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AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022
SPRING/SUMMER 2022
Welcome to the Spring/Summer 2022 UP FRONT 28
OPEN-ENDED
issue of AAR Magazine 2 Showcasing Fellows’ studios and projects to the public
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
This issue of AAR Magazine announces the 2022–23
36
Rome Prize winners and Italian Fellows, who will
4 UPON FURTHER REFLECTION
ascend the Janiculum Hill in September for six to
FAR AFIELD AAR forms a new partnership with the New York
eleven months of creativity and community. It also
Checking in with past Fellows and Residents Public Library
highlights recent projects by many of the 2022
Fellows (a feature that will continue in the following
6 37
issue) and shares views from Winter Open Studios,
FROM THE ARCHIVES NEW CONNECTIONS
held in January.
Anna McCann AAR launches on Bloomberg Connects
The issue reports on the Jerome Lectures given by
archaeologist Lynn Meskell and introduces Rhonda
8 38
Collier, the inaugural Tuskeegee University Affiliated
INTRODUCING UNDERSTANDING POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Fellow. We’re also pleased to announce several new
The 2022–2023 Rome Prize winners and A two-day AAR conference links the past to the present
initiatives, including the Academy’s presence on the
Italian Fellows
free Bloomberg Connects app and a recent bequest
40
intention by Kevin Grose to support Fellows who
12 A PLANNED GIFT
identify as LGBTQI+ or whose artistic or scholarly
ROMAN NUMERALS Announcing a recent bequest intention made by
projects in Rome explore LGBTQI+ themes
Kevin Grose
13
Benvenuti al numero Primavera/Estate IN RESIDENCE IN CLOSING
2022 di AAR Magazine Spotlighting spring and summer Residents
41
Questo numero di AAR Magazine annuncia i vincitori FEATURES CONVIVIUM
del Premio di Roma 2022–23 e gli Italian Fellows, che Salone
a settembre saliranno sul Gianicolo per sei-undici 19
mesi di creatività e vita in comunità. Evidenzia anche 2021 JEROME LECTURES TAKE GLOBAL SCOPE 42
i recenti progetti di molti Fellows 2022 (una rubrica Lynn Meskell presents on the ethics of heritage DONORS
che continuerà anche nei prossimi numeri) e riporta and archaeology
le opinioni dei Winter Open Studios, che si sono 48
tenuti a gennaio. 20 WHEN IN ROME
Il numero illustra le Jerome Lectures tenute ENLIGHTENED AND ENGAGED Italian Fellows share their favorite places in Rome
dall’archeologo Lynn Meskell e presenta Rhonda A season of revelations and research for
Collier, prima Tuskeegee University Affiliated Fellow. Rome Prize winners and Italian Fellows
Abbiamo anche il piacere di annunciare varie nuove
iniziative, tra cui la presenza dell’Accademia sulla 27
app gratuita Bloomberg Connects e una recente FINDING THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN ITALY
intenzione di lascito da parte di Kevin Grose per Rhonda Collier, the inaugural Tuskegee University
sostenere i Fellows che si identificano come LGBTQI+ Affiliated Fellow, conducts research in Rome
o i cui progetti artistici o di ricerca a Roma esplorano
temi LGBTQI+.
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT:
Ai primi di febbraio l’Accademia ha ospitato i
una conferenza di due giorni intitolata “Political Follow @robbinsm10 on Instagram for
the president’s perspective on all that’s
Violence: From the Storming of the US Capitol to the
happening at the American Academy
March on Rome” [La violenza politica: dall’assalto in Rome.
al Campidoglio USA alla Marcia su Roma] (vedere .
pagine 38–39). Organizzata dal Mellon Humanities Marla Stone and Peter Benson Miller led a Inside the studio of 2022 Fellows Keith
Professor Marla Stone, la conferenza ha esplorato i Walk and Talk at the Villa Medici. Mitnick and Mireille Roddier.
February 17, 2022 February 20, 2022
modi in cui la violenza viene galvanizzata dall’uso
della propaganda e dalla creazione di un nemico
comune per confermare “fatti alternativi”. Al
momento in cui scrivo questa lettera, la rilevanza di
questa conferenza spazia dai recenti avvenimenti
interni alla crisi in Ucraina.
In early February the Academy hosted a two-day L’Accademia Americana a Roma è impegnata per
conference entitled “Political Violence: From the uno scambio aperto di idee, componente essen-
Storming of the US Capitol to the March on Rome” ziale di una società civile. Condanniamo l’invasi-
(see pages 38–39). Organized by Mellon Humanities one dell’Ucraina e siamo solidali con le persone la
Professor Marla Stone, the conference explored the cui libertà viene messa a rischio, in ogni parte del
ways in which violence is galvanized through the use mondo. Nell’ambito di una comunità internazionale
of propaganda and the creation of a common enemy di artisti e studiosi sosteniamo la pace e l’autodeter-
to confirm “alternate facts.” As of this writing, the minazione, oltre i confini e le frontiere nazionali.
relevance of this conference extends from recent Il lavoro dell’Accademia è ancora più fonda- Nasmal Siedlecki (2016 Italian Fellow) at From left: Beatrice Bulgari, Jacopo
his one-person show at the Italian Cultural Franzan, Lalla Cibriano Franzan, and
domestic events to the crisis in Ukraine. mentale in un periodo in cui la storia viene scritta, Matteo and Margherita Marenghi Vaselli
Institute in New York.
The American Academy in Rome is dedicated to o riscritta, e i fatti precipitano. In linea con il tema October 29, 2021 at a Friends of the Academy dinner at
the open exchange of ideas as an essential part of a di quest’anno, l’“Etica”, i progetti di questo numero the Villa Aurelia.
civil society. We condemn the invasion of Ukraine dimostrano la capacità della comunità di Fellows e November 20, 2021
and stand in solidarity with people around the world Residents [Docenti e residenti] dell’AAR di far pro-
whose liberty is at risk. As part of an international gredire il sapere e la creatività e di approfondire la
community of artists and scholars we support peace nostra comprensione del mondo in cui viviamo.
and self-determination, across boundaries and
national borders.
The work of the Academy is ever more critical in
times when histories are written, or rewritten, and
facts fall away. During this year’s theme of “Ethics,”
the projects in this issue demonstrate the ability
of AAR’s community of Fellows and Residents to
advance scholarship and creativity and deepen our
understanding of the world in which we live.
Photograph by Robyn Lehr Caspare.
The US Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Trustees gather at a dinner hosted by
Biennale featured work by Thomas Kelley Cary Davis and John McGinn.
