Mahler & LeWitt Studios
Spoleto, Umbria, Italy
For information about our program, please click on the ‘Residents’ or ‘Events’ tabs in the menu and sign on to our mailing list to be sent updates directly. Information about our Open Calls can be found in the News section below.
NEWS
Festival Session and the Festival dei Due Mondi, 23 June – 9 July
Join us this summer for our Festival Session and our program at the Festival dei Due Mondi 66. All of our events and exhibitions are directly linked to the Mahler & LeWitt Studios residency program,
Andrew Mangold music residency at Casa Mahler
Submissions: by July 2
Residency: September 12 – October 8
An Open Call for a musician or composer to develop their practice in the context of the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto. The residency is organised in memory of guitarist and singer Andrew Mangold (1971-2021) whose bands The Pet Goats and Berufskleidung were inspired by the Hamburger Schule and Proto-punk movements, incorporating Noise and Post-rock elements.
The opportunity is open to emerging and early career artists, in all genres, whose work pushes the boundaries of contemporary music and speaks to the most pressing issues of our era.
Publishing Ecology 2023
A residency and book award for artists engaged with environmental issues through photography
We are thrilled to announce that applications are now open for the second edition of the Loose Joints and Mahler & LeWitt Studios Publishing Award. This exciting opportunity is a yearly opportunity to develop an artist’s practice through a residency and book award, focused on a curated theme.
In 2023 we are pleased to partner with innovative magazine Atmos for Publishing Ecology: an award inviting artists engaging with the anthropocene, climate change and the environment. Alongside Loose Joints directors Lewis Chaplin & Sarah Chaplin Espenon and Mahler & LeWitt curator Guy Robertson, we are joined this year by artist Richard Mosse, curator Lucia Pietroiusti, and Atmos Culture Editor Daphne Chouliaraki Milner.
Artists on Camera: Michael Blackwood Productions, Festival dei Due Mondi 2022, 24 June – 10 July
As part of the Festival dei Due Mondi 2022 in Spoleto, Italy, the Mahler & LeWitt Studios is pleased to present ‘Artists on Camera: Michael Blackwood Productions’, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Michael Blackwood is one of the most established and prolific art documentary makers and has produced over 150 films from the 1960s to now, chronicling the stories of the most impactful creative minds of their day…
Residencies for humanities and arts post-graduate students currently studying at European institutions, in partnership with King’s College London
Deadline for submissions: 31 March 2022
Three residencies (Jan. 2022) in: Text, Image and Sound
Judges: Rachael Allen, Osei Bonsu, Will Eaves, Arlene Sierra
We are pleased to announce a new partnership with the The Ivan Juritz Prize, offering a two week workshop residency to three postgraduate students form European institutions. The call is for students, either from traditional academic disciplines or from the arts, to submit texts, films, musical compositions, virtual documentation of artwork, excerpts of moving image work and proposals for installation and performance.
An Incomplete A to Z for Art and Poetry
11 – 26 February
30 Old Burlington Street, London W1S 3AP
Adelaide Cioni, Sophie Collins, Jesse Darling, Edward Doegar, Alan Fielden, Edmund Hardy, Will Harris (with Matthew Stuart and Andrew Walsh-Lister), Marie Jacotey, JocJonJosch (with Rachael Allen), Bricks from the Kiln, Joshua Leon, Sol LeWitt, Serse Luigetti, Anna Mahler, Lila Matsumoto, Monitor Books, Lucy Mercer, isobel neviazsky, Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot, Holly Pester, Prototype, Tai Shani, Diamond Stingily, Viaindustriae, Slimvolume, Stephen Watts, & others
Curated by Rachael Allen and Guy Robertson
Opening: Friday 11 February, 18.00 – 21.00
Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11.00 – 18.00
Closing event: Friday 25 February, 18.00 – 21.00
Expanding on the Mahler & LeWitt Studios and Viaindustriae ‘Art & Poetry’ residency session in Spoleto, Italy, An Incomplete A to Z for Art & Poetry explores the creative and collaborative potentialities between visual art and poetry.
