The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

"The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net"

Talk by Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren at UC Berkeley:



For more on this pressing issue, and more about Professor Elizabeth Warren herself watch:

What To Do Over Winter Break

Ephemeral Art

An Example of an Honors Thesis Presentation

If you are thinking about going to graduate school, it is a good idea to consider doing an Honors Thesis, or any type of senior thesis/independent research project under the guidance of a professor. This will not only give you a feel for what you will be doing in grad school, but it will also give your professor(s) something to evaluate you with when they write your letters of recommendation. Moreover, many grad schools might not take you seriously if you have not done undergraduate research since most of today's applicants have done some type of research project.

You might remember Jane Arney's presentation last Spring at the Third Annual UCR Symposium for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity. Immediately after Jane's excellent presentation, Shawn Higgins presented his own Honors Thesis in a presentation titled "Materialism, Memory, and Self-Expression: Success in Caribbean-American Literature." Shawn graduated from UCR in the Spring of 2009 majoring in English and minoring in Asian Studies. He is now a graduate student at Columbia University.

Here is a recording of Shawn's presentation so that you can see what a great research project and its subsequent presentation looks like:

Shawn Higgins, "Materialism, Memory, and Self-Expression: Success in Caribbean-American Literature," UC Riverside Undergraduate from Shawn Higgins on Vimeo.

Drawn to Satire: John Sloan’s Illustrations for the Novels of Charles Paul de Kock

October 24, 2009 to March 29, 2010
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Art History Association co-founder and current UCR grad student Tia Vasilou was involved in curating this amazing exhibition at The Hungtington. Go if you get a chance!

***

From 1903 to 1905, American artist John Sloan created 53 etchings to illustrate comic novels by French author Charles Paul de Kock. The books—satires of French society in the first half of the 19th century, full of slapstick violence—were a perfect subject for Sloan’s lively etching style of short, expressive lines and loose cross-hatching.


The project also seemed to inspire Sloan to look at 20th-century New Yorkers with the same satirical eye that de Kock trained on Parisians of the previous century. In the years directly following his work on the illustrations, Sloan produced a number of etchings featuring humorous vignettes of life in the streets, parks, tenements, and taverns of the busy metropolis.

A selection of Sloan’s etchings as well as related prints, drawings, and books will be on view in “Drawn to Satire: John Sloan’s Illustrations for the Novels of Charles Paul de Kock.”


The exhibition opens Oct. 24 and continues through March 29, 2010, in the Susan and Stephen Chandler Wing of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. The works on view, part of a major promised gift of John Sloan material from Gary, Brenda, and Harrison Ruttenberg, shed light on an important but little known aspect of the artist’s career. The Ruttenbergs’ Sloan collection is rich in preliminary drawings and early versions of the de Kock illustrations, inviting close study of Sloan’s working methods as he was becoming a prominent member of the band of urban realist artists known as the Ashcan school.

Click here for official site.

FACING Questions: Index, Gesture, Portraiture

Work-in-Progress Presentation by Professor Jeanette Kohl

December 3, 2009, @ 5:10 PM in Arts 333
Part of the Art History Department’s Work-in-Progress Series

This paper will explore the role of the face and facial reproductions in sculpted Renaissance portraiture. While in painting the truthful representation of a sitter’s likeness is a result of a translation from three-dimensional corporeality onto the two-dimensional picture-plane, portrait sculptures address, reflect, and reproduce the human body in a fundamentally different way. In re-thinking the interrelated acts of making and perceiving portrait busts with regard to their role in the production of ‘meaning’, the concepts of “index” (as developed by Charles Sanders Peirce and re-interpreted by Rosalind Krauss, Roland Barthes and others) and “gesture” (Giorgio Agamben, in re-interpreting Max Kommerell) will be introduced to the discussion. The question is if and how these tropes might be of heuristic value in sharpening our understanding of early modern portrait sculpture and its often times ambiguous status as a complex medium of reproductive, iconic and symbolic functions - of representation, re-personification and, sometimes, de-personification.

Oil of Los Angeles

Planning Session for the First Annual Emory Elliott Conference

Planning Committee for the First Annual Emory Elliott Conference
November 17, 2009 @ 2:15 PM
History Department Library

All students, faculty, and staff are invited and encouraged to participate.

The major goal of our project is to put together a large scale colloquium of academic research by year’s end. The scope of the colloquium will be regional, with invitations sent out to all the institutions of higher education in southern California.

It is absolutely critical that we begin now if we are to have a successful venture this year--we already have support from crucial faculty members.

