⬇Click the sections below to explore the projects created within our various courses ⬇

Join us online as we celebrate together the artworks created by the tenacious young artists of the Siena Art Institute and Siena School for Liberal Arts during the very unusual circumstances of the Spring 2020 semester. Despite the limitations of having to work from home amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, our students have been tenaciously and creatively continuing with their artistic projects, including work from our courses in ceramics, photography, silversmithing, music, art history, museum studies, and the interdisciplinary Art & Society course.

The slideshow below offers a glimpse into our recent meetings with teachers & students working remotely since Italy’s Covid-19 “lock-down” went into effect on March 9:

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A glimpse back at the start of our Spring 2020 semester between students’ arrival on January 24 and the national “lock-down” of March 9:

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To kick off the inauguration of our end-of-semester exhibition, we are holding a live broadcast on Facebook between two continents!   At 5:30pm on Saturday May 9th (11:30 am NYC) our students will be our “correspondents” for a live broadcast through the Facebook page of the Siena Art Institute (www.facebook.com/sienaart ), allowing our young artists to speak about their work and answer questions from the public.

The participants in our Spring 2020 semester come from a variety of institutions (the Athens School of Art and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Amherst College and Mount Holyoke College and the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts (USA), and Oberlin College in Ohio (USA).  Our Greek students were selected to participate in the Siena Art Institute’s Spring 2020 semester program thanks to a special scholarship offered in collaboration with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Looking forward to our Spring Show 2020, launching online Saturday May 9, here is a message from our photography instructor, Jacqueline Tune, reflecting on the challenging circumstances during this spring semester and how our students from the Siena Art Institute & Siena School for Liberal Arts have been able to create remarkable work in the face of numerous obstacles.

Join us for our students’ live online broadcast on the Siena Art Institute‘s Facebook page, Saturday May 9at 5:30pm Italy/ 11:30am NYC/ 08:30 L.A. showcasing the many projects they have completed during the past few months, and our digital exhibition will go live at the same time here on our blog. We hope to see you then!

Preparations are underway looking ahead to our Spring 2020 Show, launching online in 1 week!

Here is a glimpse “behind the scenes” with musician Alípio Carvalho Neto, working with student Ike Fenner in his musical compositions. Join us Saturday May 9 at 5:30pm (Italy time) for a live broadcast on our Facebook page plus our digital exhibition at sienaart.blog highlighting the fantastic work created by our students of the Siena Art Institute & Siena School for Liberal Arts during this challenging semester, including music Ike has created under Alípio‘s mentorship!

show announcement illustration credit: student Fernando Torralba

What does it mean to be an artist during this quarantine period? This spring we are discussing with writers, architects, and visual artists from all over the world for STARTERS LIVE, our new web series live every Tuesday and Friday on the Facebook page of the Siena Art Institute.

Follow the live broadcast at Facebook.com/SienaArt
The broadcasts are viewable to the public, even if you don’t have a Facebook account, and will last appx 20 minutes beginning at 17:30 Siena (11:30am NYC, or use this time zone converter to know what time it will be where you are: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html)

The presenters in our broadcasts are artists from around the world well-known in Siena, who demonstrate their affection for our Tuscan city through their participation:  Madyha J. Leghari, Laura Marsh, Carlos Estévez, Susan Barbour, Gabriel Feld, Nicoletta di Gaetano, Lisa Corinne Davis,  Alexandros Georgiou, Magdalena Maslerz, Neil Goldberg, Julie Wyman, & Mikayel Ohanjanyan.  Find more information about this ongoing series on our StARTers page, and on our Facebook event.

For more info, email office@sienaart.org

Calender for StARTers Live: Spring 2020

April 21 – Madyha J. Leghari, artist and writer (talk in English)

April 24 – Laura Marsh, visual artist (talk in English)

April 28 – Carlos Estévez, visual artist (talk in English)

May 5 – Susan Barbour, poet, scholar, artist, perfumer (talk in English)

May 8 – Gabriel Feld, visual artist and architect (talk in English)

May 12 – Nicoletta di Gaetano, textile artist (talk in Italian)

May 15 – Lisa Corinne Davis, visual artist (talk in English)

May 19 – Alexandros Georgiou, visual artist (talk in English)

May 22 – Magdalena Maslerz, goldsmith and designer (talk in English)

May 26 – Neil Goldberg, visual artist and performer (talk in English)

May 29 – Julie Wyman, film-maker and performer (talk in English)

June 5 – Mikayel Ohanjanyan, visual artist (talk in Italian)

Despite the limitations of having to work from home, our students are tenaciously and creatively continuing with their artistic projects, and making use of the digital platform of our blog to be able to share their work with each other and with the broader public.

