At the Academy in Rome, Dutch artist Roma Pas exhibits “Strangely Great” through 25 February

AAR Affiliated Fellow Roma Pas at the “Strangely Great” exhibition opening 5 February

“Over the library door of the American Academy I found this text saying: THE THINGS THAT / MUST BE ARE SO / STRANGELY GREAT.” And with this, Roma Pas introduces her exhibition of recent, untitled works—a product of her first five months at the AAR as Royal Dutch Institute Affiliated Fellow.

“The works that I’m showing at the galleries”, Pas explains in her statement for the show, “are the results of an artist-in-residence period. They react to features like inscription, ornament, ruin, archeology, wisdom and greatness and attempt to connect to the contemporary media landscape.”

Updating the Academy: the Latest Number of the SOF News

SOF News cover from “Valentino a Roma: 45 Years of Style,” a show at Rome’s Ara Pacis

“This issue of the SOF News”, writes newsletter Editor James L. Bodnar (FAAR’80), “has, in the tradition of Janus, a group of articles that look to both the past and the future.” Members of the Academy’s Society of Fellows will already have received the fall 2009 issue in their mailboxes; and everyone can download a digital copy of this semiannual publication here.

In this number of the SOF News, the article Soft Infrastructure, by Guy J. P. Nordenson (RAAR’09) and Catherine Seavitt Nordenson (FAAR’98), “looks at the historic role of flooding in Rome and the potential for future flood control in New York”. Richard Meier’s Ara Pacis—A Drive-By Recollection, by Michael Gruber (FAAR’96) “recalls the initial design process for the Ara Pacis Museum and considers the reactions to the completed building.” James Bodnar interviews AAR Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Martin Brody (RAAR’02), and poet Sarah Arvio (FAAR’04) in Master and Torso offers recent work that arose out of her Lectureship at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts.

In Rome, the AAR Pays Homage to Composers Luigi Nono, Elliott Carter

Carter concert at the Villa Aurelia 21 January: Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble

It’s hard to believe it all happened in the space of just over 25 hours. A 20 January concert on Viale Trinità dei Monti at the French Academy, co-sponsored by the AAR, in homage to composer Luigi Nono (1924-1990). The next evening, on the Gianicolo at the American Academy, a lecture and the opening of an exhibition on Nono’s opera Intolleranza 1960. And a concert at the AAR’s Villa Aurelia in homage to 101 year old Elliott Carter (FAAR’53, RAAR’63, ’69, ‘80), including the European premieres of his Tintinnabulation and Figment V for percussion ensemble.

The programs highlighted two giants of contemporary music, and underlined certain trans-Atlantic symmetries in their careers. As is well recognized, Italian composer “Luigi Nono created some of the most exploratory, disturbing, and influential music of the 20th century”, explains AAR Heiskell Arts Director Martin Brody (RAAR’02). Plus “Nono’s life as an avant-garde activist artist brought him into contact with an astonishing variety of collaborations and influences.”

In Rome, AAR Resident Calvin Tsao Discusses an Eclectic, Global Sensibility of Design and Architecture

From left, at the Villa Aurelia, AAR Resident Calvin Tsao, AAR President Adele Chatfield-Taylor, AAR Director Carmela Franklin. Photo: Annie Schlechter

Precisely how is the domain of architecture and design evolving in a polyglottal world? Calvin Tsao FAIA offered one powerful case study Tuesday 12 January in a lively public lecture at the Academy’s Villa Aurelia. Tsao is Principal at TsAO & McKOWN Architects in New York,  and also currently serves as President of the Architectural League of New York.

Tsao received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of California Berkeley (where he studied under current Fellow Lars Lerup) and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Seven years of work with IM Pei followed, before Tsao with Zack McKown FAIA in 1985 founded their current firm. In its 25 years, TsAO & McKOWN has received any number of major awards, most recently (in 2009) a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Interior Design. Currently Calvin Tsao is in the middle of a one month term as the William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome.

In Anaheim, Academy’s Society of Fellows gathers at annual meeting of classicists, archaeologists

When the Academy’s alums last week kicked off the new decade with a poolside party in Anaheim California, somehow the distance to Rome seemed a little bit less than the actual 10200 kilometers. The occasion? The 111th Joint Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Association. Over 70 alumni/ae, affiliates, and friends of the Academy attended the Thursday 7 January reception—a blend of Mediterranean and So Cal flavors, complete with mariachi band.

Organizing the event for the American Academy in Rome and its Society of Fellows were SOF Council members Michael Gruber FAAR’96, who also delivered the Los Angeles group of the SOF, and Joanne Spurza FAAR’88. The reception immediately followed the annual business meeting of the Advisory Council of the School of Classical Studies of the AAR, and that of the Classical Society of the American Academy in Rome.