However, now is time for the student body to show its ability and interest in its own education, to take an active role in the university's future, and to foster the development of discourse and critical thought.

Interesting Talk!

New York City maps, history, and urbanism:

A Conversation between Colin Westerbeck and Graham Howe

Saturday, November 7, 2009
2:30 p.m.
UCR/ California Museum of Photography
3824 Main Street
Riverside, CA 92501

Graham Howe, Rock Form, Durras Lake, New South Wales, 2005

A wine & cheese reception will follow the discussion

El Mirador, Guatemala

Inside the Belltower @ UCR

http://www.belltower.ucr.edu/

AHA Grad School Workshop and Graduate and Professional School Fair

This Thursday, October 29, the Art History Association will be holding a Graduate School Workshop in HUB 268 from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM. This event will come after the Career Center's Graduate School and Professional School Workshop which will be held from 10:00 AM to 2:30 PM in the Rivera Library Walkway.

College Night at the Getty Villa

Last night, the Art History Association represented UCR at the Getty Villa's College Night!

44th Annual UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium: Incongruities

44th Annual UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium: Incongruities

Hosted by the UCLA Department of Art History, Incongruities brings together emerging scholars to discuss the roles that incongruity, disjuncture, and dissonance have played in definitions and uses of art throughout history. What role has the concept of incongruity played in the historicizing of art? When does the disjunction between method and object push us to expand the frameworks of art history? The keynote speaker is Dr. Helen Molesworth, head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art and the James R. and Maisie K. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museums. The respondent, Dr. Ali Behdad, professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, has published widely on Orientalism in literature and photography.

Support provided by the UCLA Friends of Art History, the UCLA Art Council, the UCLA Graduate Student Association, the Center for Student Programming, and the Department of Art History.

For more information, please email ah-incongruity@humnet.ucla.edu or visit: http://www.humnet.ucla.edu

http://happenings.ucla.edu/all/event/24554

UCR in Wikipedia

Many of you might remember that on February 21, 2009, UCR was featured on the front page of Wikipedia.

First Meeting this Thursday, October 15

AHA will be having its first meeting of the school year on Thursday, October 15 in HUB 367 from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM.

See you all there!

Welcome Back BBQ

Hello AHA members,

It was great seeing new and returning members yesterday at our BBQ. Thanks for coming!

-Art History Association

Chancellor White Urges YOU to Voice Your Opinion!

On September 24, thousands of students, faculty, and staff across all UC campuses are engaging in a Day of Action to save access to public higher education in California. These actions have been endorsed by the University of California Students Association, which represents over 200,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at the University of California.

This message is to inform you on what will happen at UCR on September 24, and why different groups are getting involved. We are not saying that we expect you to participate. Ultimately, it is *your* decision, after getting informed on the issues, to decide if you want to get involved, and/or how.

WHY THIS ACTION?
The UC system, the world's premier public university, is now at a breaking point. Students are facing three fee hikes in two years, totaling over 40%, including a proposed 15% tuition increase for the middle of this year. Staff who support low-income and middle-income families are facing furloughs and pay cuts as much as 8%. Faculty are concerned about a future UC where thousands of eligible students are turned away, or take longer to finish their degrees. All are deeply concerned about the future of the UC system that remains affordable and accessible to California's residents.

WHAT IS HAPPENING AT UCR ON 9/24?

Teach-in: Speakers, hip-hop theater, and rallies from 10am to 3pm. The teach-in will occur at the corner of Canyon Crest and University Drive.

Strike: UPTE, representing 12,000 University Professional and Technical Employees, will strike and picket on 9/24. At UCR, the picket line is at the campus entrance at Canyon Crest and University.

Student and Faculty Walkout: Over 800 UC faculty, including 88 so far from UCR, have chosen to participate in the day's activities. The UC Student Association will participate in the walkout and is calling on all its members to get involved.

FOR MORE INFORMATION on the issues at stake for public higher education, see

Understanding the Crisis at UC:
http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/?p=230

UCSA resolution:
http://www.ucsa.org/board/resolutions/UC%20Walk%20Out%20Resolution%20Final.pdf

Open Letter to UC Graduate Students:
http://www.gradstudentstoppage.com/

UPTE Strike:
http://www.upte.org/publication-mm/2009-08-31.html

UC Faculty Walkout:
http://ucfacultywalkout.com/

UCR Student Presents an Exhibition at RAM

Fourth year UCR student Melinda Foley presented the exhibition "Posters, Prints, and Propaganda" at the Riverside Art Museum during the exhibition's opening reception this past Thursday evening. Foley, an Art History major and an intern at the Riverside Art Museum, gave tours of the exhibition and explained the various printmaking techniques, methods, and history of printmaking to the numerous attendees. She designed the exhibition and was part of the team that helped put the entire exhibit together. The event coincided with the opening of "About Face," a concurrent exhibition at the Riverside Art Museum and with the city of Riverside's monthly Arts Walk.

