Far Afield

Crop of a book cover with an abstracted depiction of water in shades of blue and aqua; the title of the book, Digital Lethargy, appears in yellow letters

Tung-Hui Hu Probes “Digital Lethargy”

Tung-Hui Hu, our current Rome Prize Fellow in literature, offers an alternative to doomscrolling in his new book from MIT Press. Digital Lethargy explores the exhaustion, disappointment, and listlessness of our online lives through works by contemporary artists, writers, and performers.
Color photograph of Nader Tehrani showing his head and torso

Nader Tehrani Is a Design Visionary

The Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper Hewitt recognized Nader Tehrani, founding principal of NADAAA and a 2018 Resident, as a “Design Visionary” with a 2022 National Design Award.
Color photograph of a hanging sculpture that fashions a human head out of cardboard; coming from one ear are twisting tubes of metal that are capped with brass trumpet horns

Steve Parker’s “Foreign Body”

Ivester Contemporary in Austin, Texas, has just opened Foreign Body, an exhibition of sculptures by 2021 Fellow Steve Parker—several of them made during his time in Rome.
Detail of a book cover with a color photograph showing a site of ancient Roman ruins (including five columns supporting an architrave) on a sunny day

Edited Volume from Dorian Borbonus

Oxford University Press has just published Building the Classical World: Bauforschung as a Contemporary Approach, a book of essays that was edited by Elisha Ann Dumser and Dorian Borbonus (2017 Fellow).
Color photograph of an Asian man standing against a wall and wearing glasses and a blue blazer over a spotted blue and white button-up shirt; he smiles directly at the camera

Architect Phu Hoang Now at Ohio State University

Phu Hoang, 2017 Rome Prize Fellow and current Society of Fellows president, has been appointed section head of architecture in the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.
Color photograph of a brown skinned woman with dark hair standing at a podium in a lecture room and speaking

Italian Translation of Natasha Trethewey’s Poems

The publishing house Fuorilinea has just released 2022 Resident Natasha Trethewey’s poetry collection Domestic Work (2000) as Lavori domestici, translated by Katie Scroccaro. The book is part of Caravelle, a series dedicated to contemporary American poets.
Detail of a painting of a tree, from a view on the ground looking upward into the green leaves and brown branches

Paintings by Nick Blosser at Houghton University

Territory is the title for Houghton University’s exhibition of work by 1985 Fellow Nick Blosser, on view September 2–October 9. The Tennessee-based artist is a landscape painter in the tradition of Charles Burchfield and Albert Pinkham Ryder.
Color photograph of a light skinned woman sitting in front of a laptop as seen in a mirror; to the right of the mirror are three books on a shelf leaning against a wall

Liz Ševčenko’s “Public History for a Post-Truth Era”

The project Liz Ševčenko started during her 2018 Rome Prize Fellowship was just published by Routledge as Public History for a Post-Truth Era: Fighting Denial through Memory Movements.

 
Black and white photograph of the head of dark skinned woman, titled to the left; she looks at the camera without smiling

Tania León at 2022 Kennedy Center Honors

Tania León, a 1998 Resident, has been announced as one of the recipients of the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors. She will be honored alongside U2, George Clooney, and others in a ceremony taking place in Washington, DC, on December 4.
Detail of a book cover that has a color photograph showing the darkened interior of a gallery space with a video projected on the wall; visible on the screen are ocean waves crashing on a beach; on the gallery floor is a square of sand perpendicular to the image

Giuliana Bruno Explores “Atmospheres of Projection”

In Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media, Giuliana Bruno (2019 Resident) explores how historical and contemporary artists developed the projected image. The University of Chicago Press will publish the book, which draws from psychoanalysis, environmental philosophy, architecture, and more, in October.

 
Color still from a video on AAR, showing a light skinned woman with straight brown hair conversing with a light skinned man to her left; she wears white museum gloves and holds a film negative

The Academy on CBS Sunday Morning

CBS Sunday Morning distilled the Academy’s essence, history, and present-day life in a five-minute segment that aired on July 10. Rome correspondent Seth Doane spoke with three 2022 Fellows—Elena Past, Igor Santos, and William Villalongo—and two Academy leaders, Marla Stone and Elizabeth Rodini.
Color photograph of a dark skinned man wearing an untucked white button-up shirt and dark pants; he stands outdoors in front of a 17th-century Roman villa and looks directly at the camera

Germane Barnes in Architectural Digest

Germane Barnes (2022 Fellow) talks to Architectural Digest about his Rome Prize project, designing a new column order to supplant the classical Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian in favor of forms and proportions rooted in Black culture.
Detail of a blue and white print featuring botanical forms such as stems and flowers

Yto Barrada Wins Printmaking Award

2018 Resident Yto Barrada has won the Queen Sonja Print Award, the world’s largest prize for graphic art. The jury praised her for “pushing the boundaries of her own practice and our understanding of printmaking and graphic art.”
Color photograph of the Renaissance-era gardens at Villa d'Este, showing manicured trees and bushes flanking a long pool with a spouting fountain

Michael Lee on the Villa d‘Este Gardens

J. S. Marcus from the Wall Street Journal was exhausted after his visit to the Villa d‘Este, outside Rome. Dense in mythological imagery, with the need to hike up and down, the villa’s gardens were meant to “re-enact the labors of Hercules,” current Rome Prize winner Michael Lee told him.
Color photograph of an older light skinned man standing in a library with a book in his hand and books on wooden shelves behind him; he gazes out the large window

David Kertzer on Pope Pius XII

The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Kertzer (2000 Resident, current Trustee) is profiled in the New York Times, where he talks about researching his new book, The Pope At War, as well as new revelations from the unsealed archives of Pope Pius XII at the Vatican.
Abstract sculpture titled Bonelight (Cascade) by the artist Magali Reus

Magali Reus in Dallas

New works by 2017 Affiliated Fellow Magali Reus tease out the tensions between natural and human environments. Her solo show A Sentence in Soil opened this past weekend at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.
Color photograph showing a detail of a small bronze statute of a seated woman wearing a toga

New Book from Maggie Popkin

Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome, a new book that Maggie Popkin completed last year during her Rome Prize fellowship, shows how objects commemorating places, people, and spectacles generated memory and shaped knowledge across a heterogeneous empire.

Valzhyna Mort Translates and Reads a Poem

Our current Rome Prize winner in literature, Valzhyna Mort, translated a poem that is published in the May 16 issue of the New Yorker. Listen to her read Ludmila Khersonsky’s “First Day of War” online.
Color photograph of an artwork, consisting of colored, striped, and checkered fabric hung from the ceiling and across the room, installed in a white cube gallery

Eric N. Mack Exhibition in Ireland

Eric N. Mack (2022 Fellow) considers himself a painter, but Scampolo!—his current exhibition at Trinity College Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery—substitutes pint glasses of water, piles of fabric, and laundry bags for paint. Claudia Dalby interviews the artist for the Dublin InQuirer.
Color photograph of a dark skinned man with short white hair, wearing glasses, an open collar white shirt, and a gray blazer, standing in front of a seated audience and gesturing with both hands at waist level

George E. Lewis to Lead the International Contemporary Ensemble

George E. Lewis, a composer, professor of music at Columbia University, and 2010 Resident, will become the next artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble—and its first Black leader.