Tag Archive for 'Italy'

What I did During Spring Break: The American Academy in Rome.

Published by c-monster on May 1, 2009 in C-Monster, Incisive Reportage, Italy and Travel.


In recovery at the Academy.

If there is one recommendation I can make to anyone in the art industry at this moment of global doom, it is: Become really good friends with a fellow at the American Academy in Rome so that you can stay there. Located on a hilltop, above trendy Trastevere, the Academy houses more than two dozen fellows, who live in a McKim, Mead and White building and dine on a local foods menu inspired by Alice Waters. After long days of work and study, they retire to the well-tended garden, where they reflect on the day’s drinking thinking. It’s like a 19th century sanatorium for the nervous children of the well-to-do. I kept expecting to see a nurse rearranging patients in wicker wheelchairs on the patio. 

I made it into the Academy as a free-loading guest of San Suzie. For a whopping seven days I hung out in what is effectively academia central, a geek’s wet dream of artists, architects and writers (many with advanced degrees) working on ambitious projects and thinking deep thoughts. There were recitations in Latin. A speech-laden meal that celebrated Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. And a champagne cocktail party for visiting artist Jenny Holzer. Party on, dudes! Any other spare moments I may have had were spent drinking cappuccinos in the company of a barista who told me I looked like Salma Hayek. Clearly, the Academy is an oasis from reality. Kinda like a Canyon Ranch for Ph.D.’s, but with open bar. All I gotta say is that it’s the bestest, smartest hotel I ever stayed at. Though some alum really needs to think about funding a hot tub. 

Grazie, Academy and San Suzie! (And to Brad and Dona for loaning us their space.)

xox,

C.

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The Digest. 04.23.09.

Published by c-monster on April 23, 2009 in C-Monster, Graffiti, Italy and The Digest.


Lin (?) in Rome, Italy. Holler if you know the name of the artist. Update: Apparently, it’s Linfa, of the 180 Crew. (Photo by C-M.)

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Naples: Where low climbed out of a volcano and whupped high upside the head.

Published by SanSuzie on March 3, 2009 in Art, Italy, San Suzie, Sculpture and Travel.


Pan and the Goat: The Romans had remarkable taste in garden statuary, such as this 24″ high marble depiction of Pan getting frisky with a member of the genus Capra at the National Archaeological Museum. (Photos by San Suzie.)

Despite warnings in every Italian guidebook that we would be pick-pocketed, run over by a motorino, threatened by camorristi, or just plain hosed by restaurant owners and taxi drivers, last weekend we decided to go to Naples to pay homage to the birthplace of the pizza and the baba au rum. A 2,800 year-old seaport founded by the Greeks, conquered by the Romans, Spaniards and Bourbons (the Neapolitans are quick to tell you that they are a thousand years older than Rome), Naples is the veritable promised land of high and low culture. It’s a place where you can see two of the greatest Caravaggio masterpieces (1 and 2) within a stone’s throw of graffiti-covered baroque buildings whose stucco is literally falling to the ground.

Our plan was to grab a few of the sublime slices at the nearly 300-year-old Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba and then head over to the archaeological museum to ogle the Roman pornographic art — contained in a titillatingly hilarious permanent display known as the Secret Cabinet. (Boy, did we get an eyeful!) In addition to admiring all the ancient erections, there were plenty of other things to take in during our visit to Naples as well: the glittering Mediterranean, the medieval castles (complete with round turrets and crenelated tops), the volcano that destroyed Pompeii and the hundreds of cioccolato caldo stands where you can stuff your face with sfogliatelle, ricotta cheesecake, and mini-babas for about $2.

In Naples, you can not only see the life-sized bust that houses the actual lopped-off head of San Gennaro (a.k.a. Saint Januarius) at the Duomo, but also admire a vial of his blood that miraculously liquifies at various times of the year. All this in a city where motorino drivers, piled three to a bike, drive so unnervingly fast, you are encouraged to look both ways even when crossing the sidewalk — or face a martyrdom of your own.

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Monster Madness in Italy, 16th-century style.

Published by SanSuzie on January 19, 2009 in Italy, San Suzie, Sculpture and Travel.


Inside, no one can hear you scream: An orc in the Bomarzo Monsters Park, which lies just a couple of hours outside of Rome. (Photos by San-Suzie.)

To grieve the death of a loved one, there’s nothing quite like commissioning almost a couple dozen freaky stone statues and then laying them around the yard. In 1552, the broken-hearted Prince Pier Francesco Orsini, of the Italian province of Viterbo, did just that. To mourn the death of his beloved wife, Giulia Farnese, he created the Bomarzo Monsters Park.

The park was designed by architect Pirro Ligorio, known for overseeing construction on the mega-church of all mega-churches — St. Peter’s in the Vatican — as well as designing the formal Villa D’Este gardens, in Tivoli, a UNESCO world heritage site. (The fountains there put the Bellagio in Las Vegas to shame.) At Bomarzo, instead of going for imposing, Christian grandeur or super-duper water show, Ligorio went for all out Dungeons & Dragons nuttiness. The grounds are strewn with super-sized stone monoliths of dragons, a gaping-mouthed ogre, Hannibal’s elephant, and a nausea-inducing, leaning house that looks like the sort of thing Disneyland would shut down for safety reasons. Beats me how one’s bereavement is quelled by statues of giant turtles, but perhaps the answer lies between the gargantuan fins of a stone mermaid with a gaping hairy wishing well.

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