(2014 Fellow). Other Biennale participants December 15, 2021
included Allan Wexler (2005 Fellow) and
Nicholas de Monchaux (2014 Fellow).
Mark Robbins, President and CEO November 25, 2021
2 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 3
FAR AFIELD:
FRANC PALAIA (1986 Fellow) has Le Rouge et Le Noir, a
published Wall Works: Frescoes,
This past fall MICHAEL HERSCH (2001 Fellow) Photo-Sculpture, and Mixed Media
solo exhibition of new
premiered a new opera, Poppaea, in Basel 1973–2021, a catalogue raisonné work by 2019 Resident
and Vienna that explores the legacy of
Nero’s second wife. LAUREN DONOVAN GINSBERG
of forty-eight years of work that WHITFIELD LOVELL, was on
includes pieces he made in Rome.
(2018 Fellow) contributed an essay giving view at DC Moore Gallery
the story a greater complexity.
in New York. The artist
The Italian Cultural presented three series:
Institute in New York The Reds, Winteriesse
held back-to-back solo (which he began during
exhibitions of work by his time in Rome), and
two Italian Fellows: Spell Suite.
NAMSAL SIEDLECKI (2016)
and GIOVANNA SILVA (2020).
The University of Toronto Press published
Among the recipients of the A two-museum Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s
2022 Archaeological Institute of Food Work by 2018 Fellow DIANA GARVIN. The Two Fellows in
America Awards are 2019 Fellow
retrospective of work by book explores how women negotiated the musical com-
ALLISON L. C. EMMERSON, winner of the JASPER JOHNS (1973–76 politics of Italy’s Fascist regime in their
position were
daily lives and how they fed their families
James R. Wiseman Book Award Trustee) was held at the through agricultural and industrial labor. nominated for
for Life and Death in the Roman Grammys this
Suburb, and AAR Advisor ELIZABETH
Philadelphia Museum year: ANDY AKIHO
B. FENTRESS, honored with the Gold of Art and the Whitney The Institute for Advanced Study (2015) for Seven
Medal Award for Distinguished Museum of American Art. appointed DAVID NIRENBERG (2021 Pillars in the best contemporary
Archaeological Achievement. MARGARET MESERVE (2007 Fellow) explores Resident) as its tenth director and classical composition category;
how Europe’s oldest political institution Leon Levy Professor, effective July 1. and CHRISTOPHER CERRONE (2016) for
came to grips with the disruptive new The Arching Path as best classical
technology of print in her new book, Papal
MARY REID KELLEY compendium.
(2012 Fellow) and Bull: Print, Politics, and Propaganda in
The Cultural Landscape
Patrick Kelley Renaissance Rome, from Johns Hopkins
Foundation awarded the
collaborated with University Press.
inaugural Cornelia Hahn
artists and studio Oberlander International Published by Catapult,
assistants at the KIRSTIN VALDEZ QUADE (2019 Fellow)
Landscape Architecture Indigo: Arm Wrestling,
Fabric Workshop The Shape of Things was Prize to JULIE BARGMANN won the Center for Fiction’s 2021
and Museum (1990 Fellow). The Snake Saving, and Some First Novel Prize for The Five Wounds,
during a two-year a major presentation of biennial prize includes a $100,000 award
residency to pro- and two years of public engagement
Things in Between is the a book she wrote during her time
new and historical work in Rome.
duce an installation activities focused on the laureate’s work first book of nonfiction
Bargmann: © Barrett Doherty.
of video and sculp- by 2006 Fellow CARRIE MAE and landscape architecture more broadly.
ture centered on from novelist and 1988
two works, Blood WEEMS at the Park Avenue
Fellow PADGETT POWELL.
Moon and I’m Armory in New York.
Jackson Pollock.
4 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 5
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Anna McCann
When Anna Marguerite McCann (1966
Fellow) began scuba diving in
the early 1960s with Jacques
Cousteau, the field of underwa-
ter archaeology was dominated
by men. She became the first
American woman underwater
archaeologist. Born in 1933 in
Mamaroneck, New York, McCann
received a BA from Wellesley
College. A Fulbright took her to
the American School of Classical
Studies in Athens in 1954, where ologists, under the aegis of AAR, In addition to archaeological
her passion for the ancient world mapped and explored ancient fieldwork, McCann made her
grew. She then earned an MA at harbors at Populonia and Pyrgi, mark as an art historian. The
NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and also along the Tuscan coast. In Academy published her first
a PhD at Indiana University. In Populonia, they found worked book, The Portraits of Septimius
1964 she won a Rome Prize in logs with a radiocarbon date of as Severus (AD 193–211), in 1968
classical studies and archaeology, early as 840 BCE—evidence of an as part of the Memoirs series.
an opportunity that allowed ancient Etruscan ship. She also helped catalog Roman
her to continue diving and to McCann’s nephew Richard sarcophagi at the Metropolitan
make a lasting mark through Preston recalled a story that Museum of Art. A member of
the excavations of Cosa, a Latin illustrates the risks she and the Archaeological Institute of
colony in Tuscany. other archaeologists took in the America, she received that orga-
Led by AAR Director Frank E. water. On a dive in which Preston nization’s Gold Medal Award in All images can CLOCKWISE
Brown and later continued under took part, he and the lead diver 1998. McCann taught underwater be found in AAR’s FROM UPPER LEFT
Archaeological McCann in
Elizabeth Fentress, the Cosa excava- discovered what they took for a archaeology at Boston University Piombino in the
Archive.
tions deepened our understand- shipwreck full of amphorae. They from 1997 to 2001 and died in 1970s; wearing
ing of ancient technology and were mistaken; it was a pile of 2017 in Sleepy Hollow, New York, OPPOSITE a wetsuit and
trade in mid-Republican Rome. bombs from the Second World at the age of 83. The McCann Undated slide of red cap in Cosa
Anna McCann during her Rome
McCann assembled the findings War. Despite their efforts to pry Archives, generously donated to Prize Fellowship,
with an under-
from twenty-two years of exca- the “amphorae” loose, the bombs, AAR by Douglas Preston, illustrate water camera 1965; underwater
vations in The Roman Port and fortunately, did not explode. “It her remarkable life. See more at (probably 1970s). in the 1960s; her
Fishery of Cosa: A Center of Ancient would have made Anna’s expedi- dhc.aarome.org/McCann. slide of Jacques
Cousteau exam-
Trade (1987). From 1971 to 1974, tion newsworthy,” said Preston, ining amphorae in
she and a team of diving archae- “but for the wrong reasons.” Cosa, 1960s.
