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[1] What is public art for?

From: Rachel Boate, rboatecolgate.edu
Date: July 28, 2024
Deadline: August 29, 2024

The definitions, stakes, forms, practices, and funding of public art have shifted radically since the establishment of the Federal Art-in-Architecture program in 1962 and the National Endowment for the Arts first public art commission in 1967. The decade-long controversy surrounding Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc catalyzed a populist turn, sparking an ongoing debate about public art’s responsibility to the communities that inhabit public space. It was out of this same ethos in the late 1980s that Patricia Phillips announced the professionalization of public art, a phenomenon that has only grown as the lines between public art, architecture, design, and advertising have progressively eroded. More recently, artists, urban planners, and bureaucrats have grappled with how to center historically marginalized voices in public space, while public space itself has increasingly broached the virtual realm, inciting new questions about what roles art in public spaces can or should perform. In tune with the discursive nature of public art—a field that evades clearcut objectives and definitions— we invite papers that address the broad question: what is public art for? What purposes and audiences can or should public art serve? What forms can or should art in public spaces take? We seek proposals from art historians, artists, designers, architects, curators, fabricators, administrators, etc. whose work aims to interrogate the underlying motivations, goals, and values that inform the creation and reception of art in public space from the 1960s to the present day.

DeWitt A. Godfrey, Colgate University and Rachel Boate, Colgate University, Department of Art & Art History.

Please submit a presentation title and abstract (250 world limit) along with a short CV (2 pages) by August 29, 2024. Presentations should be no more than 20 minutes.

Detailed submission instructions can be found here: https://caa.confex.com/caa/2025/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html.

In affiliation with Public Art Dialogue.

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[2] Reconsidering Religion in Modern and Contemporary Art: Methods and Approaches

From: Linda Stratford, LStratfordasbury.edu
Date: July 28, 2024
Deadline: August 29, 2024

While religious ideas and commitments inform much of modern and contemporary art making, such sensibilities remain stubbornly under-explored within serious scholarly and art-critical writing. Such hermeneutic reticence is, however, provokingly challenged in recent publications such as Jonathan Anderson, The (In)visibilities of Religion in Contemporary Art (Notre Dame, 2025); Erika Doss, Spiritual Moderns (University of Chicago, 2023); and Bernier and Smith, eds., Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord (Routledge, 2023).

What opportunities, strategies, and methodologies are available to cultivate serious writing that responsibly engages with religious sensibility in contemporary art history? How might we, as chroniclers and interpreters of modern and contemporary art, continue to re-think and re-write a more complete, nuanced story?

This CAA 2025 (New York) session seeks papers and presentations that consider the current 'state of the field' of art and religion, proposing or engaging methodological approaches that are rigorous enough to provoke and further current scholarly discourse. Special interest will be given to submissions demonstrating a commitment to cultivating sophisticated and theoretically engaged art writing that uncovers religious and spiritual sensibilities in modern and contemporary art.

Case studies; artist incubators; methodologies; theoretical means of interpretation and other means of diversifying and retooling the field of art writing are welcomed.

To submit your title, 250-word abstract, and CV, go to
https://caa.confex.com/caa/2025/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html and scroll to "Reconsidering Religion"

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[3] Women Art Dealers and Collectors Promoting Non-Western Arts: The Case of Pre-Columbian Art and The Indigenous Arts of North America

From: Caterina Toschi, toschiunistrasi.it
Date: July 24, 2024
Deadline: August 15, 2024

This session pertains to WADDA | Women Art Dealers Digital Archives and focuses on one of WADDA’s goals, which is to bring attention to women gallerists who supported artists who may have been marginalized because of the gender or ethnic identity and who practiced in under-studied regions of the art market.
Our call invites scholars who work on women art dealers and women art collectors to propose papers, which explore the theme of the promotion of non-European arts from two angles. On the one hand, we are interested in proposals that will analyze the promotion and the development of the market for Pre-Columbian Art and the Indigenous Arts of North America, as well as the flourishing of the private collecting of these artifacts. On the other hand, we seek contributions about women gallerists or women collectors who supported or still support modern and contemporary artists who were/are either located outside main art centers or which art practice was/is grounded conceptually as well as aesthetically in these ancient cultures.

The session aims to highlight the marketing strategy, the exhibitions history and the editorial projects which support the advocacy of the women gallerists and well as the art collecting choices and the international networks these women created.

Hybrid Session: online / New York.

Affiliated Society or Committee Name: The International Art Market Studies Association.

To submit a paper, please send an abstract (250 words), title, and a short biography in English to toschiunistrasi.it, with the subject line “WADDA session at CAA” by August 15, 2024.

Authors will be notified of acceptance by September 1st, 2024.

Keywords: Women, Art Trade, Collecting/Patronage Studies.

Geographical Area: Latin America.

Time Period: Twentieth Century.

Chair: Caterina Toschi.

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[4] Heavy Metal: The Artist and the Foundry

From: Susan Fisher, susan.fisherkaishfamilyartproject.com
Date: July 29, 2024
Deadline: August 29, 2024

This panel explores how modern and contemporary artists’ collaborations with foundries shaped their work. Papers could examine such questions as: How did different artists become involved with the casting process to varying degrees, and how did the technical expertise of the craftspeople and technicians at foundries play a role with some artists versus others? How did the relationship forge new possibilities in art? Many foundries are multigenerational, with technical knowledge developed and passed down. How did the working relationships of the artist and foundry change over time? What is the role of the foundry in an artist’s legacy? How, also, were foundries spaces of international exchange? How did the processes and metal materials used in different countries affect how the artist and foundry worked together? We invite papers that contribute new narratives about the key role of foundries in the innovation of ambitious sculpture in the modern and contemporary period.

Keywords:
Medium: Sculpture
Topics: Collaborative Art
Topics: Studio Practice
Time Period: Twentieth Century
Time Period: Twenty-First Century

Chairs: Susan Fisher, Kaish Family Art Project and Jeffrey Spring, Modern Art Foundry

To submit an abstract go to https://caa.confex.com/caa/2025/webprogrampreliminary/Session14402.html.