Professor Hopkins and students to present plans for new museum in Rome in a collaboration with the Superintendency of Roman Archaeology

On June 21, the Italian Ministry of Culture (Special Superintendency of Roman Archaeology) in collaboration with NYU Arts and Science and the University of Michigan will present their findings from excavation beneath a building in the heart of Rome along with plans for a new museum on the site.  The project is enshrined in a Memorandum of Understanding between NYU, Michigan and the Ministry of Culture and includes the publication and musealization of one of Rome’s earliest houses, a section of its enormous urban fortification wall and a previously unknown temple dating ca. 400-200 BCE.  The project integrates research from PhD students at the Institute of Fine Arts.  Anyone in Rome is invited to join.

From Adjunct Professor Gregory Dietrich

I am pleased to announce that I will be returning to the Salmagundi on June 12th for an encore presentation of “By Design: The Life and Work of the Artist Dietrich” about my father. Hailing from Sweden at the age of 21, Dietrich Grunewald (1916-2003) came to America in 1938 to pursue a career as a fine artist. In the ensuing years, he worked as an etcher and a portrait artist in San Francisco; a naval draftsman in the Pacific Northwest; a scenic designer in San Francisco and Hollywood; and a wallpaper and textile designer in West Hollywood. Twenty-five years after his arrival in the US, a six-day exhibition of his oil paintings in Beverly Hills drew record crowds, making it the largest private exhibition the city had ever witnessed, paving the way for his future success as a fine artist. Although Dietrich has been primarily known as a West Coast artist, his work has been exhibited internationally and spans the Postwar Era to the end of the 20^th century.

Here are the details:

What: “By Design: The Life and Work of the Artist Dietrich”

Where: Salmagundi – 47 Fifth Avenue (at 12th Street)

When: Wednesday, June 12th at 6:00 p.m.

To register for this free in-person program, visit: By Design at the Salmagundi, New York

Two weeks later I will be in Chicago to present at the Swedish American Museum on June 26th at 6:30 p.m. so if you happen to be in the area… ;^)
To register, visit: By Design at the Swedish American Museum, Chicago

Unbound from Rome

Professor Hopkins’ book, Unbound from Rome, will be presented publicly in the Roman Forum at the Curia Iulia (the ancient Roman Senate) on June 17 at 4:30 PM.  Anyone in Rome is invited to join!

 
About the book: Roman art and architecture is typically understood as being bound in some ways to a political event or as a series of aesthetic choices and experiences stemming from a center in Rome itself. Moving beyond the misleading label “Roman,” Professor Hopkins carefully reconsiders some of the period’s most iconic works by way of the many practices and peoples bound up with them. Some of these include the extraordinary and complex effort to build the Temple of Jupiter; the creative actions and diverse encounters tied to luxury objects like the Ficoroni Cista; and the important meanings held in sacred temple sculpture and votive offerings through their making and subsequent practices of devotion.
 
A key purpose of this book is to question an idea of Roman art that has focused on elite production and the textual record; Prof. Hopkins instead calls attention to the lesser-known—often silenced—actors who were integral players. The result is a deep understanding of a diverse and historically rich Italic and Mediterranean world, as well as the myriad cultures, communities, and individuals who would have made and experienced art within and around the changing political boundaries of Rome.