6 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 7
INTRODUCING: HISTORIC PRESERVATION LITERATURE RENAISSANCE AND
AND CONSERVATION EARLY MODERN STUDIES
John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize,
Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize a gift of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Paul Mellon Rome Prize
Preeti Chopra Gina Apostol Elizabeth G. Elmi
Professor, Department of Art History, Teacher, Department of English, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department
University of Wisconsin, Madison Ethical Culture Fieldston School of Musicology, University of North Carolina
Historic Preservation, British Monuments, The Treatment of Paz at Chapel Hill
The 2022–2023 and the Legacy of Ancient Rome in Inscribing the Self in Occupied Southern
Modern India Rome Prize in Literature Italy: Culture, Politics, and Identity in Lyric
Jamel Brinkley Song Practices of the Aragonese-Ruled
Rome Prize winners Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize
Monica Rhodes
Assistant Professor, Fiction,
Program in Creative Writing, Iowa Writers’
Kingdom of Naples
and Italian Fellows Loeb Fellow, Graduate School of Design, Workshop, University of Iowa Marian and Andrew Heiskell Rome Prize
Harvard University Another Life: A Novel Stephanie Leitzel
Preservation and Public Engagement PhD Candidate, Department of History,
Rome Prize in Literature Harvard University
Meet the American Academy in Rome’s newest group of scholars, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Tung-Hui Hu Economies of Color: Italian Capitalists,
artists, writers, and composers, representing some of the most Associate Professor, Department of Lamia Balafrej’s research explores Dye Commerce, and the Making of Global
Gilmore D. Clark and Michael I. Rapuano/ English, University of Michigan the use of slaves and freedmen in the Economy (1450–1650)
talented minds in the United States and Italy.
Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize Punishment, an Index production of art and architecture in
Katherine Jenkins and Parker Sutton the medieval Mediterranean, the visual National Endowment for the Humanities
Principals, Present Practice, Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, representation of slaves, and the relation Rome Prize
Columbus, Ohio; Assistant Professors a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust between slavery and technology in S. Elizabeth Penry
ANCIENT STUDIES ARCHITECTURE of Landscape Architecture, Knowlton Robyn Schiff courtly and rural contexts. Associate Professor, Department of
School, Ohio State University Professor, Department of English, History, Fordham University
Andrew Heiskell Rome Prize Arnold W. Brunner/ Roman Aesthetics of Care Emory University MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES The Italian Renaissance in Diaspora:
Sarah Beckmann Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize Information Desk: An Epic Jesuit Education and Indigenous
Assistant Professor, Department Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample Garden Club of America/ Lily Auchincloss Rome Prize Modernities
of Classics, University of California, Principals and Founders, Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize MEDIEVAL STUDIES Saskia K. Verlaan
Los Angeles MOS Architects, New York Alexa Vaughn, ASLA PhD Candidate, Department of Art VISUAL ARTS
The Villa in Late Antiquity: Roman Ideals Corviale: One-Kilometer-Long Landscape Designer and Accessibility Donald and Maria Cox/ History, Graduate Center, City University
and Local Identities Social Housing Specialist, Los Angeles Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/ of New York Rome Prize in Visual Arts
Sorda Nella Città Eterna | Deaf in the National Endowment for the Between Drawing and Script: Tony Cokes
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Rome Prize Rome Prize in Architecture Eternal City: Deaf and Disabled Humanities Rome Prize Asemic Writing by Feminist Artists in Professor, Department of Modern Culture
Emily L. Hurt Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers Storytelling and Creative Investigations Lamia Balafrej Italy 1968–1980 and Media, Brown University
PhD Candidate, Department of History, Founding Principals, Dream in the Aesthetic Intersections of Associate Professor, Department The Daily Practice of Representation:
Yale University The Combine, Minneapolis; Assistant Accessibility and Historic Preservation of Art History, University of California, Millicent Mercer Johnsen/ The Artist and the Studio
Palimpsest Cities of the Roman Empire Professor and Assistant Professor of in Roman Landscapes Los Angeles National Endowment for the Humanities
the Practice, College of Architecture, Corporeal Instruments: Art, Technology, Rome Prize Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Art, and Planning, Cornell University Katherine Jenkins and Parker Sutton’s and Slavery in the Medieval Mediterranean Konstantina Zanou Todd Gray
Evan Jewell Wandering Stars, Vanishing Points: Pollinator Column (2021) meets the habi- Assistant Professor, Department of Italian, Artist, Los Angeles and Akwidaa, Ghana
Assistant Professor, Department of Overwriting Spatial Imaginaries of Rome tat needs of native bees and other insects Samuel H. Kress Foundation Rome Prize Columbia University the hidden order of the whole
History, Rutgers University, Camden whose ecologies have been threatened by Denva E. Gallant Soldiers of Fortune: Two Brothers and
Youth and Power: Acting Your Age in the DESIGN mono-species agriculture in the Midwest. Assistant Professor, Department the Adventures of Antiquities from Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize
Roman Empire (149 BCE–68 CE) of Art History, University of Delaware the Ottoman Mediterranean to Gilded Ester Partegàs
Rome Prize in Design Illustrating the Vitae Patrum: Age New York Artist, New York
Arthur Ross Rome Prize John Davis The Rise of the Eremitic Ideal in Breathing Structures
Andrew R. Lund Pianist, Brooklyn Fourteenth-Century Italy MUSICAL COMPOSITION
PhD Candidate, Department of Classics, Keys to the Highway: Nineteenth- Abigail Cohen Rome Prize
University of Cincinnati Century African American Pianists on Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Luciano Berio Rome Prize Elle Perez
Seneca Comicus: Comic Enrichment the Road to Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, Carolyn J. Quijano Miya Masaoka Assistant Professor, Department
and the Reception of the seruus callidus and Rock ‘n’ Roll PhD Candidate, Department of History, Associate Professor and Director, of Art, Film, and Visual Studies,
in Senecan Tragedy Columbia University Sound Art, School of the Arts, Harvard University
Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Foreign Magistracies and Accountability Columbia University Surrender
Samuel H. Kress Foundation/ Rome Prize in the Medieval Italian Communes, The Horizon Leans Forward for the
Emeline Hill Richardson Rome Prize Jasmine Hearn and Athena Kokoronis c. 1200–1400 International Contemporary Ensemble Philip Guston Rome Prize
Lillian Clare Sellati Designers, Brooklyn Ioana M. Uricaru
PhD Candidate, Department of the An introduction TOWARDS A Elliott Carter Rome Prize Associate Professor, Department of Film
History of Art, Yale University REPERTORY CLOSET Christopher Stark and Media Culture, Middlebury College
When Is Herakles Not Himself? Associate Professor, Department of Music, URSA MAJOR
Intentional Iconographic Slippage in Washington University in St. Louis
Greater Central Asia, 330 BCE to 230 CE Piano Trio
