AAR Magazine Spring Summer 2021`
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AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2021 A Message from the Chair of the Board of Trustees It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since the world paused. Thank you for your continued com- mitment to AAR in what I’m sure we will remember as one of society’s most challenging moments. Your time, expertise, guidance, and financial support have all been instrumental in seeing the Academy through this period. I’d also like to thank Mark Robbins and the whole team, especially those on the ground in Rome, for their incredible dedication to navigating the ups, downs, and surprises this past year has brought. Turning to today, the Academy has successfully reopened and the selection process for next year’s fellowship class is complete. AAR is in a much stronger position than I could have imagined when the full pandemic crisis became clear in March 2020. Our finances are stable and (with vaccinations) we believe that by the fall our activities will be close to fully restored. One of the many downsides of this past year has been the lack of direct connection, and we look for- ward to future gatherings in person, here and in Rome. With appreciation and gratitude, Cary Davis Chair, AAR Board of Trustees SPRING/SUMMER 2021 UP FRONT FEATURES 2 20 LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT SEEING THE ANCIENT WORLD AAR receives major gift of photographs 4 by Carole Raddato FAR AFIELD Checking in with past Fellows and Residents 24 GIVING FOR THE AGES 6 Richard E. Spear and Athena Tacha INTRODUCING underwrite a new Rome Prize The 2020–2021 Rome Prize winners and Italian Fellows 26 IN THE FLOW 10 Current Fellows reveal what’s happening FROM THE ARCHIVES in their studios and studies Astra Zarina was the first woman to be awarded the Academy’s architecture fellowship 40 ON THE ROAD, OFF THE BEATEN PATH 11 Streetscapes brings site-specific works to the ROMAN NUMERALS Janiculum Hill 12 44 CONVERSATIONS/CONVERSAZIONI CELEBRATING THE CITY This season’s discussions via Zoom AAR’s season of events draws to a close in Rome and the US 46 13 SOUND AND MUSIC IN THE ALUMINUM FOREST IN RESIDENCE Sonic installations come to the gardens Spotlighting recent Residents of the Villa Aurelia IN CLOSING 52 CONVIVIUM Membership opportunities at AAR 54 DONORS 60 WHEN IN ROME Mellon Humanities Professor Lynne Lancaster and Tom Carpenter share their favorite places in the Eternal City LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT: Fiumi di parole sono stati detti o scritti su questi ultimi diciotto mesi—sulla concomitanza di grandi lutti e speranza, di alienazione, sulla storia della vio- lenza e la maggiore consapevolezza della necessità del contatto sociale. Ci ricordano l’importanza di leggere la storia come fosse una guida per interpre- tare la vita di oggi; studiosi e artisti contribuiscono con il loro spirito critico all’esplorazione del passato e del presente. Il tema di quest’anno dell’Academy è “La città”. I centri urbani come Roma e New York sono stati So much has been said and written about these past modellati dai commerci e dal movimento di persone, eighteen months—about the coincidence of great e così anche lo scambio di idee nuove e difficili. È loss and hope, of alienation, the history of violence, quindi quanto mai opportuno analizzare questo and a greater recognition of the need for social con- argomento in un anno in cui abbiamo dovuto riflet- tact. We are reminded of the importance of reading tere sulla distanza sociale e sul significato di comu- history as a guide to contemporary life; scholars and nità, accomunati dall’esperienza della pandemia artists bring critical faculties to bear, exploring the e da una nuova consapevolezza dell’ingiustizia in past and the present. senso storico e dei diritti di tutti i cittadini. This year’s theme at the Academy is “The City.” Questa istituzione esiste sotto varie forme dalla Urban places like Rome and New York were shaped sua fondazione nel 1984 e oggi l’Academy riflette by commerce and the movement of people, and with la complessità del nostro paese all’estero, impeg- this the exchange of new and difficult ideas. It is fit- nandosi in vari modi nella città di Roma, in Italia ting to examine this topic in a year in which we have e nel bacino del Mediterraneo in senso più ampio. thought about social distance and what it means to Il nostro Campus è sempre più un hub globale be a community—with the common experience of di creatività, discussione e dibattito, di cui ogni the pandemic and a renewed awareness of historic singolo individuo è parte integrante. È con grande injustice and the rights of all citizens. ottimismo che l’Academy ha riaperto in gennaio. This institution has existed in many forms since Malgrado i problemi, la comunità di Roma rimane its founding in 1894, and the Academy today reflects un luogo di intenso scambio. Ciascuno fra Borsisti e the complexity of our country abroad, engaging in Residenti osserva dalle