Gaetano Salvemini and Italians in Exile: A Conversation

April 13, 2016

Join us for a special evening of conversation around the presentation of a new publication, Gaetano Salvemini: Lettere Americane, 1927-1949 (Donzelli Editore, 2015), with the editor, Renato Camurri, and Professors Romy Golan, Ernest Ialongo, and Stanislao Pugliese. Moderating the evening will be Raffaele Bedarida, a 2013-14 CIMA Fellow.

 Gaetano Salvemini: Lettere Americane, 1927-1949 collects previously unpublished letters written by the Italian antifascist historian and political activist Gaetano Salvemini during his years of exile in the United States. Contrary to traditional accounts, which depicted Salvemini’s exile as a period of isolation dedicated solely to scholarly research, Camurri’s volume reveals his uninterrupted importance as a public figure. Not only was he active as a teacher and opinion maker at Harvard University and fully integrated into the intellectual community in Cambridge, he also played a central role in the construction of a network of antifascist European intellectuals in the wider United States. Salvemini, therefore, emerges as a model figure of a European exile in America.

Camurri’s volume inaugurates a new series, Italiani dall’Esilio, published by Donzelli Editore with the support of Paolo Marzotto, which is dedicated to exploring the history of Italian exiles in the American continent.

Participants:

Renato Camurri is associate professor of Contemporary History at the University of Verona, Italy. He has conducted extensive research on nineteenth-century Italian and European political and intellectual history. In the last few years he has been involved in a large project dedicated to the history of exile and cultural migrations in the twentieth century. He is recipient of a Lauro De Bosis Fellowship at Harvard University, a Fullbright Research Scholar Fellowship, and a Fernard Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. He is former research fellow at EHESS, Paris and frequent Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University. He is the founder and co-chair of Annual Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture, Harvard University. His most recent publications include: L’Europa in esilio. La migrazione degli intellettuali verso le Americhe tra le due guerre, special issue of the journal Memoria e Ricerca, 31 (2009); Mussolini’s Gift. Exiles from Fascist Italy, a special issue of Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 5 (2010); and two monographs, Franco Modigliani L’Italia vista dall’America. Riflessioni e battaglie di un esule, (Turin: Bollati e Boringhieri, 2010); Max Ascoli. Antifascista, intellettuale, giornalista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2012). He is working on a new book, Between two worlds: the exile of Italian intellectuals in the United States (1922-1945)

Romy Golan is Professor of 20^th Century Art at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France Between the Wars and Muralnomad: The Paradox of Wall Painting, Europe 1927-1957 (Yale University Press, 1995 and 2009). Among her recent publications are: “Vitalità del Negativo/Negativo della Vitalità,” October no. 150, (Winter 2014); “The Scene of a Disappearance” in Giosetta Fioroni: L’Argento (The Drawing Center, New York, 2013); “Flashbacks and Eclipses in Italian Art in the 1960s,” Grey Room 49 (Fall 2012). Her essay “Campo Urbano: Episodes from an Unwritten History of Participation” is forthcoming in Bruno Munari, Peter Matilde Nardelli and Pier Paolo Antonello eds. (Peter Lang Pub. 2016).

Ernest Ialongo is Assistant Professor of History at Hostos Community College in The City University of New York. He holds a PhD in Modern European History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and an MA and BA in History from York University (Toronto, Canada). He is the co-editor of New Directions in Italian and Italian American History: Selected Essays from the Conference in Honor of Philip Cannistraro (2013), the co-editor of a special section of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies entitled “Reconsidering Futurism” (September 2013), and the author of various articles dealing with Futurism, politics, and culture in liberal and Fascist Italy. He has presented his work at a variety of national and international venues, and is currently the Chair of the Columbia University Seminar in Modern Italian Studies. Most recently, he published the book Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: The Artist and his Politics with Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (2015).

Stanislao G. Pugliese is professor of modern European history and the Queensboro Unico Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies at Hofstra University.  He is a former research fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Oxford University, Harvard University and the Institute for the Study of the Resistance in Naples.  He is the author, editor or translator of a dozen books on Italian and Italian American history.  His book, Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone, won the Premio Flaiano in Italy; the Frankel Prize in London and the Marraro Prize from the American Historical Association. He is working on a new book, Dancing on a Volcano in Naples: Scenes From the Siren City.

Raffaele Bedarida holds a PhD from the Art History department of the CUNY Graduate Center, New York and an MA from the University of Siena, Italy. A former CIMA fellow, he is Adjunct Professor at Cooper Union and regularly lectures on modern and contemporary art topics at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and MoMA. He is the author of a monograph in Italian, Bepi Romagnoni. Il Nuovo Racconto (Silvana Editoriale, 2005) and editor of books on contemporary artists, Reuven Israel (Montrasio Arte, 2009); Susanna Pozzoli (Allemandi, 2010); and Mariagrazia Pontorno (Charta, 2013). His monograph Corrado Cagli. Gli Anni Americani (1937-1947), in press, will be published by Donzelli as part of the series “Italiani dall’Esilio.” He is currently working on his manuscript, Export / Import: The Promotion of Contemporary Italian Art in the United States, 1935-1969.

MEMBERS ONLY: Private tour of “Unfinished” at the Met Breuer

April 12, 2016

CIMA Members are invited to join us for an exclusive tour, outside of public hours, of “Unfinished: Thoughts Made Visible” at the new Met Breuer, led by the exhibition curators Andrea Bayer, Jayne Wrightsman Curator in the Department of European Paintings, and Kelly Baum, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. This exhibition, which inaugurates the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s occupancy of the iconic Marcel Breuer Whitney Museum building on Madison Avenue, explores a key concept of artistic practice: the question of when an artwork is finished. Featuring works from the Renaissance to the present, the exhibition draws on the Met’s rich holdings as well as important international loans. Of particular interest to CIMA Members will be three Medardo Rosso sculptures that were here in New York last year as part of CIMA’s second season.