Open Call: Publishing Performance with Loose Joints
We are excited to introduce ‘Publishing Performance’: a new annual residency and publishing award with Loose Joints exploring photography and performance. ‘Publishing Performance’ provides an opportunity for an artist to develop a new body of work around ideas of photography and performance. The opportunity includes a month in residence from June–July 2022 at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios where the awardee will be able to develop work for a book that will be edited, designed and published by Loose Joints in Summer 2023, including launch exhibitions at Webber Gallery, London, and Ensemble, Marseille. The jury this year includes artist Luis Alberto Rodriguez, writer and photographer Mahmoud ‘Mo’ Mfinanga, editors and directors Lewis Chaplin & Sarah Piegay Espenon from Loose Joints, director Chantal Webber from Webber, and curator Guy Robertson from Mahler & LeWitt Studios.
The award is open to all and is free to apply, with applications running from 24 January – 01 March 2022.
New Artist Edition: Tai Shani, ‘The Neon Hieroglyph’, off-white background giclée print on Somerset Velvet 350gsm, 33 x 42 cm.
We are pleased to announce that the Mahler & LeWitt Studios have 30/100 signed and numbered copies of a new Artist’s Edition by Tai Shani available for 350euros each (postage and packaging included); all proceeds will support the Mahler & LeWitt Studios 2022 program. The edition relates to Shani’s ongoing ‘The Neon Hieroglyph’ project which included a sculpture commission for the facade of the Fontana di Piazza del Mercato in Spoleto, co-produced by the Mahler & LeWitt Studios and the Fondazione Carla Fendi.
We are pleased to announce our summer residency session and program. We will host Kolxoz Collective, as part of the Quasi-Book artist-publisher project with VIAINDUSTRIAE, visual artists Giuseppe De Mattia and Ra di Martino, and The Empty Project (with Adelaide Cioni, Giuseppe De Mattia, Lisa Andreani, Typhaine Delaup, Fabio Giorgi Alberti, Carlo Favero and Joana P.R. Neves). Our summer program also involves a special collaboration with the Fondazione Carla Fendi for the 64th edition of the Festival dei Due Mondi (25 June – 12 July): Art & Science into Spoleto celebrates the work of Anna Mahler, Sol LeWitt and the Mahler & LeWitt Studios whilst recognising the services of our patrons, Marina Mahler and Carol LeWitt, with the Premio Carla Fendi. The Fondazione Carla Fendi have commissioned three documentary films about the work of Sol LeWitt, Anna Mahler and our work with the residency program, directed by Gabriele Gianni (to be screened in Palazzo Collicola throughout the festival), and they will present work by both artists in the Piazza del Duomo. We are also co-producing a major new sculpture installation by British artist and Turner prize winner Tai Shani for The Neon Hieroglyph and we will be hosting a number of Open Studios events during the Festival, as well as the Spoleto premiere of Lina Hermsdorf’s Bona Dea. We are also supporting an exhibition curated by Jo Melvin titled The Feuilleton: I will bear witness, Piggy-backing-from the Edicola.
‘the SHED’ Performance Art Residency with Michelangelo Miccolis and Shedhalle
Flora Yin Wong has been awarded our open call opportunity in collaboration with Michelangelo Miccolis and ‘the SHED’ at Shedhalle in Zurich. London-born of Chinese and Malaysian heritage, Flora is an experimental sound artist and writer whose work combines field recordings and traditional early instruments – such as singing bowls, yangqin and kemence – with electronic processing and software, as well as text-based storytelling and abstraction. In October 2021, Flora will spend a month in residence at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios, during which time she will participate in ‘the SHED’, an online, process oriented residency space on the Shedhalle website, programmed by Miccolis.