proprie prospettive i luoghi many ways with the city of Rome, with Italy, and familiari, in linea questo con la tradizione che la with the broader Mediterranean. Our campus is an storia includa sia il presente che il futuro. increasingly global hub for creativity, discourse, and debate, of which each individual is an integral part. It was with great optimism that the Academy reopened in January. In spite of the challenges, the community in Rome remains a robust place of exchange. Each Fellow and Resident brings a perspective that sheds new light on familiar places, very much in the tradition of history informing the present and future. Mark Robbins, President and CEO 2 AAR Magazine i Follow @robbinsm10 on Instagram for Mark’s perspective on all that’s happening at the American Academy in Rome. OPPOSITE Mark Robbins during Trustees’ Week, June 2021. Photograph by Giorgio Benni. #romewalk #piazzavenezia #notourists #vaccination #armory #mobilization January 15, 2021 March 12, 2021 #mayalin #ghostforest #publicart #juliemehretu #rujeckohockley #madisonsquarepark #whitneymuseum #patronsevent May 19, 2021 May 20, 2021 #reopening #welcome #2021fellows #sanfordbiggers #oracle #publicart #romeprize #rockefellercenter January 26, 2021 July 12, 2021 Spring/Summer 2021 3 FAR AFIELD: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 2021 fellowships to JAMES SIENA (2013 Resident) in fine arts and NINA C. YOUNG (2016 Fellow) in music composition. SINCLAIR BELL, 2003 Fellow and former editor of the The Whitney Museum of American Art JULIE MEHRETU, Memoirs of is presenting a two-decade survey of Wind-Wind Field Drawings the American paintings and works on paper by 2020 (quarantine studio, d.h) #1, Academy Resident JULIE MEHRETU that originated at 2019–20, ink and acrylic on in Rome series, won a $60,000 NEH the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. paper, 26 × 40 in. Fellowship for his project “Race and Representation in the Roman Empire: Images of Aethiopians in Imperial Visual The University of and Material Culture.” Chicago Press has published The Eternal City: A Political theorist History of Rome and 2020 Resident in Maps by 2005 DANIELLE ALLEN won Fellow JESSICA MAIER. the 2020 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, CHANG-RAE LEE (2008 a $500,000 award administered by the Library of Congress that recognizes work in Resident) was given the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize. 2021 Award of Merit for the Novel, a $25,000 DAVID KARMON, 2016 Fellow and prize that honors an author of the new book Architecture outstanding writer who and the Senses in the Italian The Wall Street Journal reviewed represents excellence in Renaissance, has been appointed PAUL MANSHIP: Ancient Made Modern, a editor of the Journal of the Society Wadsworth Atheneum exhibition that the craft of the novel, by of Architectural Historians. reveals how this sculptor—a 1912 Fellow the American Academy and creator of AAR’s Cortile fountain— mastered his craft. of Arts and Letters. Mehretu: Private collection, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery New York/Paris. © Julie Mehretu. Mehretu: Private collection, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery New York/Paris. 4 AAR Magazine CORINNA GOSMARO (2021 Three 2009 Fellows— Italian Fellow) was among sixteen artists MARIE LORENZ (visual arts), to win an eleven-month residency at the DANA SPIOTTA (literature), Fiminco Foundation and KURT ROHDE (musical in Romainville, France. Her residency begins this September. composition)—won a 2021 Creative Capital Johns Hopkins grant in opera and University named former sculpture for their project, AAR Director CHRISTOPHER CELENZA (1994 Fellow) Newtown Odyssey. vice provost for faculty affairs. ALISA LAGAMMA (2018 Affiliated Fellow) curated the highly praised exhibition CATHERINE BONESHO (2018 Fellow) has Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of received a 2021–22 academic year the Sahara for her home institution, the Among the recipients of the fellowship from the Frankel Center Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2021 American Academy for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, where she will work on of Arts and Letters music her second book project, “Kings, awards are DAVID SANFORD Queens, and Caesars: Gentile (2003 Fellow), YOTAM Rulers in Early Jewish Literature.” HABER (2008 Fellow), LEI LIANG (2012 Fellow), ANNIE The Archaeological Institute of GOSFIELD (2016 Resident), America has appointed EMMA BLAKE (2013 Fellow) and Robert Schon and WILLIAM DOUGHERTY as the next joint editors-in-chief of (2021 Fellow). the American Journal of Archaeology. WALTER HOOD (1997 Fellow) won a 2021 JACK LIVINGS (2017 Fellow) published his first novel The Blizzard Party, written fellowship in during his Rome Prize year, with Farrar, architecture Straus and Giroux. and design from United States Artists. SANFORD BIGGERS (2018 Fellow) showed his monumental Oracle sculpture and other works across the Rockefeller Center campus in New York.