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2024

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Festival Session

In partnership with Yale School of Art and Yale University Art Gallery our Festival Session 2024 hosts painter and muralist Christopher Paul Jordan on a studio residency. We also host a number of former residents (Carly Breame, Cecilia Ceccherini, Kolxoz Collective, Baldwin Giang, Alberto Valz Gris, Jonathan Monk, Luis Alberto Rodriguez, and Afra Zamara) who are returning to present new work, developed during their residencies in Spoleto, at the Festival dei Due Mondi 67. To read about their projects please click here.

Spring Session

Experimental composer and performer Neil Luck is the awardee of the Andrew Mangold music residency at Casa Mahler, curator Serena Schioppa begins research on the Afranio Metelli centenary exhibition in partnership with Palazzo Collicola, visual artist Toby Christian works on his new book for Koenig Books, and Ghalya Saadawi, winner of the 2023 Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize, also joined the session.

Winter Session

In partnership with King’s College London, our 2024 Winter Session hosted the three awardees of the Ivan Juritz Prize: Sofia Haapamäki (Visual Art), David de la Haye (Sound) and Bebe Ashley (Text). We were also joined by artist filmmaker Sophie Cundale and composer Baldwin Giang who, in partnership with the American Academy in Rome, is developing new work for the Festival dei Due Mondi 2024. Visual artist Jonathan Monk also participated this winter. The work he is developing will be presented at the Festival in the Torre Bonomo.

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2023

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Fall Session

Our 2023 Fall Session welcomed several of our Open Call awardees: Zuza Banasinska (French Institute in Italy, Il Nuovo Grand Tour), Eleni Maragaki (UAL Art for the Environment), Jessica Tang (Yale School of Art and Yale University Art Gallery), and Ngadi Smart (Publishing Ecology: Loose Joints and Mahler & LeWitt Studios residency and publishing award). We were also joined by artists Lubna Chowdhary and Glen Pudvine, as well as writer Michael Newman and his performance collaborator Esa Kirkkopelto. Luis Alberto Rodriguez and Afra Zamara also returned to Spoleto to shoot their project in the Festival dei Due Mondi costumes archive. Finally Margaret Ewing, Horace W. Goldsmith Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Yale University Art Gallery, joined us as curator in residence. 

Festival Session

Scenographer and director Silvia Costa was artist in residence as she developed and presented her new interpretation of Messiaen’s HARAWI Canto d’amore e di morte (1945), commissioned by the Festival dei Due Mondi. Costa shared new visual work – including drawings and sketches relating to the performance – at her Open Studios. Lonnie Holley, whose practice spans painting, sculpture, filmmaking and music, joined us for a studio residency as well as Festival performances at Auditorium della Stella with Nelson Patton. Former artist in residence Mary Manning returned to stage a solo exhibition at Complesso San Nicolò, titled Mary Manning: In Excelsis. In the Torre Bonomo, Abbas Zahedi, Zhuo Mengting and Nisha Ramayya were artists in residence, developing new site-specific work, whilst former artist in residence Flora Yin Wong participated in Fuori Festival’s program La Traccia. New York based painter Mosie Romney was artist in residence in the Sol LeWitt studio. The residents shared work at several Open Studios events throughout the Festival. We also hosted the premiere of Grace Weir’s new film Grace Weir: For every line, a point not on it and celebrated the launch of Rye Dag Holmboe and Joschi Herczeg’s book Rye Dag Holmboe & Joschi Herczeg: Sol LeWitt’s Studio Drawings in the Vecchia Torre (The MIT Press). Textile designer and natural dyeing expert Maïté Oucéni returned to Spoleto to lead a workshop in collaboration with artist Cecilia Ceccherini as part of our ongoing Materia program. Finally, earlier in the year the Spring Session hosted our first Schools Project, titled Anna Mahler: Between Figuration and Abstraction. Work by the students was exhibited at an Open Studios event on the last weekend of the festival. See our ‘Events’ section for full details.

