MEMBERS ONLY TOUR OF MODERNISMS: IRANIAN, TURKISH, AND INDIAN HIGHLIGHTS at GREY ART GALLERY
October 23, 2019
On Wednesday October 23, 2019, CIMA invites members on a private tour of NYU’s Grey Art Gallery.
“Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Grey Collection” explores art from the 1960s and early ’70s from Iran, Turkey, and India via selections from the unparalleled Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art at New York University. Featuring approximately 25 to 35 paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints from each country, the exhibition will shed light on how Iranian, Turkish, and Indian artists created works that drew on their specific heritages while also engaging in global discourses around key issues of modernity. Illuminating our understanding of art made outside the long-dominant North American–Western European axis, the exhibition also features historic exhibition brochures, invitations, photographs, correspondence, journals, and invoices from the Abby Weed Grey Papers housed in the NYU Archives. “Modernisms” will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
Among the artists on view, the work of Parviz Tanavoli, one of Marino Marini’s students, will be of particular interest for those who have already seen CIMA’s annual exhibition centered around the female nudes produced by the Italian sculptor.
Please note: CIMA members will receive an email invitation in our newsletter, via MailChimp to RSVP for this event.
The exhibition will be closing on December 7, so do not miss this opportunity to join an expert-lead tour of the Grey Art Gallery.
If you are feeling generous and you are able, please consider making a donation in person or here. As a public non-profit organization, CIMA works fervently to make such exclusive and exceptional events available to our members. Any amount will facilitate our ability to continue to offer our members access to one-of-a-kind private events at the premier art institutions across New York City!
Not a CIMA member…? BECOME A MEMBER TODAY!
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.
Photo credit: Nicholas Papananias, Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection, on view at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, September 10–December 7, 2019.
CIMA WILL OPEN TO THE PUBLIC ON OCTOBER 17, 2019
October 16 - 17, 2019
Our 2019–2020 season will start Thursday, October 17, 2019. This year CIMA will be open to the public Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays: open hours from 2pm to 6pm on all three days, and fellow-led tours at 11am and 2pm on Fridays and Saturdays only.
Reservations for viewing of Marino Marini: Arcadian Nudes are open now.
MARINO MARINI: SCULPTURAL REPRESENTATION OF THE NUDE
October 16, 2019
Marino Marini chose the nude as one of his favorite subjects: while in the Thirties he focused primarily on the male nude, in the Forties his attention shifted to female nudes. During the Thirties, in Italy, the artistic discussion on the theme of the nude–with a focus on sculptural nudes in particular–was defined mostly in dialogue with ancient sculptures; archaeologists highlighted the artistic and moral superiority of the male nude versus the female nude. However, during World War II and in the immediate post-war period this paradigm of values changed rapidly. The female nude was now deemed more suited to the representation of pure forms that came to fashion with the triumph of abstract art; moreover, its anti-heroic condition, in which sensuality and tenderness met, appeared almost as an allegory of the human condition after the tragedy of the war. This talk examines Marino Marini’s evolution in the years between 1930 – 1950, focusing on his nudes–male and female–and putting into dialogue his research on this subject with the Italian and international context within which he worked.
Flavio Fergonzi was born in Pavia in 1963. He teaches the History of Modern Art at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. His research interests include the sculpture of the nineteenth century (Rodin and Michelangelo. A Study of Artistic Inspiration. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997) and of the twentieth century (L’arte monumentale negli anni del fascismo. Arturo Martini e il Monumento al Duca d’Aosta. Turin, Allemandi: 1992, with Maria Teresa Roberto). He has also worked on the history of twentieth-century art criticism (Lessicalità visive dell’Italiano. La critica dell’arte contemporanea 1945-1960. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 1996), and on Italian twentieth-century Avant-Garde (The Mattioli Collection: Masterpieces of the Italian Avant-Garde. Milan: Skira, 2003; Filologia del 900. Modigliani Sironi Morandi Martini. Milan: Electa, 2013). He is currently studying Jasper Johns’ influence on Italian Art of 1950s and 1960s.
CURZIO MALAPARTE: The cruelty of Literature Book Launch
September 24, 2019
CIMA is thrilled to host a book launch and conversation with the author of “Curzio Malaparte: The cruelty of Literature,” Franco Baldasso and NYRB translator and novelist Jenny McPhee.
Curzio Malaparte is today at the center of an international debate reappraising his work as a key figure of European modernity, rediscovering his books, cinema and theater. The scandals of Malaparte’s biography overshadowed the exceptional versatility of an author famous to architects worldwide for his arresting Casa Malaparte in Capri as well as for his heretic accounts of WWII in bestsellers such as Kaputt (1944) and The Skin (1949). Beginning with his controversial contribution to fascism and his outstanding reports from the war fronts, Baldasso’s book interprets the cruelty of Malaparte’s literature as a critical response to the collapse of European civilization and the failure of post-WWI revolutionary ideals that ended up fueling totalitarian regimes. In conversation with novelist Jenny McPhee, who translated Malaparte’s The Kremlin Ball for NYRB Classics, Baldasso will further discuss the unexplored visual impact of Malaparte’s work: not only his house in Capri created with Adalberto De Libera, but also the rarely screened movie The Forbidden Christ (1951) and his photos as a war correspondent from Ethiopia to Ukraine.
