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Villa Romana is a German residence for artists situated in Florence.

The winners of the Villa Romana Prize and international guest artists spend time living and working in the Villa. A vast programme of exhibitions and events make Villa Romana a dynamic centre for contemporary art production and international cultural exchange.

The Villa

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Villa Romana is a neoclassical building dating to around 1850. It is named after the road it stands on which was known at the time as via Romana (now via Senese).

The Foundation

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Villa Romana is the oldest German artists’ residence abroad. It was founded in 1905 by Max Klinger, a symbolist painter, sculptor and printmaker who was at the time vice-chairman of the Deutscher Künstlerbund (German Artists’ Association).

Klinger had nurtured the dream of establishing a house for German artists in Italy since at least 1889, when he stayed in Florence with his friend and colleague Karl Stauffer-Bern. He wanted to create a residence and permanent landmark in the city where the artistic revival of the 15th century took place. When the Deutscher Künstlerbund was set up in Weimar in 1903, Klinger tabled his proposal, arguing that “talented artists ought to have the chance to work tranquilly for a while in a pleasant environment; it is not about setting up either a school for dilettantes or a shelter for the penniless.”[1] The proposal was approved two years later on 12 January 1905, and it was decided to send Klinger to Florence with the Leipzig publisher Georg Hirzel to look for suitable premises.

Max Klinger and Elsa Asanijeff in the garden of Villa Romana, April 1905. Archivio Villa Romana, Florence

On 24 March, Hirzel, Klinger and his companion Elsa Asenijeff and other friends left for Florence. Within a few weeks they had purchased a neoclassical villa to the south of the city, not far from Porta Romana. On 4 April Klinger sent a telegraph to the collector and art patron Harry Graf Kessler in London: “today become owner of Villa Romana Florence.”[2] The Deutscher Künstlerbund had been founded by progressive artists as a bulwark against imperial academicism. True to the same spirit, Villa Romana has never been a state institute but is recognised as an independent initiative by a group of artists.

Although the initial idea had been to rent the villa, it was actually bought outright, which later proved to be a far-sighted decision. Shortly afterwards, on 16 December 1906, the Villa Romana e.V. association was set up as sponsoring body, with Max Klinger as its first chairman. Independence from the Deutscher Künstlerbund led to conspicuous donations from the very start. Moreover, the revival of activities after the interruptions and confiscations that took place during the two World Wars would have been impossible if Villa Romana had not belonged to the association.

In the middle of June 1905, the Deutscher Künstlerbund announced the first winners of the Villa Romana Prize, most of whom were representatives of the Vienna, Munich and Berlin secessions: Gustav Klimt, Thomas Theodor Heine, Fritz Erler, Georg Kolbe, Henry van de Velde, Ulrich Hübner and Kurt Tuch. Of these, only Kurt Tuch, Georg Kolbe and Ulrich Hübner were able to accept, and they arrived in the autumn of 1905 as the first fellows of Villa Romana. The following year’s fellows included the young Max Beckmann – whose famous self-portrait wearing a black suit and holding a cigarette, with the Florentine landscape in the background (now in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg) dates to his stay in the villa – and the first female artists, Dora Hitz and Käthe Kollwitz.

In addition to their artistic activity in the studios, the fellows also helped with the renovation, furnishing and administration of the Villa. They lived under the guidance of the first full-time director of the Villa, the theologian and former SPD politician, Theodor Wächter.

The painter Maria Caspar-Filser with her family in front of Villa Romana, 1914. Archivio Haus-Caspar-Filser, Brannenburg

Meanwhile, economic support arrived from Germany from the first sponsors and patrons of the institute: Eduard Arnhold (who also funded Villa Böcklin in Fiesole and Villa Massimo in Rome), Adolf vom Rath and Erich Schulz-Schomburgk from the Deutsche Bank. From Leipzig, Max Klinger continued to occupy himself with the developments of his favourite project up until his death in 1920.

During the wars

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When the First World War broke out the fellows were recalled to Germany for military service. The director Theodor Wächter ceded the Villa to the Italian Red Cross and it was transformed into a military hospital. After the War the Italian State confiscated the Villa as enemy property, and it was not until 1925, after repeated efforts (including a petition to Mussolini), that it was returned to the Villa Romana e.V association.