8 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 9
Philip Guston Rome Prize Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT Felecia Davis Medieval Studies Nicholas Terpstra, 2019 Affiliated Fellow
Bradford M. Young Italian Fellow in Visual Arts Principal, Felecia Davis Studio; and Professor, Department of History,
Owner and Cinematographer, Alice Visentin Associate Professor of Architecture, William Connell (Jury Chair) University of Toronto
Bradford Young DP, Baltimore Visual Artist, Turin College of Arts and Architecture, Professor of History and
Untitled GYMR Malefate Pennsylvania State University La Motta Endowed Chair in Italian Studies, Visual Arts
Department of History,
TERRA FOUNDATION FELLOW 2022 ROME PRIZE JURORS Gary Hilderbrand, 1995 Fellow, 2018 Resident Seton Hall University Kate Fowle (Jury Chair)
Principal, Reed-Hilderbrand, Cambridge, Director, MoMA PS1
Anna E. Arabindan-Kesson Ancient Studies Massachusetts; and Peter Louis Hornbeck Susan Boynton, 1999 Fellow
Assistant Professor, Departments of Professor in Practice of Landscape Professor of Music (Historical E. V. Day, 2017 Fellow
African American Studies and Art and Emily Greenwood (Jury Chair) Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Musicology), Department of Music, Artist, New York
Archaeology, Princeton University Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Harvard University Columbia University
A Dream of Italy: Black Geographies and Classics and the University Center for Allen Frame, 2018 Fellow
the Grand Tour Human Values, Princeton University Walter J. Hood, 1997 Fellow, 2014 Resident Joshua O’Driscoll Artist and Adjunct Professor,
Creative Director, Hood Design Studio, Assistant Curator of Medieval and Photography MFA, Pratt Institute
ITALIAN FELLOWS Seth Bernard, 2011 Fellow Berkeley; and Professor of Landscape Renaissance Manuscripts, Morgan Library
Associate Professor, Department of Architecture & Environmental Planning and Museum Rashid Johnson
Franco Zeffirelli Italian Fellow Classics, University of Toronto and Urban Design, University of Artist, New York
Edward Loss California, Berkeley Joëlle Rollo-Koster
Jean-François Malle Fellow, I Tatti, Jane D. Chaplin Professor of Medieval History, Department Stephanie Leitzel’s dissertation explores Carrie Mae Weems, 2006 Fellow
Harvard University Center for Italian James I. Armstrong Professor of Classics, Calvin Tsao, 2010 Resident of History, University of Rhode Island how trade in textile dyes contributed to Artist and University Artist in Residence,
Renaissance Studies Eve Adler Department of Classics, Principal, Tsao & McKown Architects, the global economy. The main source Syracuse University
The Pope as a Spymaster: Papacy, Middlebury College New York Teofilo F. Ruiz, 2020 Resident of luxury red dye in sixteenth-century
Espionage, and Institutions of Information Distinguished Research Professor Europe was the cochineal insect, which Terra Foundation Fellowship
Gathering of Late Medieval Italy (Late Allison L. C. Emmerson, 2019 Fellow Historic Preservation and Conservation (emeritus), Department of History, live on cacti in the Americas. (Pictured:
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries) Associate Professor, Department of University of California, Los Angeles colored etching by J. Pass, ca. 1801, Winners of this award are selected
Classical Studies, Tulane University Thompson M. Mayes, 2014 Fellow (Jury Chair) after J. Ihle.) through a preliminary jury for the Terra
Marcello Lotti Italian Fellow in Music Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, Modern Italian Studies Foundation Fellowship (listed below)
Marco Momi Jinyu Liu National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Rome Prize jury for modern
Music Composer, Perugia Professor, Department of Classical Washington, DC Silvana Patriarca (Jury Chair) Vittorio Montalti, 2014 Italian Fellow Italian studies.
Community Concerto Studies, DePauw University Professor of History, Department of Professor of Composition,
Amy Freitag History, Fordham University Potenza Conservatory John Davis (Jury Chair)
Enel Foundation Italian Fellow in Design Executive Director, J. M. Kaplan Fund, President, Historic Deerfield,
Architecture, Urban Design, and New York Sean S. Anderson, 2005 Fellow Augusta Read Thomas Deerfield, Massachusetts
Landscape Architecture Michael Bierut, 2016 Resident (Jury Chair) Director, Undergraduate BArch Program University Professor of Composition,
Alessandro Mulazzani Partner, Pentagram, New York Stella Nair, 2017 Fellow and Associate Professor, Department of Department of Music, University Diana Greenwold
Landscape Architect, Venice Associate Professor, Indigenous Arts of Architecture, Cornell University of Chicago Lunder Curator of American Art, Freer
The Sea of Rome: A Quest for a Coastal J. Yolande Daniels, 2004 Fellow the Americas, Department of Art History, Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution
Sustainable Landscape Principal, studioSUMO; and Associate University of California, Los Angeles Leslie Cozzi, 2018 Fellow Barbara White
Professor, Architecture, Massachusetts Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Professor, Department of Music, Margaretta Lovell
Institute of Technology Cristina Puglisi Photographs, Baltimore Museum of Art Princeton University Jay D. McEvoy Jr. Professor of American
Conservator and Senior Project Manager, Art and Architecture, Department of Art
Integrated Conservation Resources and Shelleen Greene Renaissance and Early Modern Studies History, University of California, Berkeley
Integrated Conservation Contracting Associate Professor of Cinema and Media
(IRC-ICC), New York Studies, Department of Film, Television, Estelle Lingo (Jury Chair)
and Digital Media, University of California, Professor of Art History and Floyd and
Literature Los Angeles Delores Jones Endowed Chair in the Arts,
School of Art, Art History, and Design,
Bruce Smith, 2016 Resident (Jury Chair) Gaoheng Zhang University of Washington, Seattle
Professor, Department of English, Associate Professor, Department of
Syracuse University French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Susanna Berger
University of British Columbia Associate Professor of Art History
Alexandra Kleeman, 2021 Fellow and Philosophy, University of
Assistant Professor of Writing, Musical Composition Southern California
Creative Writing Program, New School
Andrew Norman, 2007 Fellow (Jury Chair) Margaret Meserve, 2007 Fellow
Yiyun Li Professor of Composition, Juilliard School Glynn Family Honors Associate Professor,
Professor of Creative Writing, Lewis Center Department of History, University of
for the Arts, Princeton University Chen Yi Notre Dame
Lorena Searcy Cravens/Millsap/Missouri
Christopher Stark will compose a twenty-minute piano trio based on sustained attention Mary Jo Salter Distinguished Professor of Composition, Jessie Ann Owens
and repeated daily visits to unfamiliar sites, uncovering the nuance, serendipity, and Krieger-Eisenhower Professor, Writing Conservatory, University of Missouri, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Music,
ephemera of these places. Seminars, Johns Hopkins University Kansas City University of California, Davis
10 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 11
ROMAN NUMERALS: IN RESIDENCE:
Each year, distinguished artists and Guillermo Kuitca,
Untitled, 2020,
Inside the deliberation and selection process The 2022 Rome Prize winners at a glance
scholars from around the world are oil on canvas,
13¾ × 17¾ in.
invited to the Academy as Residents.