Large crowds showed up to the opening reception (where free wine, cheese, and snacks were served!) including numerous members of the Art History Association at UCR.

"Posters, Prints, and Propaganda" will run from August 29 to October 31 and features 70 prints from the museum's permanent collection.

Posters, Prints and Propaganda @ the Riverside Art Museum

Posters, Prints and Propaganda, a collection of 70 prints from RAM’s permanent collection, demonstrates the range and style of techniques possible within printmaking. Simply put, a print is any visual copy or reproduction of an image. As an artistic medium, printmaking ranges widely in variety and complexity. From traditional woodcut block prints to experimental colored lithographs, this exhibition includes ten different printmaking techniques with representative pieces from across the artistic spectrum – from “art for art’s sake” to political propaganda. The intent of Posters, Prints and Propaganda is not only to highlight the many types of printmaking and the differences between them, but also to examine the social impact that this technology has created, namely through the production of mass advertisements (posters) and the spread of a specific political message on a public scale (propaganda). These works also provide insight into the artistic production of the pieces themselves, while encouraging an appreciation for the various types that make them each unique – the crisp lines produced by the linocut blocks, the freedom of design allowed for by lithography, and the richness of color that comes through a silk screen.

Posters, Prints and Propaganda will run from August 29 to October 31. The opening reception will be Thursday, September 3, 2009 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

Getty Video. Conserving Bronze: The Lamp with Erotes from Vani

Bear Facts Expo

The Art History Association will be tabling at this year's Bear Facts Expo on the following days:

July 1
July 10
July 13
July 21
July 24
July 30
August 3

2008-2009 STUDENT AWARDS IN HISTORY OF ART

Congratulations to all the winners!

Awards for Excellence in Art History (undergraduate)

Outstanding student in Art History: Tia Welch
Outstanding student in Art History and Religious Studies: Carlos Rivas
Outstanding student in Art History and Administrative Studies: Casey Lee
Tomas Rivera Award: Jane Arney

The Barry Neil Zarakov Memorial Scholarship (undergraduate)

The Department of the History of Art proudly announces Loreley Bower as the Barry Neil Zarakov Memorial Scholarship recipient for Spring 2008. Currently a junior, Loreley plans to continue her scholastic pursuits to the graduate and doctorate levels.

2009 Catherine Lees Causey Memorial Award (undergraduate or graduate)

Dr. Faya Causey, a UCR Alumna, established the in memory of her mother, Catherine Lees Causey, also an alumna of the Art History Department MA program. Dr. Causey feels that this gift is a worthy way to celebrate her mother's life and passion for Art History. Students are awarded the Award because their work represents innovation, creativity and a courageous approach to the field of Art History and its relation to areas in the humanities. The History of Art Department is pleased to announce dual recipients for 2009: graduate students Julianne Johnson and Megan Blythe.

The Richard C. Carrott Memorial Fund Award (undergraduate or graduate)

The Department of the History of Art proudly announces graduate student Amanda Cook as the recipient of the Richard C. Carrott Memorial Fund Award. The award will greatly enhance Cook's thesis "Kneller Is To Smith As Reynolds Is To MacArdell?: The Relationship Between Portrait Painting And Mezzotint In Eighteenth-Century England." Cook will give a presentation of her findings in Fall 2009.

Outstanding Teaching Assistant for The Department of Art History (graduate)

The History of Art Department is pleased to honor graduate Megan Blythe as our outstanding teaching assistant for 2008-2009.

The Barbara B. Brink Travel Award (graduate)

The Department of the History of Art proudly announces Melinda Brocka as the recipient of the Barbara B. Brink Travel Award. The award will support Brocka's research for her thesis entitled "Thinking Inside The Square: The Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth Project." Mindy will conduct research in London during the summer and give a presentation of her findings in Fall 2009.

Maxwell H. Gluck Fellowships (graduate)

The Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts is the premier arts outreach program at the University of California, Riverside. Each year, the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts provides fellowships to exceptional UC Riverside undergraduate and graduate students to conduct arts-related presentations, performances, and workshops in schools, residential facilities for elderly care and community centers. Participating departments include Art, Creative Writing, Dance, History of Art, Music, and Theatre, as well as the Sweeney Art Gallery and the UCR/California Museum of Photography.