After an interruption of more than ten years in the artistic activity, in 1928 the Saxon sculptor Gerhard Sacks arrived at the Villa as a fellow, followed a year later by the Cologne painter Joseph Fassbender, who became one of the leading exponents of the Rhineland artistic scene in the post-war period.

During the Nazi era, the Villa Romana e.V. association had to submit to the regime: the board of directors was forced to make room for representatives of the Reich’s Ministry for Education and Propaganda. All members who were Jews or whose ideas were not aligned with those of the party were expelled from the association. Despite the restrictive Nazi influence on the administration of Villa Romana, it succeeded in appointing the artist Hans Purrmann as its new director in 1935. With the support of the then chief consultant of the Deutsche Bank Hans-Alfons Simon, who was able to mitigate Nazi oppression, the Florentine residence became an inviolate – albeit frequently threatened – “semi-emigration centre” for German artists. Purrmann himself discovered in 1937 that one of his works had been displayed at the Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) exhibition in Munich in 1937. Other German artists discredited by the Third Reich also found refuge in Florence, including Emy Roeder, who won the Villa Romana Prize in 1936. Nevertheless, during the years of dictatorship the choice of the fellows had to adhere to the stylistic trends of the regime. Openly avant-garde artists were rejected in favour of more moderate exponents of modern art such as Toni Stadler, a follower of Nazi ideology who produced archaic-style sculptures.

After the armistice of Cassibile in 1943, the colony of German artists had to leave Florence, and in 1945 Villa Romana was again confiscated by the Italian State. In 1948 the former director Hans Purrmann  and the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Theodor Heuss engaged in negotiations for the return of the Villa, which was approved in the summer of 1953 by a committee of international allies. In the interim, in 1949, the Villa Romana e.V. association had also been resuscitated.  In 1958 the sculptor Kurt Hermann Rosenberg was appointed as director, followed by the teacher and puppeteer Harro Michael Siegel in 1964.

The artists resident in Villa Romana between the 1960s and 70s helped to give new stimulus to the institute. They included Johannes Gecelli, Peter Brüning and Horst Antes, Georg Baselitz in 1965, and five years later Markus Lüpertz and Ben Willikens.

Joachim Burmeister came to Florence at Willikens’ invitation and went on to become director of Villa Romana, continuing in office for 34 years.

From the 1970s to 2006

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Joachim Burmeister took over as director on 1 March 1972 and continued to manage the artistic life of Villa Romana up to 2006. The institute had to address major challenges in the early 1970s since its status and significance as an illustrious residence for promising German artists had been seriously undermined.

To open up Villa Romana to the artistic debates and approaches of the time, Burmeister undertook a policy of renewal based on the notion of getting rid of all irrelevant pathos about the Bel Paese and taking a long hard look at Italy. He wanted to avoid the Villa stagnating as a museum of itself, instead of making its name as a node of the international network, albeit outside the major centres of artistic production.

To do so, Burmeister introduced studios for guest artists and sought to open the institute to the public. He opened up the historic “Salone” of the Villa as an exhibition space, entrusting it to the care of his first wife, Katalyn Burmeister. Between 1979 and 2004 around five shows a year were organised, mostly of German and Italian artists.

Also starting from the 1970s, the selection of the prizewinners was more consciously oriented towards international artistic developments. Evidence of this is the participation of many former fellows at documenta 6, curated by Manfred Schneckenburger in 1977: Dorothee von Windheim, Heinz-Günter Prager and Alf Schuler, Nikolaus Lang, Michael Buthe and Anna Oppermann.

After Burmeister’s successful renewal in the 1970s, the position of Villa Romana on the international artistic scene began to decline again in the years that followed. It became stylised as a “utopia of modernity”. At the end of Burmeister’s mandate in 2006 a new change of direction was called for, and the challenge was addressed by the incoming director Angelika Stepken. The first move, between 2006 and 2007, was a complete renovation of the villa carried out with funds from the German federal government.

