College Art Association: Blank Canvas

The College Art Association’s 2016 Annual Conference will bring some additional creativity to Washington, DC, next week.

Moe than 4,000 artists, art historians, museum directors and curators, administrators, scholars, and educators will be in the nation’s capital to hear the latest on artistic and design production, art history and critical theory, and museum history and practice, and to participate in discussions about issues in the arts today.

Association:  College Art Association

Conference:  104th Annual CAA Conference

Venue: Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel

 Location: Washington, DC

The 2016 CAA Annual Conference  (opens in a new tab) officially starts on Wednesday. That evening, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera, whose work addresses free speech and immigration, will deliver the meeting’s keynote address, titled “Aest-ethics: Art with Consequences.” Also on the agenda:

Anniversary celebration. Two of the most important government agencies supporting the work of artists and scholars—the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities—are celebrating their 50th birthdays this year. Jane Chu, chair of NEA, and William “Bro” Adams, chair of NEH, will participate in a discussion looking back on a half-century of work.

Pop-up exhibit. Free and open to the public, Friday evening’s ARTexchange meet-up allows artists to share their work and network with other artists, historians, curators, and cultural producers. Each artist is given the space on, above, and beneath a six-foot table to exhibit their  drawings, sculptures, photographs, and other works.

Living art. Sheryl Oring brings her “I Wish to Say” performance to CAA  (opens in a new tab), where attendees are invited to dictate a postcard to one of the presidential candidates. Oring, of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and colleague Dr. Corey Dzenko, of Monmouth University, will type postcards on manual typewriters as part of this ongoing public art project.

If you want to listen in from afar, you have a number of options: Facebook  (opens in a new tab), Twitter  (opens in a new tab) (#CAA2016  (opens in a new tab)), Instagram  (opens in a new tab), and the meeting’s social wall  (opens in a new tab) and social map  (opens in a new tab).

(iStock/Thinkstock)