The Department of the History of Art proudly announces graduate student Amanda Cook as the recipient of the Gluck Fellowship for Summer 2009. Academic-year Gluck fellows included: Melinda Brocka, Amanda Cook, Conley Entwistle, Juli Johnson, Kaycee Olsen, Elizabeth Spear and Natasha Thoreson.



http://arthistory.ucr.edu/news_events/student/index.html

We Are Now on Twitter!

Follow us at:
http://twitter.com/UCRArtHistory.

Kodachrome to Be Discontinued

This news is bound make us (or at least some of us who recently converted to digital and were too young to live through the glory of the film era) sad. Kodak will discontinue Kodachrome. We will miss the never-too-fast 64 ISO speed.

Kodachrome, manufactured by Kodak, was the world's first successful color film. Introduced in 1935, by the 1950s and 1960s it was the standard film stock for color still-photography. In recent decades, however, Kodachrome's popularity decreased significantly because of the special processing needed to develop it. Unlike virtually every other slide-film, which uses the E-6 processing method, Kodachrome required a special processing method that only Kodak itself provided and it was therefore much more of a hassle (and expensive) to get it developed. It was necessary for photographers to send their film to Kodak laboratories and wait for the slides to return developed in the mail. It was not possible to get it developed in one's local laboratory. This inconvenience, along with the fact that most photographers no longer use film, led to increasingly low sales which prompted Kodak to retire its most iconic film product.

Some of the twentieth century's most famous photographs were taken using Kodachrome film, such as Steve McCurry's famous portrait of the "Afghan Girl," shown on the left.

"I want to take (the last roll) with me and somehow make every frame count ... just as a way to honor the memory and always be able to look back with fond memories at how it capped and ended my shooting Kodachrome," McCurry said last week from Singapore, where he has an exhibition at the Asian Civilizations Museum.*

Kodachrome developed a strong cult following. Henceforth dozens of websites are devoted to it. On Flickr, for instance, groups such as "Kodachrome" and "Vintage Kodachrome" receive uploads on a daily basis.

We can only hope that Fujifilm doesn't discontinue Velvia in the near future...

*Source: Carolyn Thomson, "Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak's taking Kodachrome away." 22 June 2009. Associated Press, 22 June 2009 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_re_us/us_kodachrome_s_demise>.

New Officers for 2009-2010

Congratulations to all the new officers! Our new officers are:

President, Loreley Bower
Vice-President, Carlos Rivas
VP of Membership Outreach, David Torres
Treasurer, Maria Vega
Recording Secretary, Ramona Bartolome
Membership Secretary, Melinda Foley
Social Director, Brianna Barrett
Public Relations Director, Christine Czechowski
Webmaster, Vincent Pham

Art History Association Nominated for New Student Organization of the Year

The Art History Association was nominated last night at the 2009 Student Organization Awards. The awards ceremony was modelled after televised awards ceremonies (such as the MTV Movie Awards), complete with comical hosts, guest presenters, and musical interludes.

The awards ceremony was held at HUB 302 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

Phi Beta Kappa, Induction Ceremony

121 of the top students at UC Riverside were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa earlier today, which is the oldest and most prestigious honor society in the United States.

Art History was undoubtedly one of the best represented majors at the induction ceremony, with seniors Jane Arney, Casey Lee, Debra Gallet, Sara Seltzer, and third year Carlos Rivas all being inducted into the society.


From left to right: Jane Arney, Casey Lee, Debra Gallett, Sara Seltzer, and Carlos Rivas.

Renowned Local Artist Dies

One of southern California's most renowned artists, Sam Maloof, died Thursday, May 21st, at the age of 93. Maloof was a master woodworker and furniture designer and a leading figure in the Modern Arts movement.

There is currently an exhibition at the Riverside Art Museum on Maloof's work, which is titled "Sam Maloof: Grace and Grain." The exhibition will run until July 2, 2009.

Art History Undergraduate Research Symposium

The Art History Undgergraduate Symposium was a success!

Four undergraduate students presented their research in twenty-minute long presentations. The four presenters were Alison Adams, Kristen Holder, Casey Lee, and Jasmine Regala.



Professor Jason Weems and Professor Stella Nair:

Professor Kris Neville gave an introduction speech...

...as did Tia Welch.





After the four presentations, M.A. candidate Juli Jonson gave a speech on the importance of research and revisiting past topics.




The four presenters were awarded certificates after all the talks were finished.