“My plan is to create new paintings in Rome, under the influence of great Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance painting, sculpture and architecture. I would like to give particular attention to the narrative and spatial arrangement of multi-paneled frescoes and paintings situated in churches and museums, seeking out the recurring themes of shifting Time and evolving symbolism, particularly in cycles of birth, death and renewal.”
Current
Rome Prize Fellows and Projects
The American Academy in Rome awards the Rome Prize to a select group of artists and scholars, after an application process that begins in the fall of each year. The winners, announced in the spring, are invited to Rome to pursue their work in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual and artistic freedom, interdisciplinary exchange, and innovation. The 2011-12 Rome Prize winners are listed here with a brief project summary in their own words.
To download the brochure from the Rome Prize Ceremony held in New York on 13 April, 2011, announcing the 2011-2012 Rome Prize winners click here.
Visual Arts
Vera G. List/Edith Bloom Rome Prize
Siobhan Liddell
Visiting Faculty, Sculpture Department, Yale University
Diary of Light
“I am intrigued by the history and mystery of the Pantheon. Through research and ritual, I will revisit its mysterious origins. I plan to record the daily shifting of light through the giant occulus- a hole to the sky- observing this movement that has remained the same since ancient times. I will make a book depicting my observations - a means of translating the past to the present - using a pinhole camera as well as drawings and painting.”
Literary Aspiration, Romantic Respiration
“Using video as a means to combine the mediums of performance, poetry, and drawing, I plan to write, film, and edit a short film (15-20 minutes) that examines pulmonary tuberculosis as dominant romantic metaphor and as a deadly reality. By focusing on the literary endeavors of poets both real and fictional in 18th and 19th century Rome, this film also undertakes a parallel exploration of Rome as paradoxical site of climactic cure for illness, as well as the crumbling evidence of a diseased culture.”
Harold M. English/Jacob H. Lazarus-Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize
Jenny Snider
Artist, New York, NY
Montage of Attractions: Rome
“I will start my research on the second floor of the Museo Nazionale Romano-Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, paying special attention to the restored frescos of Livia's dining room, and the "black room" frescos from the original Villa Farnesina. I am expecting my research and long walks in Rome to yield much new subject matter, as well as rich inspiration for surface and color. I expect my love and knowledge of Italian film, especially from the nineteen-forties, fifties and sixties, to become part of my narrative. Just as the great Soviet Constructivists became part of my Eisenstein narrative, I expect Livia, Augustus, et al to be joined by Fellini, a great artist whose work was ‘beyond category’.”