Spring Session

Anna Mahler: Schools Project
with the Liceo Artistico, Spoleto and Accademia di Belle Arti, Perugia

“There is a beautiful picture on an American fashion magazine which shows my mother sculpting in the background while a model, apparently Dennis Hopper’s wife, poses in the foreground. These are two very contrasting visions of what a woman is. My mother in the background is somehow a more striking figure than the model in the foreground because she anticipates what a woman will be: the strength of woman.”

Marina Mahler in Anna Mahler: Notes on Stone

This spring we worked with the Liceo Artistico di Spoleto to deliver a sculpture module for forty 16–17 year olds, inspired by the work of Anna Mahler. We also hosted students from the academy of fine arts in Perugia. As well as visiting the former studios of Anna Mahler and Sol Lewitt, they attended studio visits with our residents… read more.

Winter Session

In partnership with King’s College London, our first Winter Session welcomed the awardees of the Ivan Juritz Prize on a workshop residency. The prize is open to recent graduates from European universities and recognises ambitious and experimental work in three categories: image, sound and text. For 2023 we hosted: Kaifan Wang (b.1996, Hohhot, China; graduate of Universität der Künste, Berlin), April Yee (b.1987, Texas, USA; graduate of University of East Anglia, England), and Suzannah V. Evans (b. 1989, London, England; graduate of Durham University).

We also welcomed photographer Luis Alberto Rodriguez and set designer Afra Zamara. Supported by the Carla Fendi Foundation, they began working with the recently catalogued costumes archive of the Festival dei Due Mondi. Their project will reactivate the archive: capturing the flare and detail of the original designs whilst inventing new situations for the costumes, exploring relationships between performance, dress and expressions of identity.

Art historian Stephanie Wisowaty (Yale University) returned to continue her thesis research on late medieval double-sided painted processional crosses. She worked with Professor Bruno Toscano and is studying crosses held in collections in Spoleto, Montefalco and Perugia. Ceramicist and materials designer Carly Breame, who this summer joined our Materia program in partnership with the University of the Arts, Art for the Environment residency initiative, also returned to Spoleto. She continues researching locally sourced clay and developing glazes using waste materials.

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2022

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Fall Session

For our final session of 2022, we welcomed Abhishek Khedekar (b.1991, Dapoli, India), winner of the inaugural Mahler & LeWitt Studios / Loose Joints residency and book prize ‘Publishing Performance’, supported by Webber. Abhishek developed his project Tamasha, an experimental docu-fiction following a troupe of artists who live and perform nomadically across the state of Maharashtra in India.

This session also saw the start of Materia – a multi-year program exploring histories of materials in the Valle Umbra and their impact on cultural production and the environment. Geographer Dr Alberto Valz Gris (b.1990, Torino, Italy) and previous artist in residence Cecilia Ceccherini (b.1991, Pisa, Italy) collaborative project explores the valley – in terms of water usage – as a ‘hydrosocial’ territory. Ceramicist and materials designer Carly Breame (b.1989, Halifax, England) employs waste materials in her work and asks the question, “How can Spoleto represent a regional material culture through the dining table?” Art historian Dr Teresa Kittler (b.1984, Oxford, England) also joined the session: her research examines post-war art in Italy through the lens of habitat, assessing how the availability of new materials radically changed practices. We also welcomed back curator Daniela Ruiz Moreno (b.1991, Buenos Aires, Argentina) and artist Joshua Leon (b.1990, London, England), whose project ‘Liquidity‘ focusses on the culture of olive farming in Umbria. During the first of two Open Studios events we screened a work-in-progress by Dr Jo Melvin – who has developed the Materia program with us – titled Dr Solsternus.

Festival Session

In collaboration with the Ethical Fashion Initiative and supported by funds from the Premio Carla Fendi, we were joined by textile designer and dyer Maïté Ouceni (b.1993, Sèvres, France). Marianne Brooker (b.1991, Orsett, UK), winner of the Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize 2022, was also in residence, with photographer Mary Manning (b.1972, Alton, USA) and painter Phillip John Velasco Gabriel (b.1983, Jacksonville, USA). We were also joined by art historian Stephanie Wisowaty (b.1994, New York, USA): studying for her PhD at Yale University, she specialises in Italian medieval art. For our contribution to the 2022 Festival dei Due Mondi, we presented Artists on Camera: Michael Blackwood Productions. For more information about the residents, please click on the links below.

