The Matthew Online

JCU alum opens Spazio Officina, an art gallery in Rome

By Clara Peters

ROME, March 17 — John Cabot University graduate Jeanne Stavropoulou Rossi opened her new gallery Spazio Officina in Rome's Piazza Bologna last week to a packed house of admirers.

Rossi is passionate about contemporary art and is striving to create a vessel of ideas -- those of her own and of others.

Spazio Officina is located in Piazza Bologna on via della Lega Lombarda 48 in what used to be a factory for construction materials in the 1950’s. The gallery is one large and spacious room, with a simple style leaving the focus on the pieces.

Tracing Back Trastevere: A Multimedia View of the Neighborhood’s History

By Emily Finkelstein

ROME, March 13 – Lining the Piazza S. Egidio, mere cobblestones away from John Cabot University, is the unassuming Museo di Roma in Trastevere, dedicated to the art and culture of the neighborhood, and of greater Rome.

The collection may not compete with those of Palazzo delle Esposizioni, however, the pieces may interest JCU students, especially those residing in Trastevere. The watercolors of 19^th century painter Ettore Roesler Franz  reside in one of the museum’s permanent collections, Landscapes of Memory. His work mainly features scenes of the Tiber River, evoking almost a Venice-like landscape. 

Snapshots of dreams that never come true

By Nadin Aloufi

ROME, March 11 - Earlier this month, Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni exhibition of American photographer Gregory Crewdson came to an end, but not before John Cabot University photography students had the opportunity to see his spectacular work.

Crewdson is known for creating pictures filled with the drama and emotion of a Hollywood film. His photos capture images of American suburbia, but include disturbing details. This contradicts the idea of the American dream; the images illustrate reality and the unaccomplished dream.   

"He creates something false that appears real, so real that it appears false again," said William Pettit an art studio professor at John Cabot University.

 

 

An artistic view of Women's Day

 

By Beatriz Fiore

ROME, March 11 – Women artists commemorated the centenary of International Women’s Day last weekend presenting a collection of modern works in Rome's Cortese&Lisanti art gallery.

The exhibition “Donne D’arte.Freedom”, open from March 8-23, offers a range of both solemn and colourful pieces by contemporary women artists.

“It seems, and not only to us, that female artists in general have always been neglected and underestimated,” says gallery owner Massimo Lisanti. “We have chosen a theme which enables us to celebrate these artists in many ways: freedom. The diverse techniques, modes of expression and even the arrangement of the exhibition give the idea of freedom.”

 

Making a success of failure

By Meagan Haessig

ROME, Feb. 14 - Drama and theater serve as a means for providing the abstract and conventional tools for “world making”, author Olga Taxidou told a gathering of students and professors at the Aula Magna auditorium on the John Cabot University campus on Tuesday.

Taxidou, author of "Modernism and Performance," came to JCU to discuss her insights into the modernistic views of theater and the field of modernism itself. 

JCU student art exhibit packs them in

By Christina Tscherteu

ROME Dec. 10 - On Thursday night, a packed Via Mattonato Photo Studio was the scene for  an exhibit of paintings, drawing, and photography produced by John Cabot University students during the semester.

The drawing classes had all their sketch books on display for all to see. For the painting class, there were numerous still life renditions of wine bottles, food, and portraits to look at. As for the photography class, each student had a collection of their favorite photos hanging on the wall.

Some of the onlookers were the artists’ roommates coming to look at what they had been working on all semester. Maureen LaNoce, a JCU student and roommate of Christina Captein, who is in the painting class, came to support her friend. “Christina had been working so hard all semester and we would see her painting in the living room and now we actually get to see her hard work displayed,” said LaNoce.

The professors who teach the art classes were there to support and talk to the students. William Pettit, who teaches painting and photography classes at JCU, said “the art exhibit is a great opportunity for students to share their experiences in Rome through art.”

All of the artists were there as well to answer any questions about their artwork and also to look at what their other peers had been working on all semester.

Dante, Botticelli and Ptolomy converge on Via Veneto

By Coralie Mevs

ROME, Dec. 6 - This month, the Marriott Grand Hotel Flora on Via Veneto hosts an exhibition that offers the possibility to glance at some of the most significant pieces -- or at least, close approximations -- of the Vatican's rich literary collection.

On Wednesday afternoon, an elegant waiter welcomed groups of art lovers into the hotel’s luxurious hall where the exhibition ‘Secrets of the Vatican’ celebrates the anniversary of the five-star hotel. The display provides eight duplications of the most outstanding pieces from the world renowned Vatican Library.

Rome's Pop Art exhibit explores inspiration, mockery

By Natalija Dimitriyevitch

Rome Nov. 29 - On Wednesday afternoon, the doors of Scuderie del Quirinale opened into a world of images, colors and sometimes even irony, emphasizing the return of Pop Art to the Eternal City.

Once inside, Martial Raysse's "Proposition to escape: Heart Garden" served as an appropriate introduction to this wild epoch.

A Pop art renaissance in the Eternal City

By Lindsay Sullivan

ROME, Nov. 28 -  Sergio Lombardo’s Pop Art exhibit attracted quite a crowd at Claudio Marcantoni’s art gallery, HOFFICINAd’ARTE, this week. Locals admired the style that emerged from Britain in the 1950s and soon after spread to the United States. 

But in the Eternal City, renowned for its Renaissance and Baroque art, modern art stands out too as the success of recent Pop Art exhibits here can attest.