Kolxoz Collective – Quasi-Book: Artist Publisher, with Viaindustriae
Tiraspol–Prague–Chisinau based Kolxoz Collective have been awarded the Viaindustriae and Mahler & LeWitt Studios Quasi-Book: Artist Publisher open call opportunity. The residency supports experimental and alternative approaches to artists’ publishing, facilitated by research in the Viaindustriae Archive / De Donno Collection and participation in Quasi-Book, a hybrid art space – running for the duration of the Festival dei Due Mondi 2021 – which presents studio activity and hosts events and exhibitions, as well as the daily running of a bookshop.
Heather McCalden: 2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & Lewitt Studios Essay Prize
We’re pleased to announce that Heather McCalden has won the 2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & Lewitt Studios Essay Prize with her proposal The Observable Universe, a prismatic account of grief conveyed through images, anecdotes and Wikipedia-like entries, calibrated specifically for the Internet Age. Centred on the loss of her parents to AIDS in the early 90s, The Observable Universe questions what it means to ‘go viral’ in an era of explosive biochemical and virtual contagion. Heather McCalden is a multidisciplinary artist working with text, image and movement.
Follow ‘Drawing TV’ on Instagram
Following the postponement of ‘The Empty Project’ workshop this January, the artists and curators involved – Adelaide Cioni, Giuseppe De Mattia, Lisa Andreani, Typhaine Delaup, Fabio Giorgi Alberti, Carlo Favero and Joana P.R. Neves – have been working on Drawing TV: “D-TV is a television channel and an educational tool hosting programs and experimental videos on drawing practices.”
‘Mahler in Spoleto’, Mahler Hour, with Morten Solvik, Rachael Allen, James Cave, Brian O. Kepher and Guy Robertson
Watch a recording of the Mahler Hour “Mahler in Spoleto”, hosted by musicologist Morten Solvik and the Mahler Foundation with former residents Rachael Allen, James Cave, Brian O. Kepher and Mahler & LeWitt Studios curator Guy Robertson. They discuss the residency program, share their work and experiences of Spoleto.
‘AER Conversations’ with Ranura Edirisinghe, Cecilia Ceccherini and Guy Robertson
Watch a recording of the Art for the Environment (AER) Conversation with the University of the Arts London – former residents Ranura Edirisinghe and Cecilia Ceccherini talk about their residencies and projects in Spoleto and Guy Robertson discusses Spoleto, Anna Mahler and Sol LeWitt in the context of the AER program.
Open Call ‘the SHED’: Performance Art residency with Michelangelo Miccolis and Shedhalle
Submissions by 8 April
Shedhalle and the Mahler & LeWitt Studios are pleased to announce a residency for artists working in performance. The opportunity includes a 30 day residency at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy, during which time the artist will participate in ‘the SHED’, an online residency space on the Shedhalle website programmed by Michelangelo Miccolis…
Open Call: Quasi-Book, artist publisher residency with VIAINDUSTRIAE
Submissions by 30 April
Mahler & LeWitt Studios and VIAINDUSTRIAE are pleased to present an Open Call opportunity for a publisher, artist publisher or artists involved in publishing to join our summer 2021 residency session in Spoleto, Italy, to develop new work and participate in Quasi-Book, a platform for disseminating and contextualising artists’ publishing practices during the Festival dei Due Mondi.
Mahler, The Song of the Earth
with Mahler Foundation
Submissions by 15 March
We are pleased to present an Open Call residency opportunity for a composer or artists and musicians working in performance to join a residency session in Spoleto and participate in Mahler, The Song of the Earth an initiative of the Mahler Foundation which, in the context of the global climate crisis, invites responses to Gustav Mahler’s symphonic work ‘The Song of the Earth’ (Das Lied von der Erde).
2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize
Submissions by 15 March
We are excited to announce that the 2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions/Mahler & Lewitt Studios Essay Prize, a competition for unpublished writers, is now open to submissions, until 15 March 2021. The winner is offered a residency in Spoleto and their book will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Adelaide Cioni and Giuseppe De Mattia:
The Empty Project
This January we are pleased to be hosting a research and development workshop for The Empty Project, a collaboration between artists Adelaide Cioni and Giuseppe De Mattia, curators Joana P.R. Neves (Drawing Now) and Lisa Andreani (MACRO, Rome/Archivio Salvo, Turin), choreographer Typhaine Delaup, artist Fabio Giorgi Alberti, and photographer Carlo Favero: “The Empty Project explores the relationship between playing and drawing…”
Cecilia Ceccherini:
Mountains are Lost Oceans
View installation photos of Cecilia Ceccherini’s UAL Art for the Environment residency exhibition in Spoleto, Mountains are Lost Oceans, and read a text she wrote about her work with guado (woad) and other natural dyes: “Art and the imagination are political tools that allow everything to shimmer, lighting up new forms of action…”.