From 2006 to today

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Up to 2006 the curator and art critic Angelika Stepken was director of the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe. From the start of her mandate at Villa Romana she devoted herself to restyling its image, seeking to conceive the institute on the basis of “contents rather than atmosphere”[3]. She consistently intensified collaboration with the artists, as well as stepping up communication and cooperation at both local and international level. She streamlined the process for judging the Villa Romana Prize, defined a programme of exhibitions and public events and introduced new formats for the production of interdisciplinary knowledge to attract multifaceted historical and critical research. She expanded the narrow Italian-German perspective to an all-round sphere of action, inviting numerous guest artists mostly from the Mediterranean region. A second and larger exhibition space was opened on the ground floor of the Villa, and the large, nearly 4-acre garden was redesigned as a space for reflection and action through a lengthy process of liaison with the landscape architects of atelier le balto. Since 2011 a temporary pavilion of 80 square metres is also available for use in the garden. The first project was designed by the young architectural practice Avatar; this was replaced in autumn 2017 with a new pavilion by the Florentine architect Claudio Nardi.

Since 2011 the independent contemporary art radio station Radio Papesse also has its premises in Villa Romana, accompanying the institute’s programme of events with interviews, live-streaming and talks with artists.

Under Stepken’s direction many young German winners of the Villa Romana Prize have successfully made their names on the international artistic scene in recent years. For instance, Clemens von Wedemeyer went on to participate at documenta 13, Henrik Olesen won the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Vincent Vulsma took part at the 6th Berlin Biennale in 2010, while Petrit Halilaj and Yorgos Sapountzis participated at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. The number of female artists among the prizewinners has also increased considerably.

The garden

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Villa Romana is surrounded by a garden of almost 4 acres consisting of various different areas: a sloping lawn, an olive grove, an orchard and a historic Tuscan-style garden with bay hedges and cypress trees. The garden was largely planted in its current form between the 1970s and 1990s, growing over the decades into a thick forest. So, in 2008, Stepken invited artists, landscape architects and art historians to develop new concepts for the meaning and future of the garden. The upshot was that for many years the redefinition of the entire area was entrusted to the Franco-German landscape architects Atelier le balto. The bay hedge was lowered, the magnolia tree was pruned and the bamboo thicket was thinned out. A “room” with a view over the garden was created behind the Salone, and a bamboo platform was erected in the wild laurel tree. The olives were pruned and the ground was ploughed. A path edged with irises running along the outer wall was retrieved, as was a terrace with a view over Florence. Since then Atelier le balto is regularly invited to the Villa to monitor the state of the garden and to conceive further new spaces, sightlines and relations between the areas inside and outside the garden.

Theoretical insight to support the practical gardening activity was provided during the Semaines de Jardin, held in September 2009 and 2010. Master students, botanists, philosophers, architects, cooks and artists were involved in seminars, exercises, public discussions and evening art events to foster the ongoing conceptual evolution of the garden.  

The Villa Romana Prize

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Prize

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The Villa Romana Prize – the oldest German prize for artists – has been awarded every year since the Florence residence was founded in 1905. It is normally conferred on four outstanding, generally young, artists resident in Germany, who are given the opportunity to develop their artistic research over a 10-month stay in Florence between 1 February and 30 November.  

During their stay the four winners have at their disposal a studio and a furnished flat inside the villa. The fellows also receive a bursary, currently amounting to 1,500€ per month.

Every year eminent artists and curators are called to serve on the jury. In 2018 the curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Curator at Large of documenta 14 and founder of the SAVVY Contemporary project in Berlin, and the multi-prize winning Berlin-based artist Nasan Tur were on the jury.

During their time at Villa Romana the fellows can also propose artists, researchers or other partners for brief sojourns at the Villa.

At the beginning of their residency all prizewinners exhibit their work in the display areas of the Villa; at the end of their stay they prepare a publication together in the form of an artist’s book, which is then generally presented publicly in Berlin.

