Winter Open Studios Highlights Recent Work by Fellows

Color photograph of people milling about an art gallery, talking with each other and looking at photographs hung on the white walls
Visitors take in Alessandro Mulazzani’s work in the AAR Gallery (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of a gallery wall that displays color photos of Italian seascapes
A selection of images from Alessandro Mulazzani’s project The Sea of Rome (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of people in the entrance hall to a building, looking at paper handouts taken from a white podium
Attendees entering the McKim, Mead & White Building were met by the set-up of Tung-Hui Hu’s Drift/Loops (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of a group of people reading from pieces of paper with writing printed on them
Tung-Hui Hu (center) leads a performance of Drift/Loops (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of a man playing piano in a salon with a large tapestry on the wall behind the instrument
John Davis performs nineteenth-century piano pieces written by African American composers (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of several dozen people seated and standing in a salon, watching a pianist perform
Standing room only for John Davis’s piano performance (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of the backs of people's heads as they watch a video screening in a barrel vaulted room
Monica Rhodes screened her video Widening the Lens in the Cryptoporticus (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of the backs of people's heads as they watch a video screening in a barrel vaulted room
Ioana Uricaru recently shot a film of her screenplay You Are My Secret at the Academy (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Two light skinned men talk to each other; one sits on a stage and holds an acoustic guitar; the other stands to his right
Marco Momi (left) talks to Francesco Palmieri before a performance of Sans dire (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of people watching a man play acoustic guitar on a small stage in a barrel-vaulted room
The guitarist Francesco Palmieri performed the Italian premiere of Marco Momi’s composition San dire (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of four abstract screenprints hanging as a group on a wall
Genuardi/Ruta showed four new screenprints in the AAR Gallery (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of two star-shaped abstract sculptures hanging on white walls
Two works by the artist duo Genuardi/Ruta in the AAR Gallery (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of two women taking a selfie in front of an abstract sculpture hanging on a white gallery wall
Two women take a selfie in front of an artwork by Genuardi/Ruta (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)
Color photograph of dozens of people socializing around a circular fountain in a courtyard at night
Visitors to Winter Open Studios mingle in the Cortile (photograph by Daniele Molajoli)

More than eight hundred people passed through the American Academy in Rome’s doors for Winter Open Studios on Thursday evening, January 26. This annual event allows Academy friends and the wider Roman public to meet Rome Prize Fellows, Italian Fellows, and Affiliated Fellows and witness their recent work.

Visitors in the Atrium listened to and participated in the poet Tung-Hui Hu’s Drift/Loops, a short performance that combined verse and music composed by Paula Matthussen (2015 Fellow) specially for the occasion. Numerous Rome Prize Fellows stepped forward to join the reading. There was standing room only in the Salone, where John Davis, our Rome Prize Fellow in design, performed solo piano works by nineteenth-century African American pianists and composers from New Orleans. Davis also created a digital retrospective slideshow of ephemera related to these artists that he has collected over the years.

The Cryptoporticus hosted two screenings and a musical performance. Monica Rhodes showed a video focused on Matera, Italy’s oldest continuously inhabited city. Titled Widening the Lens, the video demonstrated how heritage can be used as a strategy to not only understand the past but also shape the present and future of a city. Ioana Uricaru showcased a scene from her screenplay You Are My Secret, filmed just days before at the Academy’s Villa Chiaraviglio. This short film, shown right after Rhodes’s work, is a prelude to Ursa Major, her feature-film-length screenplay inspired by the life and work of the Jewish Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian (1907–1945). Both Rhodes and Uricaru collaborated with the film program at American University in Rome in producing their works.

The guitarist Francesco Palmieri performed the Italian premiere of Marco Momi’s San dire, described by the composer as “a wordless and confidential exchange among interlaced souls that takes place through the guitar, an instrument that, in its tone, reminds me of friendship.” Electronic sounds that played through loudspeakers were based on Palmieri’s facial expressions and the notes and chords emitted from his instrument.

Alessandro Mulazzani and the artist duo Genuardi/Ruta each filled a room of the AAR Gallery with recent work. Mulazzani hung dozens of photographs taken during his walks along the central Italian coastline, part of a project, called The Sea of Rome, exploring sustainable landscapes. Antonella Genuardi and Leonardo Ruta displayed a set of serigraphies, titled Mineral Geometry and produced in collaboration with Litografia Bulla, as well as an installation, The Golden Trumpets of Radiance, that responded to the artists’ biographies and Sicilian history.

Winter Open Studios was enthusiastically reviewed by two newspapers, Il Messaggero and Corriere della Sera, and on the website Inside Art. Behind-the-scene images and video from the event were also shared on AAR’s Instagram account. The next edition of Open Studios will take place in early June.

We thank all the attendees, as well as the performers and exhibiting artists, for an amazing evening of inspiring art. Special acknowledgments go to Lindsay Harris, interim Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, and to Laura Cabezas, for organizing the event.

Press inquiries

Hannah Holden / Keisha F. Frimpong

Resnicow and Associates

212-671-5154 / 212-671-5164

aar [at] resnicow.com (aar[at]resnicow[dot]com)

Maddalena Bonicelli

Rome Press Officer

+39 335 6857707

m.bonicelli.ext [at] aarome.org (m[dot]bonicelli[dot]ext[at]aarome[dot]org)