New York Trip

So I had a fantastic time in the big apple for the CAA conference last week, where I was employed as a projectionist.  I was able to attend five panels, visit four museums, and even wear high heels to a gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Here's a list of the panels I attended.  I'd like to post my thoughts about each over the course of the next week or two.

New Life for Memorials on the National Mall

Wednesday, February 09, 2:30 PM–5:00 PM

West Ballroom, 3rd Floor, Hilton New York

Chairs: Judy Scott Feldman, National Coalition to Save Our Mall; Kirk Savage, University of Pittsburgh

Sara Hart, design journalist, New York

James P. Clark, National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds

The Art of Pranks

Thursday, February 10, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM

Nassau Suite, 2nd Floor, Hilton New York

Chair: Beauvais Lyons, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The Private/Public Joke: Printed Pranks in New York Dada

Sarah Archino, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Double-Talk: A Case Study of the Fine Arts Symposium "Wroclaw ‘70"

Albert J. Godycki, Jagiellonian University

Fluxpranks: Twelve Big Names

Hannah Higgins, University of Illinois, Chicago

Simon Anderson, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Purposeful Pranks: Artists as Subversive Pranksters

Lisa Sayles, Clark College

New York City Pranksters

Clark Stoeckley, Artivist

Discussant:Andy Bichlbaum, The Yes Men and Parsons The New School For Design

Inspiration and Opportunity: Art History Reflects on Its Past to Determine Its Future

Friday, February 11, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM

Gramercy A, 2nd Floor, Hilton New York

Chair: Elizabeth W. Easton, Center for Curatorial Leadership

Report from the Field: Art Historians Survey of Career Choices

Elizabeth W. Easton, Center for Curatorial Leadership

Malcolm Daniel, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alisa LaGamma, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Patricia Rubin, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Kristina Van Dyke, The Menil Collection

Colin Bailey, The Frick Collection

Mariët Westermann, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Studio Art Open Session: Green and Sustainable Art

Friday, February 11, 2:30 PM–5:00 PM

Sutton Parlor South, 2nd Floor, Hilton New York

Chairs: Anita Cooney, Pratt Institute; Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, Pratt Institute

Garment/Research: A Point of Reference, a Portable System of Investigation and a Tool of Connection

Kelly Cobb, University of Delaware

Transient Interconnection

Rachel Miller, Pratt Institute

Embodied Ecology

Chris Taylor, Texas Tech University

Frames, Balance, and Limitations

Cal Lane

Claiming Authorship: Artists, Patrons, and Strategies of Self-promotion in Medieval and Early Modern Italy, Part II

Saturday, February 12, 2:30 PM–5:00 PM

Concourse A, Concourse Level, Hilton New York

Chairs: Babette Bohn, Texas Christian University; Sheryl Reiss, University of Southern California

Images within Images: Self-Referentiality and Authorship in the Later Middle Ages

David Boffa, Rutgers University

Papal Majesty and Political Propaganda: Image and Meaning in Raphael’s “Grotesques of Leo X”

Lorraine Karafel, Parsons The New School for Design

Competing Identities: Sanctity, Patronage, and Portraiture in Giambologna’s St. Antoninus Chapel

Sally J. Cornelison, University of Kansas

“The Stimulus of Vain Ambition”: Individual Self-Promotion and Corporate Patronage in Early Modern Venice

Meryl Bailey, University of California, Berkeley

Lanfranco and the Rhetoric of Self-Promotion in Early Seicento Italy

Frances Gage, Buffalo State College, State University of New York

Here's a list of the museums I visited.  I'd like to post my thoughts about these as well in upcoming weeks.

Tuesday Evening: American Folk Art Museum, 
Wednesday: MOMA  
Thursday: The Met 
Finally: The Whitney

People gave me TONS of restaurant recommendations, but the only meal out worth noting was at La Giocanda.  I had the special with a glass of Pigato from Liguria.  I have never had Pigato before, but tried it because that's what the owner recommended to go with my tuna steak.  It was a very intimate little restaurant with only about eight tables, but one of the tables was asked to leave after two women got into a sad, hysterical screaming match.  The other three patrons and I didn't quite know what to make of that.

I filled an entire sketchbook on the first two days of the trip, and then instead of buying a new one I got a bunch of encaustic supplies from the book and supply fair.  The people at R and F encaustics and the Hotcakes booth were both very helpful.  I cant believe I haven't experimented with this material more in the past.  

I met a couple of really interesting artists (and now new friends) while I was at the conference, but I wish I had been a little more outgoing.  I was happy to cross paths with Gatsby and Dwayne a few times and to get to have a brief conversation with Dr. Kenneth Haltman, but chickened out when it comes to high-fiving the amazing Faith Ringgold, who was receiving an award from CAA for being a feminist hero and who was wearing a crown (because that's what she does when she wins awards).  I really enjoyed her acceptance speech, which was an activists call for a National Museum of African-American Art in New York.  She said she didn't think she'd live to see it, which was a little confusing for me--I hadn't realized that there was no such museum.