SoHo Memory Project at CIMA
July 13, 2016
CIMA is pleased to host a special program with Yukie Ohta, founder of the SoHo Memory Project (SMP), a mobile museum, archive, and blog dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of SoHo as a New York City neighborhood.
Using unconventional media such as Viewmaster viewers, 3D-printed miniatures, and a smell station, The SoHo Memory Project exhibition chronicles the evolution of the area that is now called SoHo from farmland to high-end retail hub, charting its cycles of development and thus placing current day SoHo in the context of New York City’s history, focusing on the decades between 1960 and 1980, when SoHo was a vibrant artists community.
Visitors are invited to navigate the bustling urban environment of today’s SoHo while gaining a glimpse of its past, by interacting with this hands/eyes/ears/nose-on exhibit, taking away a multi-sensory impression of SoHo history and an understanding of the many ways in which SoHo’s cultural pioneers influenced the larger cultural landscape of New York City and the world. Visitors will also have an opportunity to contribute to the exhibition by sharing memories about their own neighborhoods to illustrate the ways in which SoHo is at once unique and a part of a larger landscape of worldwide communities.
This event marks the closing session of The SoHo Memory Project’s residency program with the SoHo Arts Network—a collaboration made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities. Yukie will talk about the SoHo Memory Project’s Portable Historical Society and her experiences over the previous six months, when she held public sessions at the Judd Foundation, the Drawing Center, the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation, and Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The SoHo Arts Network (SAN) was founded in 2014 by a group of non-profit arts organizations based in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood; it is dedicated to celebrating the rich history of SoHo’s unique creative community and to advancing the neighborhood’s continued cultural contributions to the lives of both residents and visitors. The network facilitates and reinforces collaboration between institutions and artistic leaders within the area, as well as the sharing of best practices. Founding Members include Apex Art, Art in General, Artists Space, Center for Architecture: AIA New York Chapter, Center for Italian Modern Art, Dia Art Foundation, The Drawing Center, The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, HarvestWorks, Judd Foundation (101 Spring Street), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Recess, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and the Swiss Institute.
Free; RSVP required.
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CIMA FIELD TRIP: DEPERO PUPPET PLAYS AT BARD SUMMERSCAPE
July 10, 2016
Join us for a special excursion to Bard Summerscape to see Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed, a surreal puppet fantasia based on four wild and beautiful plays written in 1917 by the Italian futurist artist Fortunato Depero, created by award-winning puppeteer Dan Hurlin.
Translated, designed, and directed by Dan Hurlin
Original Music by Dan Moses Schreier
Created by the ensemble
Produced by MAPP International Productions
WORLD PREMIERE
A wondrous elevator racing up to the heavens, a rich red woman with a single green eye, a baby smoking a giant cigar. . . . Award-winning puppet artist Dan Hurlin has created a surreal puppet noir based on four beautiful but disquieting plays written at the height of World War I by the Italian futurist artist Fortunato Depero. Hallucinogenic, fast-paced, and shot through with dark humor, these astonishing plays celebrate the energy and possibility of technology, while revealing the chilling parallels between their time and ours.
Hurlin, who lives and works in the Hudson Valley, discovered Depero’s scenarios during his Rome Prize Fellowship in Italy (2013-14). CIMA friends may remember that Dan first discussed this project, at the very beginning of his research, in a conversation at CIMA in the spring of 2014 during our first season — surrounded by the works of Fortunato Depero. He returned to CIMA in September 2015 to perform a reading of the plays, which have never before been translated into English, published, or performed. Hurlin’s unique fusion of puppetry, performance, music, and technology brings Depero’s images — sometimes whimsical, sometimes disturbing and violent — to life on stage for the first time. With a live score by Dan Moses Schreier and combining the latest technology, from 3-D printing to sound sampling, with centuries-old bunraku style puppetry, Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed is a rapturous and wholly original wild ride.
On Sunday July 10th, Hurlin is giving a pre-performance talk at 1pm. CIMA is pleased to offer a special group rate discount. Bard Summerscape will be offering bus service to and from Lincoln Center that day.
Suitable for ages 12 and up.
$40 group rate (Bard’s bus service ($40 R/T) should be booked separately via this link).
