display in acts of solidarity.
The Society of Contemporary Art Historians’ un-CAA panel brings together Nic Aziz, Tatiana Flores, Pablo Helguera, and Christine Y. Kim to reflect on recent dynamics and share their experiences navigating our present neoliberal waters through different channels, in order to explore the field’s systemic crises alongside viable, collectivist modes of resistance, such as distributed self-organizing, resource sharing, and mutual-aid networks.
This panel is organized by Anna Mecugni, University of New Orleans, and John A. Tyson, University of Massachusetts - Boston.
Panelists
Nic Aziz, New Orleans Museum of Art
Tatiana Flores, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Pablo Helguera, New School; formerly Museum of Modern Art, NY
Christine Y. Kim, Tate Modern
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The Society of Contemporary Art Historians aims to foster strong scholarship and promote collegiality within the vital field of contemporary art history.
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