The Italian Cultural Institute of New York presents: "A Personal Exploration of Pietrasanta as an International Arts Center". A talk with Ron Mehlman, Artist and Sculptor, and moderating Anna Mecugni, Lecturer at University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College. Monday, December 15 - 6PM, Italian Cultural Institute - 686 Park Avenue - New York. TO RSVP PLEASE CLICK HERE. 

A Personal Exploration of Pietrasanta as an International Arts Center, by the sculptor Ron Mehlman, this years winner of the Pietrasanta International Sculpture Prize, "Fratelli Rosselli". Ron will speak about Pietrasanta and its environs: its history, its geography, its life as an international arts center, with the many artists who have worked here, from Michelangelo to Noguchi and beyond. He will also speak about the influence Pietrasanta has had on his sculpture, his life and career as an artist.

RON MEHLMAN is a prominent New York Sculptor. He has created many large-scale public and private commissioned sculptures for private corporations and government agencies in the USA, Europe and the Middle East. A native New Yorker, Mehlman divides his time between his studio in Pietrasanta, the famed stone and marble center of Italy, and his workshop in the "Venice of Brooklyn" the Gowanus Canal area.

Mehlman's sculptures become infused with spirit and life, changing with the seasons and time of day. These sculptures are constructed of sunlight and atmosphere, as well as stone, glass, wood, bronze and steel. Panes of glass are compressed between layers of marble, onyx, and granite. The surfaces are textured either by the hand of nature or by the hands of the sculptor and reveal eloquent striations of natural history. Although composed and controlled, the resulting works evoke the wild beauty of geological formations.

ANNA MECUGNI specializes in postwar and contemporary Italian art and visual culture, with particular interests in cultural theory, media aesthetics, gender and sexuality studies, and the intersections of culture and politics. She holds a Laurea in Discipline delle Arti, della Musica e dello Spettacolo summa cum laude from the University of Bologna, and a Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, completed in 2013. Anna Mecugni has taught at Vassar College, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to working in academia, she held curatorial and educational positions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee in Venice, and the 2007 Venice Biennale.

For more information on the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, please visit:
www.iicnewyork.esteri.it

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