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Traditional views in the past have assumed that Apulian figure-decorated pottery was made primarily by and for the colonial Greeks in Taranto, but recent research has shown that the local Italic (non-Greek) people of Apulia provided principal markets. In this lecture, Thomas Carpenter will demonstrate how those local people adopted and modified Greek imagery of Dionysos, the god of wine and theater, for their own purposes and viewed him as a guide to the underworld and a blessed afterlife.

Trained as a classical archaeologist, Thomas Carpenter holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University and Oxford University and is an expert in ancient Greek religion and iconography. He has published numerous books and articles, one of which, his Art and Myth in Ancient Greece, has been translated into six languages. His recent work has focused on the Italic people of 4th Century BCE Italy, and he recently co-edited the first book in English to focus on these people, The Italic People of Ancient Apulia: New Evidence from Pottery for Workshops, Markets and Customs (Cambridge, 2014). Carpenter is Charles J. Ping Professor of Humanities and Distinguished Professor of Classics Emeritus at Ohio University. 

The event will be held in English. You can watch this event live at https://livestream.com/aarome.

A valid photo ID is required for entry into the American Academy in Rome. Backpacks and luggage with dimensions larger than 40 x 35 x 15 cm (16 x 14 x 6 in.) are not permitted on the property. There are no locker facilities available.

This event is part of the series New Work in the Arts & Humanities: The Body.

Life Clings Closest Where Most Hated
A performance by Tom Johnson based on Adrienne Kennedy's notes on Frankenstein.

The American Academy in Rome is proud to present the international debut of this collaboration between celebrated playwright Adrienne Kennedy and Turin based American artist Tom Johnson. Inspired by Kennedy’s reading of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein – a landmark in the development of modern notions about the body, difference, and social alienation – Johnson has created an installation and performance expressly for the exhibition The Academic Body, which opens on May 22.

Adrienne Kennedy, who was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2018, has explored issues of race, kinship, and violence in American society in plays such as Funny House of a Negro, A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White, and The Alexander Plays. Kennedy draws on mythical, historical, and imaginary figures to delve into the African-American experience. As Hilton Als has written in the New Yorker, Kennedy’s women of color “stand on the precipice of disaster, madness or loss.” Funnyhouse of a Negro, which Kennedy completed while living in Rome in 1961, after traveling through Europe and West Africa, premiered in New York and won an Obie Award in 1964. Her distinctive voice was immediately recognized as one of the boldest and most incisive in American theater.

Johnson, whose work encompasses drawing, sculpture, video, and live performance, has explored many of the themes central to Kennedy’s plays. The artist states: "I am interested in analyzing some social taboos, not because I am so brave and strong but because I feel oppressed by them and can imagine that there is a better way to feel. My strategy is very simple. I analyze certain phenomena (racism, the male “gaze”, the psychology of wealth) because I find them in myself."

The event is made possible by the Roy Lichtenstein Artist in Residence Fund, the Robert Mapplethorpe Photographer in Residence Fund and the Terra Foundation for American Art. 

A valid photo ID is required for entry into the American Academy in Rome. Backpacks and luggage with dimensions larger than 40 x 35 x 15 cm (16 x 14 x 6 in.) are not permitted on the property. There are no locker facilities available.

This event is part of the series New Work in the Arts & Humanities: The Body.

Immediately preceding the opening of the exhibition The Academic Body, which tracks the transformation of the body in art and society from 1894 to the present, Mark Robbins, curator of the exhibition and President of the American Academy in Rome, will speak with two of the artists in the exhibition, Patrica Cronin (2007 Fellow) and Stefan Sagmeiter, current Henry Wolf Graphic Designer in Residence.

The conversation will be held in English.

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation is the 2018–19 season sponsor of Conversations/Conversazioni: From the American Academy in Rome.

A valid photo ID is required for entry into the American Academy in Rome. Backpacks and luggage with dimensions larger than 40 x 35 x 15 cm (16 x 14 x 6 in.) are not permitted on the property. There are no locker facilities available.