Conferences and Seminars Archives - Page 2 of 13

The Aesthetics of Esoteric Practices: Materialities, Performances, Senses

This conference focuses on the aesthetics of esoteric practices through materialities, performances, and the senses. It aims to explore the extent to which esoteric practices are socially and culturally constructed and effective because they are practiced, performed, sensorily perceived and embodied by participants as practitioners as well as spectators. The conference evolves around aesthetics as the relations between esoteric practices, the practicing individual and their social and cultural environment.

The event is organized jointly by Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities), DFG-funded Center for Advanced Studies “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective” (CAS-E) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam, and the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices (RENSEP).

The event will be enriched by a Piano Concert organized by the Institute of Music.

Download the program of the conference here.

Admission is free upon registration on Eventbrite:

– Conference registration (12-13-14 November)
– Concert registration (13 November at 6 pm)

For questions about availability, please contact: civilta.comparate@cini.it

Lucio Fontana: Origins and Imagination

The symposium, a collaboration between the Fondazione Giorgio Cini Institute of Art History and the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, with the support of Intesa Sanpaolo, will be held on December 5th and 6th on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

Lucio Fontana’s vital and inventive work extends and develops over a wide span of time from the 1920s to the end of the 1960s. A career studded with constant experimentation that placed him, from the very beginning, among the pioneers of contemporary art.

In the History of Art of recent decades, the centrality of his figure and work has increasingly emerged, and the new studies, multiple exhibitions and publications dedicated to him have thus been able to restore, especially to new generations of scholars, but also to a wider public, the variety and coherent continuity of his entire creative career. The international conference Lucio Fontana: Origins and Imagination, promoted by the Giorgio Cini Foundation Institute of Art History and the Lucio Fontana Foundation, intends for the first time to take stock of recent and ongoing studies, as well as to promote, at this significant and rich moment, a discussion between scholars who have dealt directly with the artist or whose in-depth studies have touched on Fontana themes that are useful for offering new readings and avenues of investigation: from those more strictly historical-artistic to research concerning the material and conservation aspects of the works.

Over the course of the two days of study, scheduled for 5 and 6 December 2024, there will be the opportunity to explore the imagery and context within which Lucio Fontana’s activity developed, as well as aspects, moments and themes pertinent to his research and critical reception in Italy and abroad.

The futurist roots of his work, the relationship with the sculpture of his contemporaries, the very early creative phase strained between Italy and Argentina, are some of the investigative paths that will be tackled and that will probe the reasons for the author’s current position. A section of the symposium will also be devoted to an in-depth examination of case studies: exhibitions, selected from among the many, that have contributed to building Fontana’s fortune or to promoting particular aspects of his creative parabola, reaffirming his role as a pioneer and the vitality of his research.

The symposium also highlights the interest shown by the Giorgio Cini Foundation in the Italian-Argentine master, the protagonist of several in-depth events hosted and promoted by the Venetian institution: the Exhibition of Drawings and Graphic Works by Lucio Fontana in 1972; the 2014 conference Figurative Art and Abstract Art. 1954 – 2014 and the scholarship Lucio Fontana, Argentinean period: monuments projects and works announced in 2022 once again in close synergy with the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, which confirms its increasing commitment to supporting and encouraging scientific projects on the artist.

5 – 6 December | Admission free subject to availability

Download the program

Join the live streaming on the Giorgio Cini Foundation YouTube channel

5 December 2024

6 December 2024

Workshop Research-led Performance | Composer – Instrument – Performer | Violoncello Solo in the Second Half of the 20th Century

This workshop is part of the Research-led Performance series, one of the most popular and esteemed activities at the Institute for Music since its inaugural edition in 2016.

Our guest lecturer for 2024 is Lucas Fels, cellist of the Arditti String Quartet and professor at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. A masterful musician, Fels combines his expertise with a keen interest in philological aspects and theoretical reflection. The workshop will focus on works for solo cello by Italian composers, with particular attention to the collections preserved at the Institute for Music. The following compositions will be studied:

Luigi Dallapiccola, Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio (1945);
Renato de Grandis, Serenata seconda (1970);
Giacomo Manzoni, Freedom (2001);
Ernesto Rubin de Cervin, Omaggi (2002).

The workshop is aimed at young cellists with a strong ability to understand and interpret research and experimental music. The program includes both practical and theoretical sessions, as well as a final concert featuring performances by a select group of workshop participants. The practical sessions will be led by Lucas Fels, while the theoretical sessions, open to the public, will be given by musicologists Gianmario Borio (Director of the Institute of Music and Professor at the University of Pavia), Francisco Rocca (scientific collaborator at the Institute of Music) and Francesca Scigliuzzo (doctoral student at the University of Udine) they will address various aspects of the works being studied. Giacomo Manzoni’s participation is expected.

Call for applications for 8 cellists with scholarships

Download WorkshopVioloncelloBandoING_DEF (dec)

Application deadline: 25 October 2024

Expats-Foresti. Foreigners in Venice in the Modern Age. A Fluctating Population

The Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society in collaboration with the Deputazione per la Storia Patria per le Venezie, the RiVe Study Center of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University Venice and the Groupe de Recherche d’Histoire of the Université de Rouen Normandie is proposing a conference dedicated to foreigners in Venice in the modern age.