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CLOSING WEEK: EXTENDED GIORGIO MORANDI EXHIBITION HOURS
June 25 - 22, 2016
For the Final Week of the Giorgio Morandi exhibition, CIMA is open from 12pm to 8pm, Wednesday June 22 – Saturday June 25.
Entry is $10, free for CIMA Members and students with valid ID.
Please select your date and book an entry time slot: 12pm-4pm / 4pm-8pm.
Visitors are welcome to arrive at any point within the time slot selected.
BOOK YOUR VISIT NOW!
Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) is one of the most celebrated Italian artists of the 20th century. CIMA’s installation focuses on the artist’s rarely seen works from the 1930s — the decade when Morandi reached full artistic maturity and developed his distinctive pictorial language. These works until now have remained relatively little known outside of Italy. Featuring some 40 paintings, etchings, and drawings drawn from major public and private collections in Europe, the installation marks the first time in decades that many of these works have been on view in the US. A few works by contemporary artists Joel Meyerowitz, Tacita Dean, Matthias Schaller, and Wolfgang Laib are exhibited in conjunction with the installation, offering another means of approaching Morandi.
Read about the exhibition in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Giorgio Morandi Study Days
May 19, 2016
The Center for Italian Modern Art is pleased to host its Giorgio Morandi Study Days on May 19 and 20, 2016. Each year CIMA’s exhibition serves as a kind of platform or theme to spur new research and dialogue, through the work of our fellows and other scholars; CIMA’s Study Days provide an opportunity for the sharing of this new scholarship and an in-depth discussion of the artist’s work.
The exceptional presentation at CIMA of a substantial number of works by Giorgio Morandi from the 1930s offers an unprecedented opportunity for an in-depth analysis of the artist’s aesthetics, as well as of the intellectual and socio-political contexts of this decade. And the ready comparison with works from the rest of his career, which are also present in the show, allows for an examination highlighting particularities and continuities in Morandi’s practice.
This decade in the artist’s production is less known and less studied for a variety of reasons: Morandi’s painterly output in those years was limited, as printmaking became an integral part of his work following his appointment as professor of etching at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna in 1930; the majority of the paintings from the decade, moreover, entered Italian private collections, and they have rarely been exhibited abroad; finally, the historical context of their production, Fascist Italy, has long complicated scholarly approaches to this body of Morandi’s work.
$25 for both days, which includes lunch on May 19 and a reception on May 20.
$10 for CIMA Members and for students with valid ID from a degree-bearing institution.
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PROGRAM SCHEDULE (subject to change)
DAY ONE: MAY 19 (10am – 6pm)
10am Registration and Viewing of Giorgio Morandi exhibition
10.30am Welcome and Introduction
Panel 1: A Critical and Technical Overview of Morandi’s Paintings from the 1930s
Morandi in the 1930s: Reflections on Some of his Pictorial Masterpieces
Flavio Fergonzi, Professor, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
The role of underdrawing in Morandi’s work and some considerations on his painting technique
Gianluca Poldi, Conservation Scientist, Visual Art Centre, Università di Bergamo
Question & Answer
LUNCH & VIEWING OF GIORGIO MORANDI EXHIBITION (12.30pm – 2pm)
Panel 2: Collecting Morandi in 1930s Italy
Morandi’s Collectors in the 1930s: the case of Rino Valdameri
Rachele Ferrario, Accademia di Brera + University of Milan, IULM
Il Mio Morandi: The Luigi Magnani Collection at the Magnani Rocca Foundation
Alice Ensabella, Universita di Roma 1 La Sapienza, Universite de Grenoble
Question & Answer
BREAK (3:30pm – 4pm)
Panel 3: On Morandi’s Intellectual Context in the 1930s
A book on Morandi’s bedside table: “Saper Vedere” by Matteo Marangoni
Laura Mattioli, CIMA President
Morandi and Puro-visibilismo: a Link between “Ethics and Expression”? (1930-43)
Lucia Piccioni, CIMA 2015-16 Fellow
Posthuman Humanism: On Morandi’s Bottles (and Proust’s Spoons)
Alessandro Giammei, Society of Fellows, Princeton University
Question & Answer
DAY TWO: MAY 20 (1:30pm – 6pm, followed by reception)
1.30pm Registration / Giorgio Morandi exhibition viewing/ Welcome
Panel 4: Morandi’s North American Reception
2pm
Quivering and Shadowy: Morandi’s American fortunes in the 1930s
Nicol Mocchi, CIMA 2015-16 Fellow
Conquering the Paris of Appalachia: Morandi’s Participation in the Carnegie International Prize
Nicola Lucchi, CIMA 2015-16 Fellow
Enter Morandi. The Reception of Giorgio Morandi’s Work in the 1950s in New York.
Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, CIMA 2015-16 Fellow
Question & Answer
BREAK (4pm – 4.30pm)
Panel 5: Artists Looking at Morandi
Morandi and His Photographers
Alessia Masi, Museo Morandi, Bologna
Morandi and Contemporary Artists
Donna De Salvo, Deputy Director for International Initiatives and Senior Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
Question & Answer
CLOSING RECEPTION (6pm – 8pm)
Margherita Sarfatti
May 17, 2016
Join us for an evening of conversation about Margherita Sarfatti, journalist, critic, art patron, and founder of the group Novecento, who profoundly influenced Italian art and cultural life in the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Venice to a wealthy Jewish family, she was notorious above all as a mistress and biographer of Mussolini. CIMA welcomes the art historian Rachele Ferrario, on the occasion of the publication of her new book, Margherita Sarfatti: La Regina dell’arte fascista (Mondadori, 2015).
Ferrario’s new book, currently receiving much attention in Italy, re-examines Sarfatti’s role as a patron of modern art and as a primary architect of propaganda for the Fascist regime. Based on extensive archival research, it paints a portrait of a woman’s whose Milanese salon was a hotbed for the avant-garde, frequented by leading Futurist and Novecento artists, intellectuals, and poets like Gabriele d’Annunzio.
Ferrario will be joined by Sarfatti’s granddaughter, Magalì Sarfatti Larson, Professor Emeritus at Temple University, in a conversation moderated by CIMA 2015-16 Fellow Lucia Piccioni. Copies of the book will be available for sale.
Rachele Ferrario, an art historian and critic, teaches at the Accademia di Brera and at the University of Milan IULM. She publishes regularly in the Corriere della Sera, and has written several books, including Giulio Paolini: Un viaggio a distanza (2009); Regina di quadri (2010), the first biography of Palma Bucarelli; and Le signore dell’arte (2012), a group portrait of Carol Rama, Carla Accardi, Giosetta Fioroni, and Marisa Merz.
CIMA in DC: Giorgio Morandi at the Embassy of Italy
May 11, 2016
For those fans of CIMA living in Washington, D.C., we hope you will join us at the Embassy of Italy on May 11th for a special illustrated program about Giorgio Morandi.
Unlocking Giorgio Morandi’s Mysteries: A Personal Perspective
Laura Mattioli in conversation with Renato Miracco
The Embassy of Italy and the Italian Culture Institute in Washington, D.C., welcome Laura Mattioli, the founder/president of the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) in New York City, where the exhibition “Giorgio Morandi” is currently on view through June 25th. Mattioli’s father Gianni Mattioli was one of Morandi’s principal collectors, and together with her father she regularly visited the artist when she was a child. She will be in conversation with Cultural Attache Renato Miracco discussing her personal recollections of the artist, her father’s relations with Morandi, and the exhibition currently at CIMA. Featuring c. 40 paintings that have rarely been seen in the United States, the exhibition focuses on Morandi’s little known works from the 1930s—a seminal and yet relatively unexplored decade for the artist.
CIMA’s director Heather Ewing will offer a brief introduction to the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), a non-profit research and exhibition center established in 2013 to promote new scholarship and dialogue around Italian twentieth-century art—through its annual exhibition, an international fellowship program, and a wide variety of public programming. The Giorgio Morandi exhibition is the third exhibition at CIMA, following seasons devoted to the Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero (1892-1960) and the Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso (1858-1928).
Ambasciata d’Italia
3000 Whitehaven Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C., 20008
RSVP required through the website of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Washington DC.
Doors open at 6pm and close at 6:55pm. Please bring ID. There is very limited parking in the area.
Giorgio Morandi Open House
May 07, 2016
On the occasion of Frieze NY and NYCxDesign, CIMA is pleased to offer a free Giorgio Morandi Open House on Saturday May 7th from 10am to 5pm.