THIS EVENT 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.

ARTIST TALK: MILTON GLASER

March 23, 2016

Join us for a special evening with graphic design legend Milton Glaser, who studied with Giorgio Morandi as a Fulbright scholar in the 1950s. Glaser co-founded the revolutionary Pushpin Studios in 1954, created New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968, and formed his eponymous design studio in 1974. Designer of the famous I love NY logo, the iconic Bob Dylan poster, and myriad other projects, Glaser continues today to produce a prolific amount of work in many fields of design. He has had one-man shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, and in 2009 was the first graphic designer to receive the National Medal of the Arts award. Glaser will be in conversation with CIMA Fellows Matilde Guidelli-Guidi and Nicola Lucchi.

Become a CIMA Member to be the first to learn of upcoming programs.

Armory Week Open House

March 05, 2016

In honor of Armory Arts Week, CIMA is offering a free open house on Saturday March 5th from 11am to 5pm. RSVP is required. (If you are part of the fair and would like to come before 11am opening time, please call for an appointment.)

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.

ARTIST TALK: TACITA DEAN IN CONVERSATION WITH MASSIMILIANO GIONI

March 03, 2016

MISSED THE TALK? WATCH THE VIDEO!

Join us for a special evening with artist Tacita Dean, on the occasion of the launch of her new publication Buon Fresco, related to her eponymous film from 2014 — in which the artist filmed details of Giotto’s frescos in the Upper Basilica in Assisi using a macro lens, in order, she said, to have the perspective of the artist himself. Frescoes are meant to be seen from a distance, so this book provides a revelatory view of the minutiae and sophistication of Giotto’s brushstrokes, which appears to anticipate the future canon of mark making in Western painting.

Dean will be in conversation with New Museum Artistic Director Massimiliano Gioni. The discussion will focus on Dean’s Buon Fresco publication and film, and will also touch upon earlier films made in Giorgio Morandi’s studio in Bologna. Commissioned and produced by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Tacita Dean’s Still Life (2009) and Day for Night (2009) were made in Morandi’s studio on Via Fondazza in Bologna, where the artist lived and worked for 50 years. Photographs related to the 16mm black and white film Still Life are on view at CIMA as part of the Giorgio Morandi exhibition; the film Day for Night will be shown during the evening as part of the talk.

Copies of Buon Fresco, which is published by MACK as a limited edition of 1000 copies + 50 APs, and as a specially bound edition of 100 copies + 10APs, including a signed unique print from Dean’s eponymous film, will be available for purchase and signing by the author.

Program Schedule

6pm – 6.30 = Arrival and opportunity to view CIMA’s Giorgio Morandi exhibition
6.30 – 7.30 = Conversation with Tacita Dean and Massimiliano Gioni
7.30 – 8pm = reception, book signing of Buon Fresco and viewing of Giorgio Morandi

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New York Studio School Lecture: Unlocking Morandi’s Mysteries

February 24, 2016

Unlocking Morandi’s Mysteries: A Personal Perspective

Join us offsite at the New York Studio School for a special evening looking at Giorgio Morandi from a personal perspective. Laura Mattioli, CIMA’s founder and president, will talk about her recollections of the artist and her family’s long history with Morandi, in conversation with Vivien Greene, Senior Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and a member of CIMA’s advisory committee.

This talk forms part of the New York Studio School’s regular evening lecture series. The NYSS was founded in 1963 by a group of art students seeking an art education focused on “daily continuity of study through work in the studio.” The School occupies eight historic buildings on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, once owned by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and which served as the original home of the Whitney Museum from the time of its creation in 1929 until 1954.

6.30pm at the New York Studio School at 8 West 8th Street.

NYC ART HISTORY FELLOWS NETWORK GATHERING

February 01, 2016

Are you a current or former art history fellow in the New York City region? Come to CIMA on Monday February 1 for the first 2016 gathering of the NYC Art History Fellows Network! Join us for an opportunity to get to know colleagues from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Morgan Library & Museum, and many other institutions in the tri-state area. CIMA’s fellows will be on hand to give tours of the Giorgio Morandi exhibition. Enjoy a glass of prosecco courtesy of CIMA sponsor Nino Franco Prosecco, presented by Terlato Wines.

For more information on the network, join our LinkedIn group.

Please RSVP here.

Artist’s Talk: Lawrence Carroll

January 20, 2016

Join us for an Artist’s Talk by the American painter Lawrence Carroll. Long an admirer of Morandi, Carroll will talk about his work and share his thoughts on the artist and the paintings on view at CIMA. There will be an opportunity to view the Giorgio Morandi exhibition during the evening.

GIORGIO MORANDI MEMBERS ONLY EVENING

January 14, 2016

January 14, between 5 and  8pm, CIMA Members are invited to see the Giorgio Morandi exhibition and enjoy a prosecco aperitivo courtesy of Nino Franco Prosecco and Terlato Wines!

MEMBERS ONLY – GIORGIO MORANDI SPECIAL OPEN HOUSE

December 17, 2015

CIMA Members are invited to  see the Giorgio Morandi exhibition and enjoy hot cider and cookies to celebrate the Holidays!

RSVP required at: info@italianmodernart.org