909
applications
3.63%
acceptance rate
During their stay, Residents live and work as part of
the community, serving informally as a resource for
the Fellows and participating in special Academy-
wide events—concerts, exhibitions, lecture, read-
ings, and instructional walks in Rome. Meet our
Residents for this spring and summer.
4,584
pages of text reviewed by humanities jurors
46%
persons of color
2,831
images viewed by visual arts jurors
24%
born outside the United States
372
recordings and scores reviewed by music jurors
43
average age of the winners
Artwork © Guillermo Kuitca, photograph by Jon Etter and licensed by Hauser & Wirth.
4,640
portfolio pages reviewed by jurors in architecture,
design, landscape architecture, and historic
preservation and conservation
XII AAR Magazine
12 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 13
GUILLERMO KUITCA LAURA KURGAN ties,” rooted in urban sociology of
Mary Miss Resident in Visual Art, William A. Bernoudy Architect racial and class conflicts. Other
March 28–May 20, 2022 in Residence, May 23–July 18, 2022 work looks at new techniques
for mapping the destruction of
Born in Buenos Aires, Guillermo Many of us think about maps cultural heritage in Aleppo with
Kuitca creates artworks informed in simple terms—they provide satellite and social-media data;
by cartography, theater, and location and direction. For Laura charting the flows of internal
architecture and embodying Kurgan, professor of architec- displacement during the civil
ideas of memory, travel, and ture at Columbia University’s conflict in Colombia using geo-
migration—a natural fit for Graduate School of Architecture, graphic data from the National
a Residency in Rome. Since Planning, and Preservation and Victims Registry; and related
representing Argentina in the director of its Center for Spatial work on Million Dollar Blocks, an
2007 Venice Biennale, Kuitca has Research, maps bring up larger analysis of the demography and
engaged in a unique “cubistoid” issues. Her research and cre- geography of incarceration in
style, merging Cubist tendencies ative work explore political and New York State that reveals the
with his own abstract vocabu- ethical issues at the intersection relation between state invest-
lary. Newer work weaves fresh of design, mapping, and data ment in prisons and disinvest-
elements of figuration into his visualization. ment in urban infrastructure.
preferred themes of domestic Kurgan’s recent projects
and communal spaces. include the urban history of Prison expenditures
BROOKE GLADSTONE per capita in Brooklyn’s
“My relationship with AAR contemporary algorithms,
Rea S. Hederman Critic in Residence, Community District 16.
and with Rome is a book yet to investigating the genealogy of
April 11–May 9, 2022
be written,” Kuitca says, “and I two core concepts in network
look forward to joining with great theory, “homophily” and “weak
In the more than twenty years novel illustrated by Josh Neufeld,
joy the community of wonderful
that Brooke Gladstone has hosted as well as The Trouble with Reality:
artists and intellectuals who have
and edited WNYC’s On the Media, A Rumination on Moral Panic in
passed through the academy.
the program has often shape- Our Time (2017).
Guillermo Kuitca: Artwork © Guillermo Kuitca, photograph provided by the artist; Brooke Gladstone: Photograph © Matthew Septimus.
Although I have been to Rome
shifted, becoming less about
many times, there are few oppor-
media and more about the stories
tunities to approach a city from
we tell ourselves. Gladstone is
an institution so rich and so inte-
building a new podcast pre-
grated into its past and present
cisely around these stories and
history. It is my intention to keep
the questions they raise, about
that look as fresh as possible.”
conflicting histories, ethics, and
religions, about the shared expe-
rience of our senses and percep-
tions, and about the passage of
time. She sees Rome—which has
Image from Columbia University’s Center for Spatial Research website.
much to say about all of that—as
the ideal place to formulate the
show and record several of its
segments. A return to Pompeii
and Herculaneum, and the
recently discovered Neanderthal
LEFT ABOVE
site at Guattari Cave in San Felice
Guillermo Kuitca, Brooke Gladstone
Circeo, is on the agenda. Autoretrato, 2022, and the cover
Gladstone has written The oil on wood, of her first book
Influencing Machine (2011), a 15¾ × 12¼ in. (2011).
media manifesto that took the
form of a nonfiction graphic
14 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 15
CLAIRE LYONS century BCE and covering all
Esther Van Deman Scholar media. “With time to revisit the
in Residence, April 26–June 17, 2022 iconic Hellenistic sculpture of a
Lion Attacking a Horse in the exe-
A specialist in pre-Roman Italy, dra of the Capitoline Museums,”
Etruria, and Magna Graecia, Lyons said, “I expect to make
Claire Lyons is curator in the good progress on an article that
LYLE ASHTON HARRIS Department of Antiquities at considers the iconography of
Deenie Yudell Resident in the the J. Paul Getty Museum, where feline-equine combat.”
Visual Arts, May 23–June 17, 2022 she has worked since 1985. Her
curatorial projects center on the
A professor of art and art edu- afterlife of antiquity in the visual
cation at New York University, arts and culture, the history of
Lyle Ashton Harris (2001 Fellow) collecting, and antiquities in
has cultivated a diverse artistic social contexts, both ancient NATASHA TRETHEWEY
practice ranging from photogra- and modern. In addition to her William B. Hart Poet in Residence,
phy and collage to installation curatorial work, she has coedited May 23–July 18, 2022
and performance art. His work, volumes on Greek colonialism BELOW RIGHT
collected by museums around and on gender and sexuality in Unknown Natasha Though Natasha Trethewey has
the world, explores intersections Greek and Roman art. Etruscan maker, Trethewey. been Board of Trustees Professor
Appliqué depict-
between the personal and the At AAR she will complete a ing the Sun God
of English at Northwestern
political, examining the impact catalogue of the Getty’s collec- Usil, 500–475 University since 2017, her roots
of ethnicity, gender, and desire tion of Etruscan and Italic art, BCE, bronze, are in the American South. Her
on the contemporary social and spanning the ninth to the first 8¹/8 × 6½ in. work explores personal history
cultural dynamic. while chronicling the lives of
His work was featured in nineteenth- and twentieth-
the AAR exhibitions Nero su century Black Americans.