Spring Session

Our Spring residency session in Spoleto hosted curator Daniela Ruiz Moreno (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1991), writer Ellen Mara De Wachter (b. Nijmegen, Netherlands, 1977), composer Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian (b. Ipswich, United Kingdom, 1986) and artist Clémentine Bedos (b. Courbevoie, France, 1992). Please click on the images below for information about their work.

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2021

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Fall Session

In partnership with Shedhalle in Zurich, we welcomed sound artist Flora Yin Wong on our fall residency session: Flora shares work-in-progress from her residency on ‘the SHED’, an online platform for performance practices. We also hosted artists Alessandro Cicoria and Joshua Leon, as well as writer Heather McCalden. Heather was awarded the 2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions / Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize and Residency. Grace Weir, who first visited Spoleto for our 2018 Artists’ Books Program, returned to work on a new film focussing on the Eremo Santa Maria Maddalena on Monteluco. We continued our partnership with Le Dimore del Quartetto and Casa Menotti, hosting Chaos String Quartet on a rehearsal residency, and participants in The Empty Project returned for a second phase of the workshop. With funding generosly provided by the Leverhulme Trust and MIT Press as publishers, Rye Dag Holmboe and Joschi Herczeg also visited the Studios to continue work on their book project documenting the early Sol LeWitt wall drawings in the Torre Bonomo. Finally, former guest curator Tony Tremlett and MLS curator and co-director Guy Robertson led a design workshop for a theoretical London residency campus with Dr. Keef Winter and third year students at the University of East London.

Festival Session

Our summer 2021 residency session hosted Kolxoz Collective, as part of the Quasi-Book artist-publisher project with VIAINDUSTRIAE, visual artists Giuseppe De Mattia and Rä 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). The summer program also involved 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 celebrated 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 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 presented work by both artists in the Piazza del Duomo. We also co-produced a major new sculpture installation by British artist and Turner prize winner Tai Shani for The Neon Hieroglyph We hosted a number of Open Studios events during the Festival, as well as the Spoleto premiere of Lina Hermsdorf’s Bona Dea. We also supported an exhibition curated by Jo Melvin titled The Feuilleton: I will bear witness, Piggy-backing-from the Edicola.

Spring Session

For an initial update on our Spring residency session please click on the images below or follow the links: Adelaide Cioni worked from the Sol LeWitt studio where, during the Festival dei Due Mondi this summer, she will exhibit work made during the residency period; Duval Timothy, as the ‘Mahler, Song of the Earth‘ composer in residence, worked from the music room in Casa Mahler and  is now developing a series of long-form songs as part of his response to the work of Gustav Mahler; Dom Bouffard explored his graphic work – making drawings in response to his compositions, and vice-versa – and is currently organising them for publication as an artist’s book. Curator Michelangelo Miccolis and poet nick von kleist are still in residence in Spoleto and have both been working on their writing practices.  Cioni’s ‘The Empty Project‘ workshop, a collaboration with Giuseppe De Mattia, Lisa Andreani, Typhaine Delaup, Fabio Giorgi Alberti, Carlo Favero and Joana P.R. Neves, will take place at the studios later this summer.

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2020

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Although our 2020 spring and summer residency sessions were largely postponed, we hosted visual artist Cecilia Ceccherini and writer/photographer Felix Bazalgette in July and August. Felix worked on his book Natural Magic (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021) which explores histories of photography with particular reference to sociological photography in Italy. Cecilia, as part of our partnership with the UAL Art for the Environment program, developed new work in collaboration with textile makers and manufacturers in Umbria using natural dyeing techniques. For more information about their projects, please click on the links below.