Prizewinners

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1905 to 1914

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1928 to 1943

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1959 to 1969

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1970 to 1979

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1980 to 1989

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1990 to 1999

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2000 to 2009

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From 2010

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Programme

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Villa Romana is not only an artists’ residence, but also a dynamic centre for the production of contemporary art and international cultural exchange. In parallel with the annual sojourns of the fellows, the Villa hosts a vast programme of exhibitions and public events.

Exhibitions

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At the beginning of their residence, the winners of the Villa Romana Prize are invited to collectively display a selection of their works. Exhibitions of the work of local and international artists are also organised in the historic ground-floor premises of the Villa. The criteria governing the display activity revolve around both contemporary artistic production and reflection on more or less recent episodes of art history seen from a Florentine perspective. Examples among the 2017 shows are the exhibition on Giuseppe Chiari with works from the Block collection, and the show addressing the artistic event Umanesimo, Disumanesimo 1890/1980 held in Florence in 1980, featuring material from the paper archives of the curator Lara-Vinca Masini.

Many exhibitions are also held outside the Villa, for instance at the Italian Embassy in Berlin in 2015, or at the Kunsthalle of the German Federal Republic in Bonn in 2014.

Open Studios

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At the start of her activity in Villa Romana, Angelika Stepken introduced into the programme of the residence a public event that over the years has become one of the most popular and well-attended. These are the Open Studios, held every year on the first Saturday in September, when the Villa Romana fellows open their studios to the public, displaying their work and their current research. The open days are rounded off by installations, videos, performances and concerts by international artists and musicians in the rooms of the Villa and in the garden.

Mediterranean Dialogues

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Since 2007 Villa Romana has paid special attention to fostering dialogue within the Mediterranean area. Guest artists from countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Kosovo and Albania are invited to stay for a short while at the Villa to take part in shows, symposia and events. This has led over the years to the creation of a dynamic network of friendships, collaborative projects and exchange with both the Villa Romana fellows and the Italian public.

The aim of the Mediterranean Dialogues is to expand the southwards gaze of the German institute beyond the Italian borders, looking towards the Mediterranean countries as significant stakeholders for exchange and dialogue about the current practices and conditions of artistic production. In this way, and within the Florentine context, Villa Romana probes decolonialist perspectives, addressing the historic narratives of European modernity through new formats of knowledge production.

Some of the artists taking part in the Mediterranean Dialogues in 2017 were Bassel Al Saadi (Damascus), Faton Mazreku (Malishevë, Kosovo) and the team of Fehras Publishing Practices (Damascus/Berlin)

music@villa

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Since 2010 contemporary music production has also come to play an important part in the Villa Romana programme. Once or twice a year the Italian musicians Francesco Dillon and Emanuele Torquati organise a series of concerts under the umbrella of music@villa. These events always give rise to new co-operative ventures at international level, on the verge between contemporary avant-garde and electronic music.  

Other events

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Villa Romana’s vast programme also comprises workshops and performances, talks with artists and debates, conferences and symposia, concerts and film shows, in liaison with local and international guests. In this way the artists’ residence addresses recent debates relating to art and current affairs, pursuing its mission as a centre for the production of contemporary art and for cultural exchange.

Patrons and sponsors

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The Villa Romana e.V association was founded in 1906 by the Deutscher Künstlerbund, since when it has been the sponsoring body of the residence and has established the Villa Romana Prize.

The association is funded largely by donations from private patrons including businesses, foundations and private citizens. The main sponsors which have been supporting the Villa for many years are the Deutsche Bank Stiftung foundation and the German Federal Government Commission for Culture and Media. The activities of Villa Romana are currently also co-funded by: Daimler AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Dr. Egon and Hildegard Diener-Stiftung, Dr. Arend Oetker and Dr. Brigitte Oetker.