How Sweet It Is: A Gingerbread McKim, Mead & White AAR Building is Constructed in Rome

The American Academy in Rome building on the Gianicolo hill (1912-1914) is one of just a handful of  structures outside of the United States designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White—by any reckoning the most prominent designers of the Gilded Age. As it happens, firm partner Charles Follen McKim (1847-1909) was among the founders of the Academy and President of the AAR when the building was first conceived. The building has a clear Renaissance inspiration (which it shares with the MM&W north and south wings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC), with a five-bay facade, a ‘piano nobile’, and an interior courtyard with a Paul Manship (FAAR’12) fountain in its center. It also contains most of the living and working quarters for the Rome Prize Fellows, the Library, a gallery and administrative offices, plus public rooms for many of the Academy’s events.

And now, thanks to the efforts of current Fellows Kiel Moe, Jon Calame, and a host of helping hands, the Academy’s MM&W building has been realized for the 2009 holiday season in gingerbread and gumdrops. It’s something approaching 1:100 scale, carefully constructed from the original plans. The universal reaction so far from Academy alums and friends: “Don’t eat it!”. Here’s a photo essay on how this sugary architectural wonder—all dedicated to the Academy’s Kitchen staff—came to be. Photo thanks throughout: Jon Calame and Pamela Keech (FAAR’82).

At the Academy in Rome, Opening Up Off-Limits Italy

AAR Fellow Matthew Bronski investigates burial niches (columbaria) underground in Rome’s Doria Pamphili park. Photo: Diana Mellon

AAR Arts and Humanities Intern Diana Mellon writes:

In his first few months at the Academy, current Fellow Matthew Bronski has already gained access to scaffolding on the colonnade of St. Peter’s, consolidation works on the Palazzo Braschi, and restricted areas in Herculaneum. “If one is to do this type of work, binoculars just don’t suffice,” he says. “You really have to be hands-on. You have to be right there, have your face in the materials and be able to even poke and prod a little bit and see what’s happening.” Matthew’s historic preservation project aims to understand the physical strengths and weaknesses of ageing buildings of all time periods through up-close observation. “That’s really one of the most essential parts of my project. It’s really, in my case, the primary research,” he says.

In Rome, ‘Performing Voices’ and the Week that Followed

At the Academy’s Villa Aurelia, soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and pianist Donald Sulzen receive a standing ovation from “Performing Voices” participants

It’s been quite a month at the American Academy in Rome—and it’s not much more than half over. Following hard on the heels of the Academy’s much-praised 2 December Cabaret in NYC, came a blockbuster conference in Rome, co-sponsored by the AAR and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Entitled “Performing Voices: Between Embodiment and Mediation”, this ambitious conference ran for three days (Friday 4 December-Sunday 6 December) at the Academy’s Villa Aurelia. Co-facilitating were Martin Brody (RAAR’02), Heiskell Arts Director at the AAR, and Julia Kursell and Andreas Mayer, Research Scholars at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

The aim of the conference was to foster a new understanding of the paradox of the singing voice, by bringing together singers, scientists, historians, philosophers, and musicologists. Carmela Vircillo Franklin (FAAR’85, RAAR’02), AAR Director, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, jointly introduced the proceedings. A thrilling centerpiece of the conference was a recital at the Villa Aurelia, Echi della Belle Époque, by soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and pianist Donald Sulzen.

In Rome, ‘Flying Soles’ Showcases the Work of NY Designer Lincoln Brown

In Rome, the American Academy unveils this week a long-anticipated  exhibition of the work of fashion designer Lincoln Brown, curated by Ester Coen and Lexi Eberspacher.

 The show opens Thursday 10 December from 18.00 to 21.00, and remains on view by appointment through 14 January 2010. Founder of Lincoln’s NY, Lincoln Brown is a noted designer of shoes and accessories. His work has won over style-conscious celebrities such as the artist Enzo Cucchi, the designer Anna Sui, the actress Halle Berry, and the musician Mary J. Blige—to name just a few.

The exhibition “Flying Soles” features Lincoln’s NY’s one-of-a-kind, dazzling and hand-made shoes.  

Plus the event aims to cross over the threshold of the American Academy, and reach into the center of Rome. See a narrated slideshow of the exhibit here.

Looking back, a week of November events at the American Academy in Rome

As the American Academy prepares for its Giorno del Ringraziamento (=Thanksgiving) festivities, there’s something to be said for taking stock—if only of events of the days leading up to the holiday.

Those events included two shop talks by current Fellows (filmmaker Abigail Child, typographer Russell Maret), a commemoration of the life of Roman historian Lily Ross Taylor (FAAR’18) by Mellon Professor Corey Brennan, a moonlit “walk and talk” for members of the Academy community along the Tiber (with contributions by Fellows Robert Hammond and Kiel Moe), a fireside chat by Rachel Donadio (Rome Bureau Chief for The New York Times),  a marathon of contemporary music at the Villa Aurelia under the auspices of the Nuova Consonanza artistic circle (with performances by Fellows Lisa Bielawa and Don Byron), and a visit by the newly appointed US Ambassador to the Italian Republic and San Marino, David H. Thorne. All that was over eight—not atypical—days in all. A few glimpses of that week can be found below…