Far Afield

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 2021 fellowships to Nina C. Young (2016 Fellow) in music composition and James Siena (2013 Resident) in fine arts.

Kirstin Valdez Quade (2019 Fellow) talks to NPR’s Scott Simon about her debut novel, The Five Wounds, which she worked on during her year in Rome.

Yehudi Wyner, a 1956 Rome Prize Fellow in musical composition, was awarded a 2021 Gold Medal for Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Chang-rae Lee (2008 Resident) was given the 2021 Award of Merit for the Novel, a $25,000 prize that honors an outstanding writer who represents excellence in the craft of the novel, by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has given a 2021 Arts and Letters Award in Art to Suzanne Bocanegra (1991 Fellow) and a 2021 John Koch Award in Art to Jennifer Packer (2021 Fellow).

The Archaeological Institute of America has appointed Emma Blake, a 2013 Fellow in ancient studies, and Robert Schon as the next joint editors-in-chief of the American Journal of Archaeology.

Last week Richard Rezac (2007 Fellow) opened a solo exhibition at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. Titled Cast, the show is on view through May 8 and features a series of works Rezac made within the last year.

Michael Bierut (2016 Resident, current AAR Trustee) led a team at Pentagram that finished the two-year project of creating a new brand identity for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, which includes the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Judith H. Dobrzynski of the Wall Street Journal has reviewed Paul Manship: Ancient Made Modern, an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art that illuminates how this sculptor—a 1912 Rome Prize Fellow and the creator of AAR’s Cortile fountain—became a master of his craft.

Steve Parker (2021 Fellow) talks to Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (2018 Resident) of the New York Times about his “war tuba,” a musical instrument that is a sculptural listening device instead of a sound maker. His inspirations are the early-twentieth-century military sound locators that detected enemy aircraft before the advent of radar.

The US General Services Administration has commissioned Ann Hamilton (2017 Resident) to create an Art in Architecture project for the new federal courthouse under construction in Des Moines, Iowa.

Tomorrow Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, New York, will present the opening of AutoRevisionism, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by 2012 Fellow Elliott Green. The show will continue until April 4.

Among the eighteen recipients of the American Academy of Arts and Letters music awards are David Sanford (2003 Fellow), Yotam Haber (2008 Fellow), Lei Liang (2012 Fellow), Annie Gosfield (2016 Resident), and William Dougherty (2021 Fellow).

Richard Powell (2018 Resident) of Duke University talked to Artnet News about the arc of his career and the evolution of scholarship into Black art history.

Jack Livings (2017 Fellow) worked on his first novel, The Blizzard Party, during his Rome Prize year. It’s about to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Roger Bond Martin (1964 Fellow), cofounder of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Landscape Architecture, has died. He was known in the Twin Cities for the renovation of the Grand Rounds parkway system and for leading the design of the Minnesota Zoo. In 1968, Martin established InterDesign with graphic designer Peter Seitz and systems analyst Stephen Kahne.

AAR’s new director Avinoam Shalem spoke with Artribune about the Academy’s reopening, the incoming Fellows, and the challenges an international research institution faces in COVID times.

Three 2009 Fellows—Marie Lorenz (visual arts), Dana Spiotta (literature), and Kurt Rohde (musical composition)—won a 2021 Creative Capital grant in opera and sculpture for their project, Newtown Odyssey.

Jiminie Ha (2012 Fellow) is the newly appointed director of graphic design for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Christopher Cerrone (2016 Fellow) was among the composers and performers selected for the Washington Post’s inaugural class of 21 for ’21.