Publications

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  • Gadenz Ilaria/Stepken Angelika (eds.), Maria Gloria Bicocchi, Giancarlo Cardini, Alvin Curran, Gian Piero Frassinelli, Daniele Lombardi, Paolo Masi, Lara Vinca Masini, Gianni Pettena, Renato Ranaldi parlano di/sprechen über Giuseppe Chiari, VfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, Vienna 2017
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2016. Flak Haiti, Stefan Vogel, Nico Jana Weber, Jonas Weichsel, argobooks, Berlin 2017
  • Darwich Kenan/Nicolas Omar/Rustom Sami (ed), When the Library was Stolen. On the Private Archive of Abd Al-Rahman Munif, Fehras Publishing Practices, Berlin 2017
  • Stepken Angelika/Troelenberg Eva-Maria/Danz Mariechen (eds.), Unmapping the Renaissance. Ein gemeinsames Projekt der Villa Romana, Florenz un der Max-Planck-Forschungsgruppe „Objects in the Contact Zone“ am Kunsthistorischen Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut, VfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, Vienna 2015
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2015. Alisa Margolis, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Judith Raum, Johannes Paul Raether, argobooks, Berlin 2016
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Renato Ranaldi. Timparmonico, 1971; Teoria, 1976, Mancamenti, 1978, argobooks, Berlin 2014
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2014. Ei Arakawa, Natalie Czech, Loretta Fahrenholz, Petrit Halilaj, Sergei Tcherepnin, Alvaro Urbano, argobooks, Berlin 2015
  • Macías Juan Pablo (ed.), José Otiticica. The Anarchist Doctrine Accessible to All, Livorno 2014
  • Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH, Bonn (ed.), Villa Romana. Gegenwart eines Künstlerhaus, Druckverlag Kettler GmbH, Bönen 2013
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2013. Mariechen Danz, Daniel Maier-Reimer, Heide Hinrichs, Shannon Bool, argobooks, Berlin 2014
  • Villa Romana, Florenz/Gagliardi Art System, Turin, Mario Rizzi. The Waiting, argobooks, Berlin 2013
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Ketty La Rocca. Supplica per un’appendice. Texte 1962-1976, Archive Books, Berlin 2012
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Gianfranco Baruchello. Esercizi/Übungen, Archive Books, Berlin 2012
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2012. Yorgos Sapountzis, Sophie Reinhold, Nine Budde, argobooks, Berlin 2013
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Edition der Villa Romana-Preisträger 2011. Thomas Kilpper, Henrik Olesen, Nora Schultz, Rebecca Ann Tess, Vincent Vulsma, argobooks, Berlin 2012
  • Latronico Vincenzo (ed.): Gegenmittel bei Abwesenheit von Reiner Ruthenbeck, Archive Books, Berlin 2011
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Filippo Manzini, Carlo Cambi Editore, Poggibonsi (SI) 2010
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2010. Sebastian Dacey, Anna Möller, Martin Pfeifle, Anna Heidenhain, argobooks, Berlin 2011
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Ogni sempre. Villa Romana-Preisträger 2009. Kalin Lindena, Olivier Foulon, Eske Schlüters, Benjamin Yavuzsoy, argobooks, Berlin 2010
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Freisteller. Villa Romana-Preisträger 2008. Dani Gal, Julia Schmidt, Asli Sungu, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Verlag für moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 2009
  • Villa Romana e.V. (ed.), Villa Romana-Preisträger 2006/2007. Andrea Faciu, Barbara Kussinger, Silke Markefka, Michail Pirgelis, Andrea Hanak, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Anna Kerstin Otto, Stefan Thater, Verlag für moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 2008

References

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Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH, Bonn (ed.), Villa Romana. Gegenwart eines Künstlerhaus, Druckverlag Kettler GmbH, Bönen 2013

Föhl, Thomas/Wendermann Gerda: Ein Arkadien der Moderne?� 100 Jahre Künstlerhaus Villa Romana in Florenz, G+H Verlag, Berlin 2005

  1. ^ Max Klinger; see Preuss Sebastian, Zimmer mit Aussicht, in: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH, Bonn (ed.), Villa Romana. Gegenwart eines Künstlerhaus, Druckverlag Kettler GmbH, Bönen 2013, p. 105
  2. ^ Max Klinger; ibid., p. 104
  3. ^ Angelika Stepken; see Nedo Kito: „Kunst-Nukleus. Die traditionsreiche Villa Romana eröffnet mit neuem Profil“, db-artmag, Autumn 2007, www.db-artmag.com/archiv/2007/d/4/1/549.htm
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References

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