Features

On Monday 27 September the Friends of the Academy in Italy gathered to welcome new AAR Director Christopher S. Celenza, FAAR’94 and the new class of Academy Fellows.

Featuring Fellows, Residents and friends of the American Academy in Rome, this year's Cabaret at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City on October 26 promises to be packed with vivid work by some of today’s most exciting artists.

The American Academy in Rome welcomes the first two of five Italian fellows who will live and work at the Academy this year. Earlier this month, PhD candidate Marco Rossati and artist Marco Raparelli arrived to join the AAR community and settle in to their respective study and studio.

One of the most prized traditions of the American Academy in Rome is its series of walks and talks, a collaborative enterprise where Fellows explore the city or (often) points further afield under expert direction by one or more group leaders.

The deadline for the next Rome Prize competition is November 1, 2010, with an extended deadline of November 15, 2010, for an additional fee.

The 25th of August 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Rome Summer Olympics.

Alex MacLean, a 2004 Fellow in landscape architecture, and David Friedman, 1989 Fellow in history of art and a 2004 Resident, met at the Academy in 2004.

The American Academy in Rome is proud to present The 1960 Rome Olympic Games Conference, a comprehensive forum commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics.

Kristina Neumann, a PhD candidate in the Classics Department of University of Cincinnati, offered the following reflections on her experiences in June and July as a member of the Academy’s Howard Comfort FAAR’29 Summer Program in Roman Pottery.

On Tuesday July 27, 2010 the American Academy in Rome and National Public Radio cohosted a public program on “The Future of News in the Digital World.”

Lisa Bielawa is the 2010 Frederic A. Juilliard/Walter Damrosch Rome Prize winner and the author of this tribute celebrating Martin Brody’s contributions to the American Academy in Rome.

The American Academy, in collaboration with its (very near) neighbors at the Giardino della Mostra dell’Acqua Paola, was a sponsor of the seventh edition of the multimedia event “n[ever]land: percorsi al digitale.”

Born in Florence in 1967, artist Flavio Favelli lives and works in Savigno, near Bologna.

Today—the first of July—formally starts the term of the new Director of the American Academy in Rome, Christopher Celenza (1994 Fellow), as well as the new Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Karl Kirchwey (1995 Fellow). Each arrives at AAR early next week.

It is difficult for some of us to accept that Carmela Franklin in a very short space of time will step down as Director of the American Academy after serving for five years. I had the good fortune of being present for the greater part of that period, and it is a privilege to write a few words of appreciation, as though my meager prose could do justice to her many and varied accomplishments.

On Wednesday and Thursday June 23–24, the Academy hosted a fast-moving international conference, “Freud’s Rome—Phobia and Phantasy”.

“Make sure you get a red chair. There are only 100 of them. It’s part of the experience.” That was how an American tourist helpfully explained it to new arrivals as they made it down the long set of embankment stairs at Rome’s Ponte Sisto. The experience in question was “Chance Encounter on the Tiber,” an urban revitalization plan combined with a musical performance composed expressly for outdoor public space. It all went down in two performances on the river walkway on the evening of Monday, May 31.

Since the Ides of March, Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel have been Henry Wolf Residents in Graphic Design at the American Academy in Rome. But it was just a few short weeks ago that Helfand—an author, columnist and lecturer on graphic design—took on the enormous task of commemorating in gouache on paper the entire AAR Fellows class of  2010, as well as more than a few members of the staff.

Over 360 guests attended the American Academy in Rome’s McKim Medal Gala, which honored fashion and art powerhouse, Miuccia Prada.

Visiting Scholar Nancy Austin spent February 2010 at AAR researching the material traces of the original Academy during its first twenty years.