Curzio Malaparte, la letteratura crudele (Carocci, 2019) is the first study on the Italian author to concentrate on his artistic production beyond the scandals of his life as a public intellectual. The book interprets Malaparte’s crucial period 1937-1951 in the context of the tragic failure of totalitarian regimes to establish new political religions. The clash between modern technology and old humanist worldviews takes central stage in Malaparte’s unique testimony of the downfall of European civilization, from literature to cinema.
Franco Baldasso is Assistant Professor and Director of the Italian Program at Bard College, NY. He is the 2019 Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies from the American Academy in Rome. His main research interests are 20th century literature, art and intellectual history, the complex relations between Fascism and Modernism, and the idea of the Mediterranean in modern aesthetics. He authored a book on Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, Il cerchio di gesso. Primo Levi narratore e testimone (Bologna 2007) and the volume Curzio Malaparte, la letteratura crudele. Kaputt, La pelle e la caduta della civiltà europea (Carocci, 2019). He is currently revising a new manuscript titled: “Against Redemption: Literary Dissent during the Transition from Fascism to Democracy in Italy.”
Jenny McPhee is the Director of the Center for Applied Liberal Arts at NYU’s School of Professional Studies where she is a Clinical Assistant Professor teaching in the MS in Translation. She is the author of the novels The Center of Things, No Ordinary Matter, and A Man of No Moon, and she co-authored Girls: Ordinary Girls and Their Extraordinary Pursuits. Her translations from the Italian include books by the authors Natalia Ginzburg, Primo Levi, Giacomo Leopardi, Curzio Malaparte, Anna Maria Ortese, Paolo Maurensig, and Pope John Paul II. She recently taught literary translation at Princeton University as a visiting lecturer.
This event is free and open to the public.
CLOSING DAY: LAST CHANCE TO VIEW OUR CURRENT EXHIBITION
June 01, 2019
Join us on Saturday, June 1, the last day of Metaphysical Masterpieces 1916–1920: Morandi, Sironi, and Carrà, for a special Open House! Don’t miss this final chance to enjoy a visit of this “beautiful and enlightening show” (Lance Esplund, The Wall Street Journal) in CIMA’s unique and intimate setting.
Organized in collaboration with Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), this exhibition is CIMA’s first group show and offers to the American and international public an extraordinary opportunity to view early works by Giorgio Morandi that are rarely displayed. Other highlights include a foundational Metaphysical painting by Giorgio de Chirico as well as important works by Carlo Carrà and Mario Sironi. All of them were produced in a very short, yet pivotal, span of years, between Futurism and the so-called “return to order” of the Twenties. CIMA’s exhibition and public programs aim to illuminate the cultural and socio-political contexts in which Metaphysical painting was born and developed, broadening our understanding of this provocative yet short-lived style.
It is time to say goodbye: these paintings will soon be housed at the Brera Modern – which is scheduled to open in 2020 as Milan’s newest public institution devoted to modern art – and will likely not be exhibited in the United States for a long time after, and never again will the works in this exhibition be displayed together as they are in this unique show.
The Open House will conclude with a light aperitivo reception with CIMA’s staff.
REGISTER HERE!
An Evening of Poetry and Music Inspired by Metaphysical Art
May 30, 2019
In celebration of the end of our season, join us for a special final event of poetry and music inspired by Metaphysical Painting. Presented in collaboration with Innuan and A Public Space, for the first time at CIMA we will host a live music performance intertwined with a dramatic reading of Giorgio de Chirico’s poems, written from the 1910s through the 1970s, recently translated into English by celebrated American poet Stefania Heim.
Before and after the performance, make sure to toast with us with a glass of prosecco to salute another season of modern Italian art in NYC!
This special program will have discounted tickets for members and students.
Registration required.
RESERVE A SEAT!
Program schedule:
6 – 6.30pm – registration, aperitivo, and viewing of Metaphysical Masterpieces
6:30 – 7.45pm – Music and Poetry Program (Poems by de Chirico read by Stefania Heim; Music by Alessandro Rolla, Niccolò Paganini, Stefano Gervasoni, George Frideric Handel, Roxana Pavel Halvorsen, performed by Inmo Yang and Dana Kelley).
