Italian Fellows Retrospective

Project location: Italy, Rome
Project start date: October 2010 - Project end date: March 2011
Project number: 2010-60
Beneficiary: AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME

The purpose of this project funded by the Nando Peretti Foundation is to make the Italian Fellowships in the Arts at the American Academy in Rome more widely known in Italy, to generate even more support and applications.
The project will allow:
2. A gallery exhibit of the work of Italian fellows in the arts in the AAR gallery to open on January 20, 2011
3. Documentation of this exhibit and the work of all the Italian fellows during the last five years in the form of:
a. Online documentation of the January 2011 exhibit
b. Feature stories about the Italian Affiliated Fellows on the American Academy in Rome website
4. a press campaign on the Italian fellowships and the academy, starting in summer 2010 

 please click on the following link to download the files:

EXHIBITION OF WORK BY ITALIAN AFFILIATED FELLOWS JANUARY 20 - MARCH 3, 2011 (press release)

 

Beginning in the early 1950s the Academy offered fellowships for Italians under the aegis of the Fulbright Commission, a program that was phased out by the Commission after 50 years of unqualified success. More than ninety Italians held this scholarship and the list of their names constitutes a Who's Who of distinguished professors, curators, museum directors, and other cultural luminaries. It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of Italian Fulbright Fellows at the Academy, or the loss when the program ended.

Even before the program ended, Academy Trustees, Friends and Fellows - including Italian Fulbright Fellows - came together to find a way to bring Italian fellows back into the Academy community. By fall, 2005, the Academy was able to inaugurate a new program of fellowships for Italian artists and scholars and an exchange with the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, the latter arranged in collaboration with Salvatore Settis, who had been Italian Fulbright Fellow at the Academy in 1967-68. By 2006 sufficient funds had been secured to offer Academy fellowships to Italian artists as well.
American Academy fellowships awarded to Italian artists and scholars are modeled on the Rome Prize fellowships. The winners receive a stipend, living accommodations (a private room with bath), a place to work (a study for the scholar or a studio for the artist), meals on weekdays and mid-day Saturday, 24-hour a day/7 days a week access to the Academy's library, and full participation in a full schedule of programs including concerts, conferences, exhibitions, lectures, readings and symposia as well as the opportunity to participate in travel programs. The most important benefit of the fellowship is the company of others at the American Academy in Rome, the mentorship of the more senior artists and scholars in the community during the year as Residents, as well as that of the senior staff: the Director, Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge, and the Drue Heinz Librarian.
The experience of Italian Academy Fellows through the years has been quite strong: no fewer than one dozen have been elected members of the Accademia dei Lincei. All reports from these former Italian fellows indicate that their time at the Academy remains among their fondest memories, for the intellectually stimulating environment, for the friendships, for the great amount of work accomplished, and often enough for the new perspectives that they gained on their work and lives. Walter Cupperi, a brilliant young art historian at the Scuola Normale di Pisa, said of his experience at the American Academy in 2003-4, "The friendly atmosphere of the Academy provided an ideal framework within which to improve my linguistic knowledge and my understanding of American mentalities and academic life. The other Italian fellow (Andrea Volpe, an architect from Florence) and I shared with great enthusiasm the challenge to communicate something in exchange, which we did by organizing site visits (both within Rome and elsewhere in Italy), Italian dinners, and videotape projections, besides engaging in countless spontaneous conversations."


The Nando Peretti Foundation has awarded a grant to make the Italian Fellowships at the American Academy in Rome more widely known in Italy and abroad, in order to achieve the following goals:
1. To increase awareness among Italian artists of the opportunity of a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome
2. To encourage more Italian artists -- and especially designers -- to apply for these fellowships
3. To demonstrate the importance of these fellowships to Italian corporations and individuals so that they will participate each spring in the McKim Medal Gala, the proceeds of which support fellowships for Italian artists and scholars.

1. The project consists in two parts:

a. Exhibition in the AAR Gallery, opening in January 2011, of:
i. Artistic works of Italian fellows in the arts over the last five years
ii. Listening stations presenting the works of the two Italian composers over the last five years who have been at the American Academy in Rome

b. Documentation of success of five years:
i. On-line documentation of the January 2011 exhibit
ii. Feature stories about the Italian Affiliated Fellows, including the Elsa Peretti Italian Affiliated Fellow, on the American Academy in Rome website

2. Involvement of the Italian fellows in the arts:

a. the AAR will invite all the Italian arts fellows from the previous five years to exhibit their work or make available their music in the January exhibit.
b. The organization will invite these Fellows also to be present for the opening of the exhibit.
c. The AAR launched a press campaign in summer 2010 to make the Italian and American public aware of these Italian fellows at the American Academy in Rome, and their achievements.

The Italian fellows are:

2005-2006
Anna Anguissola, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Marco Cavarzere, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Sean S. Anderson, FAAR'05, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow

2006-2007:
Manfredi Beninati, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Francesca Cappella, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Massimo Gezzi, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Maria Lidova, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Peter A. Mazur, FAAR'06, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Sissi, Italian Fellow in the Arts

2007-2008:
Paolo Marini, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Guido Mazzoni, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Gianmaria Sforza Fogliani, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Nico Vascellari, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Lisa Marie Mignone, FAAR'07, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow

2008-2009:
Fabrio Guidetti, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Carola Bonfili, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Filippo Perocco, Marcello Lotti Affiliated Fellow
Luca Vitone, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Rachel Van Dusen, FAAR'08, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow

2009-2010:
Chiara Bernazzani, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Alessandro Poggio, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Emanuele Casale, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Flavio Favelli, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Luca Nostri, Italian Fellow in the Arts
Matthew Notarian, FAAR'09, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow

2010-2011:
Marco Rossati, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Danica Pusic, AAR/Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Exchange Fellow
Marco Raparelli, Italian Fellow in Arts
Paola Pivi, Italian Fellow in Arts
Giovanna Latis, Elsa Peretti Italian Fellow in Design

3. Strategies of the proposal:
a. To implement the project is an "urgent" need because AAR needs to mark five years of the success of the Italian fellows so that they and the importance of this fellowship opportunity for emerging Italian artists and scholars will be much more widely known in Italy.
b. The exhibition, opening in January 2011, is timed to secure widespread attention, and enhance AAR efforts to solicit participation in the McKim Medal Gala and support for the fellowships in the coming years.
c. The project makes widely known the support of Italian and international corporations, foundations and philanthropists for fellowships for Italian artists and scholars at the American Academy in Rome.
d. The American Acedemy in Rome will be pleased to honor Elsa Peretti in this project by calling the exhibition at the American Academy in Rome Italian Fellows Retrospective.

The timing of this project would be:
a. Opening of exhibit on January 20, 2011
b. Online documentation beginning January 20, 2011
c. Exhibit stays open until March 3, 2011

Press campaign to make the Italian fellowships better known in Italy lasts from summer 2010 through the application deadline of February 21, 2011, the announcement of the winners later in the spring, and the participation of the Elsa Peretti Italian Affiliated Fellow in the American Academy's evening of Open Studios in May/June 2011




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