Felix Bazalgette:
Indexicality was an idea…
We have produced an artists’ book with writer and photographer in residence Felix Bazalgette. It incorporates a text written by Felix, which muses on the concept of indexicality in analogue and digital photography, as well as his polaroids (which often document camera obscura) and other images. Copies of this book can be ordered from our website for the price of postage. Felix’s book Natural Magic, which addresses the histories and prehistories of photography and the way they live on in the present, will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021.
Read a review and see photographs of the ‘Art & Poetry’ residency session
Guest curated by former poet in residence Rachael Allen in partnership with Viaindustriae, Foligno, the ‘Art & Poetry’ residency session examined the “creative and collaborative potentialities between visual art and poetry”. The participating artists, poets and curators were: Sophie Collins, Will Harris, Marie Jacotey and Hana Noorali/Lynton Talbot.
‘Art & Poetry’ residency pamphlet, with contributions from Rachael Allen, Sophie Collins, Will Harris, Hana Noorali/Lynton Talbot, Guy Robertson
We have made a pamphlet, designed by Matthew Stuart, which documents the 2020 ‘Art & Poetry’ residency session. Copies of the pamphlet, which includes new writing, poetry, artwork and research carried out during the session, can be ordered from our website for the price of postage.
Word Play with Viaindustriae:
Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot
Curators Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot were awarded the Viaindustriae and Mahler & LeWitt Studios ‘Word Play: Art & Poetry’ Open Call residency opportunity and took part in the Art & Poetry session. Click on the link below to read an overview of their residency. You can also order a copy of the residency pamphlet (linked above) to read a more extensive report in their own words.
Curators Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot have been awarded the Viaindustriae and Mahler & LeWitt Studios ‘Word Play: Art & Poetry’ Open Call residency opportunity.
They will take part in our fall residency session which has been curated in collaboration with former poet in residence Rachael Allen and brings together artists, writers and curators who explore the intersections of the visual and performing arts with poetry. Their research will be presented as part of Viaindustriae’s LIBEROLIBRODARTISTALIBERO/FREEBOOK 10th biennial exhibition on artist’s book practice as well as the Art & Poetry symposium in 2021.
Open Call: VIAINDUSTRIAE and the Mahler & LeWitt Studios
VIAINDUSTRIAE and Mahler & LeWitt Studios are pleased to announce an Open Call opportunity for an artist, writer or curator to join our fall residency session, organised in collaboration with poet Rachael Allen, for up to 4 weeks between 26 August and 30 September 2020. As part of the residency opportunity, the awardee will develop a display of artist’s books and ephemera, relating to their own practice and the broader concerns of the residency session, using the VIAINDUSTRIAE archive, collection of artist’s books and documents on the history of contemporary art.
Artifex Press publish Sol LeWitt Complete Writings and Sol LeWitt Interviews .
These new volumes have been compiled and edited by former curator and writer in residence Lindsay Aveilhé and Chris Vacchio and have been incorporated into Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings, the definitive catalogue raisonné of the artist’s wall drawings. In response to the pandemic, these volumes and a selection of other catalogues published by the press are accessible online for free.
Keeping Time is online!
The compilation published by Ceretto with the Mahler & LeWitt Studios celebrates 20 years of the Cappella del Barolo, a countryside chapel in the Langhe in Piedmont, painted and pastelled by Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett (see the exhibition>>). The compilation delves into LeWitt and Tremlett affinities with music and provides a platform for a new generation of artists and their works.