The program sees a rich harvest of papers, divided into four thematic sessions and spread over three days, two of which are at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.

The sessions cover Nations/Communities/Esilii (with Elisa Andretta, José Pardo Tomas, Isabella Cecchini, Alessia Ceccarelli, Katerina B. Korrè, Igor Melani, Alana Mailes); Religious Alterities/Dissensions (with Magnus Ressel, Mario Infelise, Rachele Scuro, Marija Andrić, Bruno Pomara Saverino); the Structures/Institutions/Interactions (with Jean-François Chauvard, Rosa Salzberg, Sandra Toffolo, Massimo Galtarossa, Teresa Bernardi, Francesco Zambonin); the Biographies (with Claudia Terribile, Flavio Rurale, Despina Vlassi, Vittorio Mandelli).

The speakers come from a variety of universities and research institutions: University of Udine, CNRS Paris, CSIC Barcelona, CNR-ISEM Rome, University of Rome-La Sapienza, University of Patras, University of Florence, Trinity College Cambridge, Universität Bremen, University Ca’ Foscari Venice, Istorijski institut Beograd, Universitat de València, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, University of Trento, University of St Andrews, University of Padua.

Vetro e Arti Decorative alla Biennale di Venezia. 1912–1930

In conjunction with the exhibition at Le Stanze del Vetro on the presence of Murano art at the Venice Biennale from the start of the twentieth century, the Glass Study Centre brings together glass historians and experts to explore various aspects of this extraordinary event. At the centre of the conference are not only the key figures of Venetian glass art and the critical
success of some of the most iconic works, but also the choice of colours and shapes made by the likes of Hans Stoltenberg Lerche, Teodoro Wolf Ferrari, Guido Balsamo Stella and Vittorio Zecchin.

h 9:30am | Free entry until capacity is reached
Download the program

Tomaso Buzzi, the Architect of Vittorio Cini

Valerio Terraroli, professor at the University of Verona and one of the leading scholars of the work of the brilliant and visionary architect Tomaso Buzzi from Lombardy, will speak at a conference held at the Castle of Monselice at 11:00 AM. During the lecture, he will discuss the special relationship between Tomaso Buzzi and Vittorio Cini. He will particularly focus on the work done for the Villa di Montericco, the Gallery of Palazzo Cini in Venice, and another prominent historical residence owned by Cini: the monumental complex of the Castle of Monselice and Villa Duodo Balbi Valier, for which the archive of the Institute of Art History preserves “thoughts,” designs, and original sketches.

The bond between Vittorio Cini and the brilliant and visionary architect Tomaso Buzzi (1900-1981), once described as “the most cultured of architects”, was a long-standing and affectionate one, originating from Buzzi’s established friendship with Count Cini from the 1930s, when the architect worked on the interior design of Cini’s Villa di Montericco in Monselice (1938-1942). These were the years of Tomaso Buzzi’s full professional success in the field of private architecture: he was a cultured designer, a respectful restorer, and a refined creator of homes and gardens for the rising bourgeoisie and the most progressive aristocracy. He became a sensitive arbiter of elegance, capable of blending sophisticated historicism—rich with antique references and ‘style’ setting with the Novecento and Art Deco influences of 1920s Milan. Among his many clients, the elite of the economy, politics, culture, and intellectual circles, many had ties to Vittorio Cini through business, friendship, intellectual relations, and collecting: from the Volpi di Misurata family to the antique dealer Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, from Minister Giovanni Gentile to the bibliophile and scholar Tammaro de Marinis. For Cini, Tomaso Buzzi was the architect of choice, able to give form to the desires for renewal expressed in numerous residences. In the early 1940s, alongside the furnishing and arrangement of the Villa di Rimini, Buzzi began his first interventions to modernize and update Cini’s residence on the Grand Canal, Palazzo Cini. This path culminated between 1956 and 1958 with the creation of the neoclassical oval drawing room, designed to scenographically display the 18th-century Cozzi porcelain service, and the famous spiral staircase.

The harmonious relationship between Buzzi and Count Cini, and with the Foundation established in 1951 on San Giorgio Island, led the architect to donate 138 drawings to the Cini Foundation. These included capricci, views, phantasmagorias, scenes of Venetian fêtes, ceremonies, and concerts, recently exhibited in the 2021 show Venezia è tutta d’oro. Tomaso Buzzi: disegni “fantastici” (1948–1976), curated by Valerio Terraroli, held in the evocative spaces of the Longhena Library, marking forty years since the passing of this key figure in modern Italian taste.

11:00 AM | Download the invitation.

Strategy Innovation Forum | ARTI-FACTS Alla ricerca dell’impresa totale

Since 2015, SIF – Strategy Innovation Forum – has been bringing together the only Italian think tank on strategic innovation every year in Venice.