Come enjoy the GIORGIO MORANDI exhibition, in CIMA’s exquisite and intimate loft setting. CIMA’s installation, its third, focuses on Morandi’s rarely seen works from the 1930s — the decade when the artist reached full artistic maturity and developed his distinctive pictorial language. These works until now have remained relatively little known outside of Italy. Featuring some 40 paintings, etchings, and drawings drawn from major public and private collections, the installation marks the first time in decades that many of these works have been on view in the US. A few works by contemporary artists Tacita Dean, Wolfgang Laib,Joel Meyerowitz, and Matthias Schaller are exhibited as well, offering another means of approaching Morandi.
CIMA is conceived more as a home, in order to offer an intimate art viewing experience, different from what you might find in a typical museum or gallery. On our regular Friday and Saturday visits, the groups are limited to 15 people and you are invited to have an espresso, talk with our Fellows, and linger afterward. Our exhibitions last the entire academic year, from October to June, to encourage repeat visits and prolonged study, to see these works in different lights and different times of day.
MEMBERS ONLY: MORANDI AT THE MoMA PRINT ROOM
May 01, 2016
CIMA Members are invited to join us for a visit to the Museum of Modern Art’s Prints and Drawing Study Center for an exclusive viewing of Giorgio Morandi’s etchings. MoMA boasts a rich holding of some 19 prints, many of which were acquired early in the history of the museum, around the time of the landmark Italian XX Century Art exhibition in 1949. We will be accompanied by CIMA Founder Laura Mattioli.
THIS PROGRAM IS FULL.
Not a CIMA Member? Join us! Members receive free admission to CIMA, access outside of regular public hours, a copy of the annual catalogue, and invitations to exclusive events and receptions.
MEMBERS ONLY: PRIVATE TOUR OF MEDARDO ROSSO TEN BRONZES AT PETER FREEMAN, INC.
April 29, 2016
CIMA members are cordially invited for a private after hours visit to see the new Medardo Rosso exhibition, Ten Bronzes, at Peter Freeman, Inc. We will be accompanied by Peter Freeman and Amedeo Porro, co-organizers of the exhibition, and Danila Rosso Marsure, great-granddaughter of the artist. Rosso expert Sharon Hecker, author of a forthcoming biography on the artist, will give an introduction to Rosso and his work in bronze.
Rosso unlike most of his contemporaries, mostly cast his own bronzes. No two casts are the same, indeed no two casts were meant to be the same. The ten works included in this show span Rosso’s entire career. Between 1882 and 1906, Rosso produced around 35 sculptural subjects; Sagrestano and La Ruffiana are among the first, both from his early Milan period, and Ecce Puer was his last subject (a plaster version of this subject was on view at CIMA last year)—all three of these works are represented in this exhibition, as are two significant casts of the same subject, Malato all’ospedale (1889). There are also two subjects which belong to the least known part of Rosso’s work, his copies from antique and renaissance sculpture, San Francesco and Niccolò da Uzzano, both of these quite faithful renderings after Donatello.
Medardo Rosso was the subject of CIMA’s second season. To explore more on the artist, check out the videos produced by our fellows last year!
Drawing Night at CIMA
April 19, 2016
Join us for a special Drawing Night, in collaboration with the New York Studio School, opening CIMA’s unique and intimate setting to students and artists and encouraging them to interact with, analyze, and draw inspiration from Giorgio Morandi’s works. Painter Graham Nickson, Dean of the NYSS and originator of that institution’s famed Drawing Marathon, returns to CIMA to lead a second such program. He will open with reflections on drawing, close study, and Morandi. Materials will be provided by the legendary Italian papermaker Fabriano, maker of the artist paper that Morandi himself used. Currently celebrating the 750th anniversary of papermaking in Fabriano Italy, the company has also donated graphite pencils from the traditional Austrian manufacturer Cretacolor.
Limited to 30 participants. Priority given to CIMA Members and current NYSS students, and those who did not have the chance to participate in the November Drawing Night. $20 contribution requested for those not affiliated with either institution.
Proposed Schedule:
6pm Registration
6:10 Remarks by Graham Nickson
6:30-7:30 Drawing Time
7:30 Discussion
8pm Conclusion of Program