8pm – evening concludes
For more information:
Stefania Heim is the author of the poetry collections A Table That Goes On for Miles (Switchback Books, 2014) and HOUR BOOK (Ahsahta Books, 2019). Geometry of Shadows, her book of translations of metaphysical artist Giorgio de Chirico’s Italian poems, will be published in a bilingual edition by A Public Space Books in May. Stefania is the recipient of a 2019 Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Copies of the book will be available for sale.
The mission of Innuan is to bring positive and transformative experience, creating a fully immersive experience for all patrons of the arts. They believe that combining music and art can create a visual, sonic and spatial experience all its own – “a symphony of senses.” For the past two years, they have been proud to present numerous collaborations with different art institutions and galleries including Cornell University Johnson Museum of Art, Columbia University Zukerman Institute, and Pratt Institute Gallery House.
Inmo Yang violin | Winner of 2015 Paganini International Violin Competition
Dana Kelley viola | Winner of Sphinx, member of Argus String Quartet
Korean violinist Inmo Yang has been hailed by the Boston Globe for his “…seamless technique and a tender warmth of tone,” combined with “…an ability to project an engaging sense of inner sincerity through his playing.” In March 2015, he won the 54th International Violin Competition “Premio Paganini” in Genoa, Italy, marking the first time–since 2006–that the Paganini Competition jury awarded First Prize. He also garnered the following special prizes: Youngest finalist, Best performance of the contemporary original piece, and Performance most appreciated by the audience–confirming The Violin Channel’s praise of Inmo as “one of the new generation’s most talented young string virtuosi.”
Violist Dana Kelley has been a top prizewinner in the Sphinx Music Competition and the Irving M. Klein International String Competition. She is a member of the Argus Quartet, the 2017-2019 Graduate Quartet in Residence at The Juilliard School. The Argus Quartet was named the First Prize Winners of both of the 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the 2017 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition.
Full bios here.
MEMBERS ONLY TOUR: Magazzino Italian Art
May 16, 2019
On Thursday May 16, CIMA invites members on a private tour of Magazzino Italian Art, an art warehouse co-founded by Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu located in the Hudson Valley in Cold Spring, New York. The tour will be led by Francesco Guzzetti, Magazzino scholar-in-residence and former Fall 2014 CIMA fellow!
Situated in an impressive, 20,000 square-foot building designed by Spanish architect Miguel Quismondo and based on an existing warehouse, Magazzino is devoted to Post-War and Contemporary Italian visual culture. Particularly notable is the museum’s array of works from the Arte Povera movement, which are drawn largely from the Olnick Spanu collection. Since March 1, 2018, Magazzino has held an ongoing show that features 12 major artists associated with Arte Povera, including Alghiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Poalini, and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Comprehensively examining the careers of these figures, as well as the socio-cultural, political, and economic factors that impacted their work during the 1960s and ’70s, the scope of this exhibition reflects one of Magazzino’s most crucial objectives: to educate visitors about the historical background from which the artists and artwork of Arte Povera emerged and, in turn, promote appreciation for a movement that is often overlooked by American audiences.
Members who wish to join us for this special tour of Magazzino and its rich exhibition of Post-War art should plan to arrive at the museum or at the Cold Spring train station by 11am. The warehouse can be reached easily from New York by car or train (the Cold Spring train station is served by Metro-North Railroad trains on the Hudson Line and leave from Grand Central every hour). Those driving may meet us directly at the museum, while those taking the train should wait in the parking lot of the Cold Spring train station, where they will be picked up by shuttle buses sent by Magazzino. Before finalizing your travel plans, we ask that you review the visitor information provided on Magazzino’s website and take note of the warehouse’s limited parking.
We look forward to seeing you in Cold Spring!
Please note: CIMA members will receive a private invitation link to RSVP for this event. Limited to 20 members only!
If you want to join CIMA Staff and Fellows for the train ride please send us an email at info@italianmodernart.org.
Photo credit: Marco Anelli, Gallery 1, Magazzino Italian Art.
ARTIST TALK with DAVID SALLE
May 07, 2019
CIMA is pleased to welcome celebrated American artist David Salle for a special evening on Metaphysical Painting from the artist’s perspective. In addition to discussing his own practice and new projects, Salle, “one of our most daring and intelligent painters” (as defined by art critic Deborah Solomon), will respond to the exhibition on view, offering contemporary perspectives on the works of Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, and Mario Sironi.
David Salle helped define the post-modern sensibility by combining figuration with an extremely varied pictorial language. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at museums and galleries worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MoMA Vienna; Menil Collection, Houston; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, Bilbao. His paintings are in the collections of many major museums, both here and abroad.
Although known primarily as a painter, Salle’s work grows out of a long-standing involvement with performance. Over the last 25 years he has worked extensively with choreographer Karole Armitage, creating sets and costumes for many of her ballets and operas. Their collaborations have been staged at venues throughout Europe and America, including The Metropolitan Opera House; The Paris Opera; Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Opera Deutsche, Berlin. In 1995, Salle directed the feature film Search and Destroy, starring Griffin Dunne and Christopher Walken. Salle is also a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. His collection of essays HOW TO SEE: Looking, Talking, and Thinking about Art, was published by W.W. Norton in 2016.
