AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...

Page created by Regina Austin
 
CONTINUE READING
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
AMERICAN
ACADEMY IN
ROME
MAGAZINE

SPRING/
SUMMER
2022
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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+.
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2022 - American ...
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                   17
2021 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             19
Enlightened

                    and Engaged
20   AAR Magazine         Spring/Summer 2022   21
For 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   23
a 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              25
experiences 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     27
The 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               29
William 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                  31
You can also read