Our fall ‘Art & Poetry’ residency session (full details here) went ahead as planned, although without the symposium element. The session explored intersections between visual art and poetry and was curated in collaboration with former poet in residence Rachael Allen and Viaindustriae in Foligno. The participants were Sophie Collins, Will Harris, Marie Jacotey and curatorial duo Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot who were awarded our Word Play: Art & Poetry Open Call. The symposium related to this session will now take place in 2021.

The Festival di Spoleto was rescheduled and ran in a reduced format during the last two weekends of August. Our festival projects were postponed to 2021 although we took the opportunity to organise a Spoleto launch of the ‘Keeping Time‘ vinyl record.

Find out more about the program by clicking on the images below.

July 20 – August 23

Fall Session, ‘Art & Poetry’, August 26 – September 29

Curated in collaboration with Rachael Allen and Viaindustriae, the fall residency session was a research focussed program exploring the dynamic relationship between poetry, experimental writing and the visual arts. The 2020 residency session will be followed by a related symposium in 2021. For more information about the session click here, or click on the images below for information about the participants. 

Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay and Residency Prize

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2019

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Fall Session

The final residency session of the year was guest curated by our 2018 curator-in-residence Tony Tremlett. It provided a platform for his ongoing research with art practices that employ sound and performance. He brought together six artists from Algeria, Germany, England, Ireland, Sudan and the US. They all participated in the related ‘Keeping Time’ project which celebrated 20 years of the Capella del Barolo in Piedmont. Full documentation of the residency and ‘Keeping Time’ can be found by clicking here>>.

Summer Session

For the first summer session of the year we host US based painter Keegan Monaghan, Polly Barton, the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize winner, Katherine Finkelstein, a photographer also from the US and the Italian string quartet Quartetto Echos.

Spring Session

Our season opened with our first spring session: we were joined by the Greek visual artist Aliki Panagiotopoulou, British designer and artist Ranura Edirisinghe (in collaboration with the University of the Arts, London, Arts for the Environment program), and composer in residence, Brian O. Kepher from Kenya. Our summer program will be announced soon.

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2018

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June – September

In the June/July session we hosted our first poet in residence, Rachael Allen, as well as artists Oto Gillen, Sam Lipp and Diamond Stingily. For the Festival di Spoleto we presented Julie Born Schwartz’s film ‘Ex-voto’, begun on her residency in 2016. In August, another former resident Diane Madden returned to lead the Trisha Brown Dance Company: Spoleto Intensive, after which she stayed in Spoleto to work with Matthew Burdis on the film ‘Take 3’ (premiered in November at Cathy Weis Projects, NYC). The Artists’ Books Program ran through September, guest curated by Jo Melvin in collaboration with Via Industriae, Foligno. In its closing, weeklong, symposium and public program we hosted twenty international residents, including Joanna Pocock, the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize winner. In January Soanyway publish a special insert documenting the program. Events took place throughout the season, including a number of ‘Open Studios’. In the fall, Brooklyn Rail printed articles about Spoleto with Melvin as guest critic, and October published Rye Dag Holmboe’s essay on the Torre Bonomo wall drawings, begun on his residency in 2016.

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2017

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June – September

In spring 2017, former residents Julie Born Schwartz and Jo Melvin returned to Spoleto. Julie carried out further filming with the nuns at the convent of Santa Rita in Cascia for her film ‘Ex-voto’ and Jo carried out research in the newly opened Carandente archive and library, she was assisted by our curatorial trainee Giovanni Rendina.  As well as Giovanni, in the first residency session we hosted the writers Andrianna Campbell and Annie Godfrey Larmon, artists Rob Chavasse and Allison Katz, and our first choreographer, Diane Madden. Our project for the Festival di Spoleto was a sculptural installation on the facade of Casa Menotti by former resident Sandy Smith. We also screened films by James Capper and Matthew Burdis, documenting their 2016 project in Spoleto. In the second session we hosted the 2017 Fitzcarraldo Editions essay prize winner, Katy Whitehead, as well as artists Lewis Chaplin, Luka Savic and Neeraja D.

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2016

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2015

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