This special program will have discounted tickets for members and students.
Registration required.
SOLD OUT!
Program schedule:
6pm – registration, aperitivo, and viewing of Metaphysical Masterpieces
6:15pm – program begins, followed by audience Q&A
8pm – evening concludes
Photo credit: David Salle, Grey Honeymoon, 2018–2019. Oil and acrylic on linen, 74 x 104 inches. © David Salle/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY courtesy of Skarstedt, NY.
Refreshments have been generously donated by:
Special Open Hours for Downtown Culture Walk
April 27, 2019
SoHo Arts Network (SAN) is pleased to present Downtown Culture Walk, self-guided walking tour presented by the SoHo Arts Network (SAN), highlighting the non-profit art spaces in the SoHo and downtown neighborhoods. SAN celebrates the rich history of our unique creative community and collectively shares our distinct cultura contributions with neighborhood residents and visitors. On April 27, in conjunction with the METAPHYSICAL MASTERPIECES STUDY DAYS, CIMA opens its doors for Downtown Culture Walk, inviting participants to discover the non-profit art spaces in the neighborhood.
Do not miss this opportunity to see our Metaphysical Masterpieces 1916–1920: Morandi, Sironi, and Carrà exhibition!
Participating SAN members are 80 Washington Square East (80WSE), New York University; apexart; AIA New York | Center for Architecture; CIMA–Center for Italian Modern Art; Dia Art Foundation; The Drawing Center; Grey Art Gallery, New York University; ICP Museum; Judd Foundation; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation; Museum of Chinese in America; New Museum; The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation; SoHo Photo Gallery; Storefront for Art and Architecture; Swiss Institute; and The Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Art Gallery.
Click here for the Downtown Culture Walk map.
Art in America is the media partner for SoHo Arts Network’s Downtown Culture Walk.
About the SoHo Arts Network
The SoHo Arts Network (SAN) fosters collaboration between nonprofit arts institutions in the vicinity of New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. Founded in 2014, the network celebrates the rich history of SoHo’s unique creative community and advances the area’s continued cultural contributions to the lives of both residents and visitors. Its mission includes increasing awareness of the neighborhood’s continuing importance as an arts district.
The Nostalgia of the Poet: An Homage to Giorgio de Chirico
April 27, 2019
In conjunction with our METAPHYSICAL MASTERPIECES STUDY DAYS, CIMA is pleased to host a dramatic reading of poems devoted to the Italian modern master Giorgio de Chirico. On this occasion, the Italian poet Gabriele Tinti’s recent poetry project The Nostalgia of the Poet: An Homage to Giorgio de Chirico, will be presented at CIMA through readings by American actor Vincent Piazza.
Capturing the themes and moods of de Chirico’s enigmatic paintings, Tinti’s writings were recently published in “Metaphysical Art – The de Chirico Journals,” (n. 14/16, August 2016) as a complement to the inaugural English edition of Giorgio de Chirico’s Collected Poems (which itself comprises 90 poems and poems in prose translated from the original French by Willard Bohn and the original Italian by Stefania Heim). Tinti’s poems have been translated into English from their original Italian and will be read aloud at CIMA by Piazza. This group of poems as part of Tinti’s The Nostalgia of the Poet series (recently held at LACMA and at the Pinacoteca di Brera), in which he has gathered writings, verses, fragments, and short essays.
RESERVE A SEAT!
For the full program of the conference see here.
A recent recipient of the 2018 Montale Poetry Award, Gabriele Tinti is an Italian poet and writer. In collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Roman Museum, the Capitolini Museums, the Archeological Museum in Naples, the Ara Pacis Museums and the Glyptothek of Munich, he has composed poems devoted to various ancient works of art including the Boxer at Rest, the Discobolus, Arundel Head, the Ludovisi Gaul, the Victorious Youth, the Farnese Hercules, the Hercules by Scopas, the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, the Barberini Faun and many other masterpieces. His compositions have been performed by actors like Joe Mantegna, Michael Imperioli, Burt Young, Marton Csokas, Alessandro Haber, Robert Davi, Luigi Lo Cascio, Enrico Lo Verso, Vincent Piazza and Franco Nero. In 2016, he published Last words (Skira Rizzoli) a collection of found poetry featuring illustrations by Andres Serrano.
Vincent Piazza is an American film, television and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of the gangster Lucky Luciano in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014). His other notable roles include Earl Hefner in the comedy-drama Rocket Science (2007) and the singer Tommy De Vito in Clint Eastwood ‘s film adaptation of Jersey Boys (2014).
