Join us Tuesday Oct 4 at 6pm for a talk with our current artist-in-residence Dr. Leah Modigliani, part of our series of talks StARTers: Assaggi d’Arte (Tastes of Art)

The event will be in person with refreshments and also live-streaming online through the Siena Art Institute’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. (6pm Siena, 5pm London, noon NYC)

Currently at the Siena Art Institute for a month-long artistic residency, Dr. Leah Modigliani is an Associate Professor of Visual Studies at Tyler School of Art and Architecture (Philadelphia, USA). She is an artist and scholar with transdisciplinary engagements informed by fine arts, art history, critical geography, urban studies, and politics. Modigliani’s projects are engendered by and respond to the history of the avant-garde and its relationship to political critique, feminist art and writing, social dissent, the histories of photography, performance and re-enactment as political strategy, and the pernicious effects of neoliberal capitalism. The center of her art and writing is a focus on the myriad ways individuals’ freedom of expression is destroyed, curtailed, or displaced through socio-economic factors beyond their control.

Modigliani’s visual work has been exhibited at many galleries and museums including Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum (Philadelphia), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville, ME), the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Toronto). Her critical writing can be found in academic journals and contemporary art magazines such as Mapping Meaning the Journal, Anarchist Studies, Prefix Photo, Art Criticism and C Magazine. Her book, Engendering an avant-garde: the unsettled landscapes of Vancouver photo-conceptualism, was published by Manchester University Press’s Rethinking Art’s Histories series in 2018. Her second book, Counter-Revanchist Art in the Global City will be published by Routledge in 2023.

More info on Dr. Leah Modigliani:

Instagram: @lmodigliani & @time_moves_in_mysterious_ways
www.leahmodigliani.net

Every day brings new experiences! We have been exploring Siena’s historic center with our current participants from Siena School for Liberal Arts & Siena Art Institute! This fall we have a very international group, with participants from China, Greece, Lebanon, Turkey, and the US! We’re excited to have you with us this semester!

Many things are growing in our garden this fall!

Using #permaculture practices, our #sustainable garden is a resource for our students and community members, a meeting point for shared activities, and just a relaxing space to enjoy the beautiful nature that is all around our building!

Welcome to our fall 2022 participants at Siena School for Liberal Arts & Siena Art Institute! We’re so glad to have you all with us and we’re looking forward to the autumn ahead! Here’re a snapshot from our orientation explorations of Siena and our trip to San Gimignano, in the Province of Siena. We’re kicking off our fall with participants from Greece, Turkey, US and China, incl students from Oberlin College Office of Study Away Swarthmore College Amherst College College of the Holy Cross & more! Many thanks to our #europeansolidaritycorps team for their help facilitating our orientation activities European Youth.

Beginning in summer 2022, our team of Turkish participants are assisting with many aspects of our program activities as part of a Siena Art Institute project through #ESC #EuropeanSolidarityCorps!

Welcome to Siena! We’re glad to have you as part of our community here.

Our Brandeis-in-Siena summer 2022 program has had a very action-packed schedule, including coursework in painting, art history, and trips to San Gimignano, Florence, Venice, and of course here in Siena! A special highlight this year was being able to attend the 59^th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled The Milk of Dreams.

The Brandeis in Siena program is a two-course, intensive faculty-led summer program combining Studio Art and Art History in Siena, Italy. The program is a culturally immersive, experiential learning experience where students will come in direct contact with master works of art seminal to the canon of art history and Western culture. This program focuses on art of the Renaissance, giving the students the life-changing experience of learning and working surrounded by the experts they are studying.

More info: https://www.brandeis.edu/abroad/brandeis-programs/siena/

The latest video on our YouTube channel features Matt Nolen, resident artist at the Siena Art Institute in partnership with Pratt Institute, Fine Arts of Pratt Institute.

The city of Siena shaped Matt Nolen’s work during his residency at the Siena Art Institute. The artist created specific decorations and motifs, first in drawings and then in ceramic objects.

A Return to the Renaissanceon Brandeis in Siena

The largest-ever cohort of students on Brandeis in Siena has arrived in Italy for the seventh annual running of this Brandeis-Run Study Abroad Program, hosted in partnership with the Siena Art Institute. With a paintbrush in one hand and a notebook in the other, twenty-five students are taking Brandeis coursework in Studio Art and Art History while experiencing Siennese and Renaissance art firsthand.

The medieval city of Siena creates a perfect backdrop for these students’ study of Renaissance art and painting techniques. During the first few days of the program, students became familiar with Siena’s ancient turrets and alleyways, exploring the 17 Contrade as well as essential sites like the Piazza Duomo, Castelvecchio, and Basilica of San Domenico.

Program coursework, which includes FA 28a: Painting Siena andFA 45a: Early Renaissance Art in Tuscany from the Age of Dante to the Medici, utilizes the program’s unique surroundings to experience art in situ. In addition to the Siena Art Institute classrooms and artists’ studios, class meetings take place in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Palazzo Pubblico, and elsewhere throughout the city.

A biennial program highlight is the visit to La Biennale di Venezia (the Venice Biennale), one of the most important gatherings of contemporary artists and art exhibitions in the world. Students explored the historic canals of Venice and visited major Biennale exhibits including the Giardini and Arsenale halls.

In partnership with our colleagues at the Siena Art Institute, theBrandeis Office of Study Abroad is delighted to welcome this new cohort of students to the majestic city of Siena andthe Brandeis in Siena alumni community.

Learn More about Brandeis in Siena: Making, Seeing, and Mastering Art in Tuscany