Bianco (2015) and The Academic Trethewey is the author of
Body (2019). The Institute for five collections of poetry, includ-
Contemporary Art in Miami ing Native Guard (2006), which
staged Lyle Ashton Harris: won a Pulitzer Prize, and
Ektachrome Archive in 2020–21. more recently Monument (2018).
Etruscan appliqué photograph: J. Paul Getty Museum; Natasha Trethewey: photograph by Nancy Crampton.
Harris has served on AAR’s “Line by brilliant line,” wrote
Board of Trustees since 2014. A Adrienne Samuels Gibbs about
monograph on Blow Up, a series the latter work, the poet “details
of site-specific, mixed-media uncomfortable truths about
collage installations undertaken growing up biracial and black
in 2001 while he was a Rome Prize Intercession #1: Artwork © Lyle Ashton Harris; Portrait: by Lloyd Foster.
in Mississippi, the insidious
Fellow, was published in 2009. nature of racism, the forgotten
history of black laborers and the
murder of her mother.”
Trethewey served two terms
as poet laureate of the United
States (2012–14) and as state poet
laureate of Mississippi (2012–16).
TOP LEFT She has won NEA, Guggenheim,
Lyle Ashton Harris, Lyle Ashton Rockefeller, and Radcliffe fellow-
Intercession #1, Harris. ships, among many others.
2020, mixed-
media assemblage,
49¾ × 40½ in.
16 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 172021 Jerome Lectures Egyptian laborers in direct contact with the monu-
ments of Nubia might have suggested that cutting
Take Global Scope was a native and indigenous building method—
but the real logic here was driven by American
economics,” Meskell argued.
The lecture addressed the way in which Nubia
became a theater for the Cold War and how UNESCO
MABEL O. WILSON Debates around the politics and ethics of conser-
used the mission to advance its own agenda.
vation and archaeology have only increased in
William A. Bernoudy Architect Ultimately, “what crystalized in UNESCO’s midcen-
prominence, from the return of the Benin bronzes
in Residence, May 23–July 18, 2022 tury mission in Egypt was a material attempt to
to the ongoing dispute between Britain and Greece
overcome the fissures that were already appearing
over the “Elgin Marbles.” The forty-eighth Thomas
The National Building Museum’s in the postwar dream of a global peace” through
Spencer Jerome Lecture Series, entitled “The Ethics
2021 Vincent Scully Prize is only “one theatrical spectacle.”
of Heritage and Archaeology in Global Perspective”
the latest in a series of accolades
and delivered late last year by archaeologist
for Mabel O. Wilson, whose dis- The Jerome lectures are named after Thomas Spencer
and anthropologist Lynn Meskell, addressed these
tinguished career has examined Jerome (1864–1914), an American lawyer and lover of
timely issues.
how race and Blackness inter- Roman history who lived on Capri from 1899 until his
Employing case studies from the Middle East,
sect with the built environment. death. In his will, Jerome endowed a series of lectures to
India, and Europe, Meskell—a 2015 Resident and a
She recently explored these be jointly administered by the University of Michigan
professor at the University of Pennsylvania—demon-
concerns in real space in an and the American Academy in Rome.
strated how the discovery and salvage of sites
exhibition she cocurated at the
worldwide has led to what she termed “archaeolog-
Museum of Modern Art called
ical adventurism.” In one lecture, Meskell discussed
Reconstructions: Architecture and
UNESCO’s Nubian Campaign, an effort from 1960
Blackness in America.
to 1980 to safeguard cultural monuments in the
Wilson is the Nancy and
Upper Nile Valley that would otherwise be flooded
George Rupp Professor of
by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. To this
Architecture, Planning, and
day UNESCO presents the mission, which famously
Preservation at Columbia
involved moving the temple complexes of Abu
University, where she is also
Simbel and Philae to higher ground, as a spectacular
a professor in the African
success—a narrative Meskell sought to complicate.
American and African Diaspora
To move Abu Simbel, nations submitted various
Studies Department and direc-
ideas: Italy’s proposal involved cutting away the
tor of the Institute for Research
Mabel O. Wilson. rock above Abu Simbel, enclosing the entire mass
in African-American Studies.
in concrete, and using hydraulic jacks to raise the
Through her collaborative studio
temple in increments of one-sixteenth of an inch,
practice Studio&, Wilson artic-
filling the space below with more concrete until
ulates how Blackness creates
eventually the temple would be nearly two hundred
spaces of imagination, refusal,
feet higher. The British proposal involved letting the
and desire.
temple be flooded while creating underwater tubes
Wilson spoke at the Acade-
to allow people to appreciate the sunken monu-
my’s conference The City: Traces
ment—“rather impractical,” Meskell drily noted.
of Urban Memories in May 2021.
In the end, it was decided to cut the temple into
blocks that could be reassembled in a new location.
Meskell said the method had a second, more cynical
Photograph: Nenadovic/UNESCO.
purpose. The labor-intensive technique allowed the
Photograph by Dario Calmese.
US to pay their pledge in Egyptian pounds instead of
US dollars, unlike other proposed schemes. The US
held this currency in Egypt already (as payment for
food aid shipments), allowing the Americans to get Dismantling of the statues of the Great
around the hard currency problem. “This image of Temple, Abu Simbel, Egypt, 1966.
18 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 19Enlightened
and Engaged
20 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 21For Rome Prize winners and Italian Fellows,
it’s been a season of revelations and research.
The following pages highlight the innovative and
expansive projects our Rome Prize winners and
Italian Fellows have been pursuing since September.
In addition, we offer glimpses into the studios and
studies that are the sites of ongoing dialogue and
collaboration taking place at the Academy every
day. Their work strongly impacts how we see our-
selves in the past, present, and future.
John Izzo’s doctoral research into Tironian Notes
explores connections between Roman slavery and
Latin literature by analyzing the life, writings, and
reception of Marcus Tullius Tiro. By applying diverse
literary and historical approaches to Cicero’s letters,
fragments of Tiro’s own writings, and the reception
of Tiro by later authors, Izzo reassesses Tiro’s activ-
ities as a secretary to Cicero and as an intellectual
in his own right. In doing so, he uncovers important
roles of slaves and freedmen in the management of
aristocratic households and the production of classi-
cal literature.