Find more informations, listen and purchase the vinyl record here>>.
Thea Lenarduzzi: Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & LeWitt Studios 2020 Essay Prize Winner
We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2020 Essay Prize.
Polly Alexander: BRIGHTON CCA artist in residence announced
A new partnership between the University of Brighton and the Mahler & LeWitt Studios offers an artist a unique opportunity to develop their practice with a residency in Spoleto followed by an exhibition in the UK at Brighton CCA… Read more >>
Cecilia Ceccherini: UAL ARTS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT artist in residence announced
Selected through an Open Call application in partnership with the University of the Arts, London, Arts for the Environment (AER) program, recent graduate Cecilia Ceccherini joins us in Spoleto to develop her practice, which intersects design and conceptual art…. Read more>>
OPEN CALL – RESIDENCY OPPORTUNITY
Open to students and recent graduates from the University of Brighton, UK, a new partnership means an artist has a unique opportunity to develop their practice with a residency in Italy followed by an exhibition at Brighton’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) between May – September 2020.
Lina Hermsdorf : Lucus Bona Dea, Jupiter Woods, London
1 – 23 November 2019, Jupiter Woods
Studio 61 Rollins Street, London SE15 1EP
Exhibition opening and performance: 1 November, 6-9pm
Lina Hermsdorf’s solo exhibition features a new film developed during her visits to the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in 2018-19. The project is centered around the Lucus Bona Dea at Acquaiura: a little-known, ancient and sacred forest near Spoleto, dedicated to the Roman goddess Bona Dea, a divinity venerated exclusively by women.
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER residency session, guest curated by Tony Tremlett.
with Adam Gibbons, Babatunde Doherty, Hiba Ismail, Lina Hermsdorf, Lydia Ourahmane and Keef Winter.
JULY 2019 – Quartetto Echos: residency and concert in collaboration with Le Dimore del Quartetto and Casa Menotti
We are pleased to announce a residency and free public concert (Friday July 26, 18.30 Casa Menotti) with the award winning string quartet Quartetto Echos.
Traforati 2019, Allison Katz, Artist Edition and exhibition at the Torre Bonomo, Spoleto, 5 -14 July
We are pleased to announce a new artist edition by former artist in residence Allison Katz: a group of 16 ceramic plates made in collaboration with La Gioconda, Deruta. Full details of the edition will be published online and through our mailing list after the exhibition, during the week of the 15 July.
We are pleased to announce that the Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings Catalogue Raisonné has been published digitally by Artifex Press
The editor of the catalogue, Lindsay Aveilhé, joined us on a residency in Spoleto last September and she describes part of her project on the Soanyway magazine Spoleto special (see above). This extraordinary publication details LeWitt’s 1,350 wall drawings, incorporating photos of some 3,500 installations. Artifex Press have generously made the catalogue available to our residents. To subscribe to the catalogue and for more information please follow the link.
Julie Born Schwartz: Ex-Voto
Peles Empire, Berlin: 28/03 – 28/04
Mackintosh Lane, London: 25/05 – 09/06
We are pleased to announce two exhibitions of Julie Born Schwartz’s video installation ‘Ex Voto’, made with the Mahler & LeWitt Studios over the course of two years. The film explores expressions of faith and spirituality in material and visual culture. It is partly set at the Santuario di Santa Rita da Cascia in Umbria, where pilgrims beg for the intercession of the saint of ‘lost causes’.
Soanyway Magazine: Special Insert
Lost in Spoleto, Artists’ Books Program 2018
Read a special edition of Soanyway online magazine edited by Gertrude Gibbons, reporting on the Artists’ Books Program curated by Jo Melvin in collaboration with Viaindustriae. With contributions from Guy Robertson, Jo Melvin, Joanna Pocock, Grace Weir, Emanuele De Donno, Eloise Bennett, Giovanni Rendina, Karen Di Franco, Tommaso Faraci, Julian Bittiner, Lindsay Aveilhé, Riccardo Venturi, Jacopo Rinaldi, James Hoff, Lina Hermsdorf, Tony Tremlett, Sean Lynch, Jeffrey Isaac, Federico Antonino and Marcello Newman.
