Features

It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of Sophie Chandler Consagra, an integral and unique figure in the history of the American Academy in Rome. Her long relationship with the Academy began with her being hired as AAR director in 1980, then with her selection in 1984 as president.

AAR announced today that John Ochsendorf, a preservation engineer, historian, and educator, has been selected as the twenty-third director of the American Academy in Rome.

It is with sorrow that we say goodbye to our colleague Lidia Villani, who passed away a few days ago. Lidia began at the American Academy in Rome in 1999 as administrative assistant and cashier. Her contagious cheerfulness enlightened both her work and her personal relationships with the community.

It is with great sadness that we relay the passing of Pina Pasquantonio, our assistant director of operations in Rome.

The American Academy in Rome is pleased to announce that Carne is finally available for sale, just in time for holiday shopping! Written by Chris Behr, head chef at AAR’s Rome Sustainable Food Program, Carne is the fifth book in our cookbook series, following Biscotti, Zuppe, Pasta, and Verdure.

The American Academy in Rome’s 2016 Gala held at the Morgan Library and Museum honored the remarkable Laurie Anderson and celebrated Rome Prize Fellows.

The American Academy in Rome is pleased to present winners of the 2016 Rome Prize Fellowship. These thirty-one artists and scholars will receive a stipend, workspace, and room and board for a period of six months to two years at the Academy’s eleven-acre campus in Rome. Fellowship winners were presented at the Arthur and Janet C. Ross Rome Prize Ceremony, which was held in Kaplan Hall Auditorium at the New School in New York. 

Flaming music boxes. Ping pong balls. Kurt Vonnegut. Shakespeare. While not typical staples of classical music, all have been featured in the work of AAR composers and performed by the renowned Scharoun Ensemble.

Last week, a capacity audience filled the ODC Dance Theater in San Francisco for the latest installment of Conversations | Conversazioni: From the American Academy in Rome. The event, a panel discussion on the design of museums and cultural spaces, featured speakers offering unique perspectives on approaching their work.

It’s not easy to picture Cy Twombly with a camera in his hand. Famous for his abstract canvases and found-object sculptures, Twombly’s best-known work seems to eschew the world in favor of its symbolic and conceptual fundamentals.

The composer Annie Gosfield, a current AAR Resident, sat serenely at her computer while the percussionist Chris Cutler roamed barefoot around an ensemble of suspended garden tools.

Over the last three years, a collaboration between the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, or the Centro, and AAR has given the Centro students an opportunity to use Academy resources to curate their own exhibition. This year, they worked with Academy curator Valentina Follo to tell the story of a pioneering woman—Esther Boise Van Deman.

A festive group of Fellows, Affiliated Fellows, Residents, Trustees, and Academy friends reunited recently for an annual tradition—the 2015 AAR Cabaret.

A large crowd braved driving rain turn to see Edward Hirsch (1989 Fellow) and Robert Polito read and discuss poetry at this fall’s first US installment of the series, Conversations/Conversazioni: From the American Academy in Rome.

Archaeology is destruction—every turn of the spade destroys layers of earth that preserve moments of the human past. The archaeology archive—the documentation that records excavation—transforms that destructive moment into history. More important than any buried building or fragment of sculpture, this archive preserves the tenuous link between the modern archaeologist and the people of the past.

New Rome Prize Winners and Italian Fellows met and mingled with friends of the American Academy in Rome as the sun set on a warm September evening last week. Members of the community and their families/fellow travelers gathered with staff and supporters of the Academy for the annual Opening Reception amongst the pines and olive trees of the Bass Garden and were welcomed by the Academy’s President Mark Robbins and Director Kimberly Bowes.

The American Academy in Rome constitutes a kind of bridge between the US and Italy. Most often it leads eastwards across the Atlantic, with American Fellows, Residents, and visitors coming to stay on the Janiculum, but sometimes traffic runs the opposite direction.

Ancient Rome was fast-forwarded to the twentieth century at this year’s Jerome lecture series, delivered by the eminent Latin professor Maria Wyke from University College London.

What defines the experience of a city? What codes and idioms—verbal and other—do you need to know to feel truly at home?

In 1949, the French critic André Malraux made an observation that suggested art history has been bound with photography since the mid-nineteenth century.