Grace Funsten’s dissertation En versus facio con-
siders the transformation of Augustan elegy by
PAGE 20
examining poetic grave markers from imperial
John Izzo at the
Rome, Maximianus’s late antique Elegies, and six- Villa Aurelia.
teenth-century French author Louise Labé’s Elegies. Andrew Mitchell.
Through close readings and broader interpreta- PAGE 21
tions, Funsten demonstrates how each author uses Grace Funsten
the framework of Augustan elegy, which primarily in the Arthur Ross
narrates illicit love affairs, to consider larger issues. Reading Room.
Although the form was created in response to the Daniele Molajoli.
situation of elite men under Rome’s first emperor, TOP
her dissertation shows how its tropes and language Daniel Joseph
could be adapted across cultures, time, and gender. Martinez in
Italian Fellow Beatrice Falcucci made substantial his studio.
Daniele Molajoli.
progress on Exhibiting the Empire, which examines
how Piedmontese colonial collections are repre- BOTTOM LEFT
sentative of the Italian colonial museum panorama A procession in
at large. Her project analyzes artifacts from the Harrar (Ethiopia)
Italian colonies in Africa (Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, immortalized
by a Consolata
Ethiopia) held by military museums, ethnographic missionary
museums, missionary museums, and museums of from Turin.
the Risorgimento to reconstruct the size, history, Associazione Missione
Consolata.
and ideology of such collections in Piemonte, home
to the House of Savoy, rulers of the kingdom of Italy BOTTOM RIGHT
after the unification. In February, Falcucci and Terra Elena Past in
Foundation Affiliated Fellow Gloria Bell presented the AAR Library
Daniele Molajoli.
22 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 23a workshop on “Re-thinking and Re-positioning
Missionary Collections and Museums.”
Artist Daniel Joseph Martinez’s Forum Romanum of
Dissent or To See The World Without Time defines the
twenty-first-century concept of identity by examin-
ing science fiction and the 1970s Italian autonomous
TOP LEFT movement in such a way to reimagine the political
Eugenio Refini at future. In an era marked by the major transition
work in his study. away from existing party structures towards mass
Daniele Molajoli.
antiauthoritarianism, the beginnings of Autonomic
TOP RIGHT bear some resemblance to current dissent move-
Guido Reni, ments emerging in reaction to similarly fascist, des-
Bacchus and perate, and unsettling times. Martinez is conducting
Ariadne,
experiments that take the geopolitical structure of
ca. 1619–20,
oil on canvas, the landscape into account—most notably, how the
38 × 34 in. body functions in dialectical space.
Los Angeles County
Museum of Art.
#FilmIsAlive is Elena Past’s book-length study
rooted in environmental humanities that unearths
BOTTOM LEFT dynamic, uncharted links between the industrial
Randall Todd production of analog filmstock and Italian cinematic
Pippenger at the
tradition. FILM Ferrania is an iconic, century-old
Thrasher-Ward
Memorial at celluloid production factory whose filmstock was
the Academy. beloved by De Sica, Fellini, Pasolini, and Rossellini.
Daniele Molajoli.
In the digital age, traces of its rich history are
BOTTOM RIGHT
rapidly disappearing. Past’s project safeguards
A school in the
an understudied part of Italy’s cinematic patrimony
Bedouin Camp of while shedding new light on the material history
Wadi Abu Hindi of cinema.
in the Occupied Eugenio Refini’s book Ariadne’s Echo studies the
Palestinian
Territory was
reception of the classical archetype of Ariadne’s
built by villagers lament across poetry and music from its early mod-
under the tech- ern revival around 1600 to the decades around 1900,
nical direction when the rediscovery of early music intersected con-
of ARCò, from
locally sourced
current work on the classical tradition. Through its
materials. transhistorical approach, his project demonstrates
Andrea & Magda
Photographers.
that the fluid performativity of the lament enabled
reflection on the mechanisms of reception, while
also challenging poetical and musical structures as
well as normative narratives about vocal expression.
The difficulties military families face on the
home front, the struggles of veterans to reinte-
grate into society, the fate of military widows and
orphans, and the emergence of family traditions
of military service were vital issues in twelfth- and
thirteenth-century Europe. Randall Todd Pippenger’s
book Left Behind engages religious violence and per-
secution within societies, their influence on social
values and family practices, and the development of
the mentalités and institutions which sustain them.
It also recovers the true costs of holy war: neglected
24 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 25experiences of veterans and casualties, their per-
sonal struggles and triumphs, and the wives and
Finding the
children they left behind.
Italian Fellow Alessio Battistella’s research into The
Black Experience
Sustainable Lightness of the Limit develops within
the theoretical framework of “appropriate technol-
in Italy
ogies,” whose implementation and maintenance Rhonda Collier, the Inaugural
respond effectively to their specific cultural, social, Tuskegee University Affiliated Fellow,
economic, and technological contexts. A member
Conducts Research from AAR
of the Milan-based architectural cooperative ARCò,
Battistella used his time at the Academy to frame a
monographic study of his applied work, considering
the ethical implications of a resilient, ecological, and
fundamentally local architecture. Rhonda Collier came to the Academy in December
Greco-Roman culture in the US has enjoyed 2021 as the inaugural Tuskegee University Affiliated
the privilege of being considered both authori- Fellow. An English professor and director of the
tatively ancient and curiously timeless. Sasha-Mae Tuskegee University Global Office, her roots in
Eccleston’s Epic Events is a classical reception book Tuskegee go deep. Both her parents graduated from
project that explains how this paradox facilitates Tuskegee University (TU), and her father, a retired
various responses to September 11’s significance as Air Force officer, was trained by Tuskegee Airmen.
an epoch-making event. Delving into a heteroge- Collier has built a career exploring Black history
nous archive of literary texts, films, speeches, and and freedom narratives in a global context. She has
memorials from the last twenty years that engage lived and worked in Brazil, Morocco, South Africa,
the Greco-Roman classics, Epic Events disaggregates Cuba, and France (to name only a few). While at
temporalities obfuscated by the post-9/11 discourse AAR, she developed the syllabus for a course she
of national unity. will teach at TU called “The Black Experience in Rhonda Collier at
Mary Jane Dempsey’s dissertation Remember to Forget Italy,” which will culminate in a two-week trip to the location where
examines how women’s transnational narratives Rome. The course will have a lasting impact on Ralph Ellison is
of emigration reveal tensions between what is young TU scholars. believed to have
had his studio.
remembered and what is forgotten, and how they Collier also undertook her own research in Rome, Photograph by Eric N. Mack.
highlight contradictions in defining a national iden- asking the question: “How do you achieve freedom
tity. By focusing on personal accounts of twentieth- through literature and art, and how does that work
century mobility—found in diaries, autobiographies, for Black people in Italy?” She interviewed African
and novels written by women migrating to and immigrants, studied works by the Italian writer Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907), who worked and
from Italy—she argues that remnants of fascism, Igiaba Scego, and visited Black Madonna paintings, lived in Rome. It seemed like fate when Lewis was
colonialism, and regionalism from Italy’s past of which there are a few in Italy. In the last, she honored with a US Postal Service stamp in January,
continue to affect perceptions of belonging in the saw a parallel to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1957 just as they were retracing her steps. (After
Italian context. Fellow): Like Ellison’s narrator, the Black figures returning, Collier made sure to send some of the
are “artistically visible but unseen,” she said. Collier stamps to Italy.)