Don’t miss our Digital End-of-Semester exhibition launching on Saturday May 9 through our blog and social media channels!  Starting at 5:30pm (Siena time) the young artists and students from the USA and Greece of the Siena Art Institute and the Siena School for Liberal Arts will be the protagonists of our first DIGITAL EXHIBITION live broadcast on Facebook between two continents, celebrating the projects they have created during this spring semester!

See the pages for our Silversmithing, Ceramics, Music, and Photography classes above with work-in-progress, and check out the projects from the Spring 2020 Art & Society course at the top of each participant’s individual blog page:

• Antonis Douroudis
• Myrto Patramani
• Angelos Sotiriou
• Rozalia Tegougianni
• Fernando Torralba

What does it mean to be an artist during this quarantine period? Beginning tomorrow, Tuesday April 21st, we will launch a series of online talks with writers, architects, and visual artists from all over the world: STARTERS LIVE, our new web series live every Tuesday and Friday at 5:30pm Siena (11:30 am NYC).  Join us at FACEBOOK.COM/SIENAART!

The visual artist Madyha J. Leghari will open the season of STARTERS LIVE Tuesday April 21st connecting with us direct from Lahore, Pakistan (presentation in English). Leghari was artist-in-residence in the early months of 2020 at the Siena Art Institute. The protagonists in the upcoming appointments for our broadcasts will be other artists well-known in Siena, who want to demonstrate their affection for our Tuscan city through their participation: Laura Marsh, Gabriel Feld, Alexandros Georgiou, Magdalena Maslerz and many more!

Our photography teacher, Jacqueline Tune, proposed a fun project for each student to create a self-portrait photograph wearing an “Easter Bonnet” they have designed themselves.  Needless to say, materials are somewhat limited under the current “lockdown” but the results are truly fabulous!  Happy Easter everybody!

Rozalia Tegougianni

Fernando Torralba

For more info on the photography class’s current activities, visit: https://sienaart.blog/spring-2020-photography/

The five participants in our Art & Society course have just completed their mid-term projects, all using their creativity while working remotely to address the unexpected situations in which we currently find ourselves!  Check out the projects at the top of each participant’s individual blog page:

• Antonis Douroudis
• Myrto Patramani
• Angelos Sotiriou
• Rozalia Tegougianni
• Fernando Torralba

3.I Masetto becomes a deaf-mute in order to be engaged as gardener in a nunnery. How the sisters encourage him to be a zealous husbandman.

Our Greek student Rosa (Rozalia Tegougianni) has created an artistic project in the context of her silversmithing course responding to the use of face masks amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Working safely from her apartment, she has created a metal facemask as an object of art, provoking us to consider its complex meaning and symbolism.  #contemporaryart #stayhome 

Per il corso di artigianato orafo, la nostra studentessa greca Rosa ha prodotto un progetto artistico ispirato all’uso delle mascherine durante la pandemia di Covid-19. Lavorando da casa, la giovane artista ha creato una mascherina di metallo, invitandoci a riflettere sui complessi significati e simbolismi di questo oggetto.  #artecontemporanea #iorestoacasa

Title: TOUGH ITEM FOR SELF KINDNESS // KIND ITEM FOR SELF TOUGHNESS

Product description:
The surgical disposable face mask covers your nose, mouth and chin, 
offering you full protection.

SPECIFICATION:
Age: adult
Color & Style: bronze, ear-loop
Material: sheets of copper-plated zinc
Gender: unisex
Fluid Resistance/Anti-fog: fluid resistant Multiple protections 
to block dust, harmful substances, gases.
Packaging Includes: 1 pc
Place of production: Siena, Italy

Our tenacious students and instructors at the Siena Art Institute continue working remotely in the face of Italy’s extended national lockdown.  Through individual skype chats and group video conferences we are able to stay in touch as students work to finalize their mid-term projects for our Art & Society course group critique on Tuesday April 7.

You can follow students’ work-in-progress on their individual blog pages:

• Antonis Douroudis
• Myrto Patramani
• Angelos Sotiriou
• Rozalia Tegougianni
• Fernando Torralba

This week the Pulitzer-Prize-winning American art critic Jerry Saltz is the springboard for our group discussion in the Art & Society course.  We’ve read his article published in Vulture magazine on March 20, “The Art World Goes Dark” and some earlier materials by him such as the “New Ways of Seeing” video by Tiffany & Co. and “Navigating an Art Fair” and “How to be an artist, 33 Rules...” from Vulture magazine. He is a silly guy, but through his comedy he addresses a lot of serious topics, including challenging the entrenched systems of elitism, privilege, entitlement and censorship that seem inherent to the “art world.”

In his latest article from Vulture magazine, Saltz writes:

“Can art change the world? In respect to those suffering and about to suffer, we must say no. However, art does change lives, and lives can change the world.”