Arti-facts. In search of the total enterprise is the theme of SIF 2024 to be held on 11 October 2024 at the ‘Lo Squero’ Auditorium of the Giorgio Cini Foundation on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

The Forum involves entrepreneurs, managers, professionals, academics and political figures in order to create and disseminate knowledge and relationships, in favour of the transformation of the entrepreneurial system.
Strategy Innovation Forum was created with the aim of bringing the business world closer to the academic world, making scientific research available to businesses and bringing the topic of innovation, specifically strategic innovation, closer to entrepreneurs.

Each edition of SIF is conducted around a scientific research developed under the scientific direction of Professor Carlo Bagnoli of the Department of Management, and other Departments of Ca’ Foscari University, which analyses the possible impact of social and technological innovations on business models.
Are there similarities between the work of the entrepreneur and that of the artist? And how can the art world be an inspiration for the business world?
To try to answer these questions, SIF 2024 aims to explore the role of the arts as a catalyst for innovation in the corporate landscape.

The first part focuses on the visionary perspective of the arts, exploring how it can shape present, past and future scenarios that will guide businesses in new strategic directions, thus defining their role in a rapidly changing environment.
The second part will explore the link between art, corporate identity and strategic innovation. In particular, by defining the characteristics of the ‘total enterprise’, an attempt will be made to understand how art can become a structural element for change, capable of acting on every dimension of the enterprise and generating cultural and social value.

h 9:30am – 8:30pm | Admission by invitation only.

Dimensions of Current Compositional Practice: The Composers’ Perspective in Dialog with Musicologists

One of the distinctive features of twentieth-century musical culture is the intense publishing activity of its composers. A significant part of this is the theoretical reflection that can be manifested in didactics, conferences, radio and television broadcasts, articles for newspapers and magazines as well as treatises. Such reflection reveals the horizon of starting questions from which composers conceived and created their works; it also refers to the general context of music theory and to the even more general context of the history of thought.

This event takes its cue from the Leçons de musique that Pierre Boulez held at the Collège de France over the years 1976-1995; in the various cycles of lectures, the composer addressed the fundamental nodes of twentieth- century compositional technique from a historical and retrospective perspective, presenting not only his own view of the historical process but also providing a series of valuable stimuli for musicological exegesis.
From this model, the historical approach may be derived first and foremost, as well as the investigation of compositional questions right from
their origins and the various answers they received over the decades. In contrast to the ex cathedra approach of Boulez’s lectures, the conference intends to adopt a dialogical approach at various levels. The concepts of form, instrument, sound and timbre will be discussed alternately by two composers who have been at the centre of international interest for decades thanks to their works, their teaching and publishing activities: Agostino Di Scipio and Marco Stroppa. In turn, they will establish a dialogue with Mark Delaere and Ulrich Mosch, internationally renowned musicologists with a wealth of music theory, as well as with a group of young composers and musicologists.
The event will conclude with a concert by the mdi ensemble performing works by the two composers.

Repatriating/Rematriating sounds: a (digital) challenge for XXI-Century Sound Archives

The concepts of repatriation and rematriation are crucial for contemporary sound and audiovisual archives that preserve music of oral tradition. Indeed, these concepts are at the core of important issues in the contemporary debate of the ethnomusicological discipline, such as the processes of decolonization, the development of a participatory, shared, dialogic ethnomusicology, the accessibility of sources through new technologies, the historical dimension of research on music of oral tradition and the use of archival recordings for educational purposes.

Ethnomusicology has been concerned with repatriation for more than three decades. Recent technological, economic, and sociocultural changes, however, have brought forth new questions that call ethnomusicologists to engage in profound reflection. Who are the subjects (individual or collective) entitled of repatriation projects in a global context in which the bonds between territories, ethnicities, languages, and religions are becoming increasingly nuanced? Who holds the rights over the documentation of the past? How do local and global access to archival collections relate to each other in the age of the Web? How can cultural institutions balance the interests of entitled individuals with their mission of public service and make the repatriation and rematriation actions economically sustainable?

The seminar aims to provide an overview of the most up-to-date theories and research methodologies on the topic, but also, and especially, to present some significant good practices that are being implemented today in the perspective of a public ethnomusicology.

Scientific Committee:

Giovanni Giuriati, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Gianluca Chelini, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Costantino Vecchi, Università Ca’Foscari Venezia

Download the programme

Neapolitan Mediterranean, Venetian Mediterranean

The seminar aims to highlight two perspectives and ways of being a Mediterranean state through the prism of medieval and modern history. Venice and Naples are two great capitals of the ancient sea and are above all two
unique places, cities that were able to express their own specific civilisations.
They are states located in the heart of the Mediterranean, both on the border with different worlds. The Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Venice are also, in their own way, declinations of the history of Italy, the
history of the Mediterranean and indeed of Europe. The seminar is also a proposal to examine the inverse, Mediterranean perspectives of these civilisations.
The approach is thus comparative, intertwined with wide-ranging visions and interpretations of history and culture.

On the occasion of the seminar, the latest issues of Studi Veneziani, published by the Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society, will be presented.