TOP also visited Sicily, where the Tuskegee Airmen were Back in Alabama, Collier misses the opportu-
Alessio Battistella. stationed during the Second World War. nity for reflection she experienced at the Academy.
Gian Luca Bianco.
In eight weeks, Collier made meaningful “Sometimes the hustle and bustle of American life
MIDDLE
connections—often sparked by conversations cheats you of the opportunity to get to the details
Detroit Publishing Company, at meals—with members of the AAR community, that you need to accomplish greater things.”
Mulberry Street, New York City, including Trustee Fred Wilson, 2022 Fellow Firelei Báez,
ca. 1900, photocrom. Advisor Justin Thompson, 2022 National Academy of The 2022 Tuskegee University Affiliated Fellowship
Library of Congress.
Design Affiliated Fellow Athena LaTocha, and 2022 was generously funded by an anonymous donor. The
BOTTOM Terra Foundation Affiliated Fellow Gloria Bell. Collier Academy looks forward to announcing additional
Mary Jane Dempsey. and Bell discovered they were both researching partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and
Andrew Mitchell. the African American and Native American sculptor Universities (HBCUs).
26 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 27The Academy ushered in the new year on
January 27 with the 2022 Winter Open Studios,
which provided access to the inner workings
of Fellows’ projects in studios and spaces
throughout the McKim, Mead & White Building.
Openness
Lindsay Harris, Interim Andrew Heiskell Arts Director
A longer version of this essay is available at
aarome.org/open-studios/openness.
The closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have
underscored the importance of openness in cultural
institutions worldwide. Institutions have gone to
extraordinary lengths to remain physically accessi-
The arrival of Director Laurance Roberts in 1947
ble to the people they serve, while also acknowledg-
opened a new chapter of inclusivity. Program
ing that being accessible means far more than simply
requirements were eliminated, allowing Fellows to
opening the doors to the building.
explore and experiment in new ways, whatever the
At the American Academy in Rome, openness
outcome. The results presented a stark change from
has both a long and a relatively short history. The
the classically inspired figure studies and archi-
Academy has made Fellows’ work accessible to
tectural plans that dominated the annual shows
audiences in Rome and beyond almost since its
through the 1930s. The onset of Roberts’s tenure
inception. The First Annual Exhibition of Painting,
coincided also with the arrival of the first woman
Sculpture, and Architecture was held in New York in
to be awarded a Rome Prize in the Arts, Concetta
1896. Shows of Fellows’ work have been held in Rome
Scaravaglione. In 1948, Ulysses Kay, a composer, became
from 1920 to today, ceasing only briefly during World
the first Black Rome Prize winner in any of the
War II. Yet it took longer for the idea of openness
artistic disciplines pursued at the Academy. In 1951,
to encompass the full sweep of artistic inspiration
John Rhoden, a sculptor, became the first Black visual
Rome has to offer, or to include artists who represent
artist to earn a Rome Prize. Rhoden exhibited in 1954
the diversity of the United States.
a towering bronze sculpture whose lithe organi-
cism and integration of figuration and abstraction
presaged the style that would characterize his art for
OPEN-
years to come.
The 2022 Winter Open Studios built on these
histories to highlight for audiences—both in person
and online—how Rome continues to propel Fellows’
work in new directions. Together, the participating
artists created immersive contexts that broaden
their disciplines to include marginalized voices and
ENDED
All photographs by Daniele Molajoli.
narratives and explore new ways of seeing the world.
Their extraordinary work challenges all of us to con-
tinue working to make openness a reality.
28 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 29William Villalongo displayed a work in process, entitled
Beacon. Central to the artist’s project is the collect-
ing of signs of Black presence within a deep trajec-
tory of time. Through real histories and speculation, Visitors encounter
he considers continuities between the Black Atlantic William Villalongo’s
Beacon.
and the Mediterranean world. Velvet-flocked gourds
that populate Beacon appear alongside objects that
carry symbolic weight for the artist, signifying way-
finding, liberation, and healing. Each object is linked
by a network of gold chains not unlike a bracelet.
The velvet flocking shifts meaning from the literal to
the metaphoric. Gourds reference the Big Dipper, a
navigational device on the Underground Railroad by
enslaved Africans in America. Villalongo uses them
here as beacons in a global context. Obsidian and
quartz are believed to shield against negative ener-
gies, dissolving emotional blockages and ancient
trauma. A Testa di Moro absorbing these minerals
hangs upside down with basil. Seashells and coral
speak to Black labor, trade by sea, and how water
connects us over time and space.
Open Studios Participants
A collaboration
Firelei Báez, whose work is featured on the cover, between Jessica
Hagedorn and
presented new site-specific paintings and a sculp-
Eric N. Mack.
tural installation in response to diasporic histories (See page 35 for
embedded within various locations in Rome. another view.)
These works seek to reinstate the underrepresented
stories of women who have played significant roles
within Italian history, initiating moments of resis-
tance and healing. The artist explores histories of
Afro-Caribbean women overshadowed by, albeit
foundational to, Western narratives about migra-
tion—including Marie-Louise Christophe, the
first queen of Haiti who was forced into exile, ulti-
mately settling in Pisa. By reclaiming Christophe’s
story from the margins, celebrating her resilience
The fountain in the Cortile contained a fabric
in the face of unrest and presenting her as integral
collage. All damp—between text and textile. The
to the rising of a new culture in the New World,
installation performed material absorption. The
Báez encourages a more complex view of the inde-
ever-flowing fountain is a condition of experiencing
pendence movements that occurred throughout
the collage—submerged and unified. Jessica Hagedorn
the Americas.
and Eric N. Mack collaborated on a series of maps,
mood boards, essays, text messages, visualizing
shared “cookies of history.” These imaged con-
stellations invoke past and present, presence and An installation of
absence. The presentation of these poetic miniature new paintings
billboards converses with memory. by Firelei Báez.
30 AAR Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 31You can also read