Rob Chavasse: Shutter, curated by Giovanni Rendina at Tripla, Bologna
Rob and Giovanni met during their residencies in 2017. We are pleased to have supported ‘Shutter’ at Tripla, which develops the work they began discussing in Spoleto. To read an interview with Giovanni and to see installation photographs of the exhibition, for which Rob used a handheld dot-matrix print gun to create images, please click on the link below.
Rachael Allen’s ‘Kingdomland’
Published by Faber and Faber
We are delighted to share news of Rachael Allen’s first collection of poems, published by Faber and Faber. Rachael’s final manuscript was compiled during her residency in Spoleto. Her poem ‘Tower of Masks’, published in this collection, relates to an Anna Mahler sculpture.
UAL Art for the Environment Artist Residency (AER)
Submissions deadline: 4th February
Residency: 1st – 28th April
Open to UAL students and graduates, the AER programme invites applicants to explore concerns that define the 21st century – biodiversity, environmental sustainability, social economy, and human rights. Through research, studio practice, critiques and mentoring the programme is designed to envision a world of tomorrow; to imagine and create work that challenges how we interact with the environment and each other.
Open Call Opportunity: The Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize An annual competition for unpublished writers, opens to submissions on 1 January 2019. Initially made possible by an Arts Council grant in 2015, the prize awards £3,000 to the best proposal for a book-length essay (minimum 25,000 words) by a writer resident in the UK and Ireland who has yet to secure a publishing deal, and a residency at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios. More info>>
‘LeWitt, in the Shadow of the Object’ Rye Dag Holmboe, October NO.166 | Fall 2018, p.105-126 with photographs by Joschi Herczeg Rye’s essay, begun on a residency in 2016, and our first project using the Torre Bonomo, examines previously undocumented wall drawings produced by Sol LeWitt in a medieval torre in Spoleto in the 1970’s. Using a psychoanalytic framework derived in part from the writings of Adrian Stokes, Holmboe argues for the existence of an “architectural unconscious” in LeWitt’s practice and for the crucial importance of architecture to our understanding of Conceptual art more broadly. The essay further explores the choreographic dimensions of LeWitt’s work and its autobiographical impulse. More information>>
‘Fifteen people select their favorite book…’ Jo Melvin, guest critic, Brooklyn Rail Available in print and online, Jo’s project for this long-running and esteemed arts newspaper stems from her work with us in Spoleto: “These pages stem from a project I developed with the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy on the subject of artists’ books. It began in September 2017 when I organized an event titled Fifteen People Select Their Favorite Book, in part to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Lannis Gallery / Museum of Normal Art’s seminal exhibition, Fifteen People Present Their Favorite Book (1967)…” Read the contributions to Jo’s guest critic pages>>
SEPTEMBER 2018: Artists’ Books – residency session guest curated by Jo Melvin in collaboration with Viaindustriae, Foligno Special viewing of program exhibitions arranged for Sunday 14th OCTOBER more info>> For full program information click here>>
Trisha Brown Dance Company: Spoleto Intensive Sharing 16.30 – 17.00, Palestra Manzoni, Via Nursina 10, Spoleto. On Friday 3 August from 16.30 – 17.00 the participants in the Trisha Brown Dance Company: Spoleto Intensive will open their studio and share some of the compositional and improvisational dance techniques they have been exploring with Diane Madden during the workshop. Free entry: please arrive in good time. More info>>
Julie Born Schwartz : ‘Ex-voto’ Festival di Spoleto, 30 June – 15 July More info>>
Announcing the residents for our first residency session of 2018: Rachael Allen, Oto Gillen, Sam Lipp and Diamond Stingily Read more>>
Trisha Brown Dance Company: Spoleto Intensive 30 July – 3 August (more info>>) Fully booked, to join the waiting list please email guy@mahler-lewitt.org
Latest Artist’s Edition: Julie Born Schwartz Untitled 2017 support now>>
