Thursdays at the Villa | March 15

7:00 p.m.
The Trap of Aestheticism, the Crime of Aesthetics
A Conversation with the Architect Renato Rizzi, hosted by resident artist Marc Leschelier, architect

This title immediately opens up a broad discussion involving architecture and the subtleties of Western culture. In fact, these two words, “esthétisme” and “esthétique,” are not adjectives but nouns. Their gender—masculine and feminine—indicates completely different semantic structures, even though both words belong to the same epistemological framework. The use of these terms thus prepares us to see what we have forgotten from the past, but also to what extent we remain unaware of the (in)current elements of our present—the works we produce. And so as not to lose our bearings in this confusing cultural nebula, we fix our gaze on the benevolent yet stern light of three stars: Marcel Proust, Joseph Brodsky, and Venice.

Renato Rizzi (1951), an architect, returned to Italy after a long stint at Peter Eisenman’s firm in New York to become a professor of Architectural Design at IUAV University (Venice). Among his most notable projects are the Depero Museum in Rovereto and the Elizabethan Theater in Gdańsk. He is currently working on an architectural interpretation of the complete poetic works of John Hejduk (New York, 1929–2000).

8:30 p.m.
From the Kingdom of Congo to the Villa Medici
A conversation with Cécile Fromont, art historian, invited by resident artist Éric Baudelaire, visual artist

A hammock. Palm trees. Monkeys, birds, small mammals. It is easy to recognize in the tapestries from the Royal Gobelins Manufactory—now on display in the Grand Salon of the Villa Medici—the blend of scientific curiosity and a taste for the exotic that was so prized in the decorative arts of^{the 17th} and^18th centuries. But what are we to make of the presence of Black men amid this lush tropical flora and fauna? Art historian Cécile Fromont, an expert on Africa, turns her gaze to the “Tentures des Indes” and reveals the origins of their compositions in the diplomatic history of the Christian Kingdom of Congo in^{the 17th} century. The journey of these portraits of African ambassadors—painted in Brazil around 1640 and reduced to mere exotic motifs within a few decades—invites us to rethink the role of the image in relations between Europe and Africa in the modern era and today.

Cécile Fromont is an art historian at the University of Chicago. Her research and teaching focus on the visual, material, and religious cultures of Africa and Latin America, particularly during the modern period (1500–1800) and in the Lusophone Atlantic region. She is the author of numerous articles and essays, as well as the book *The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo*, published in 2014 and recognized with numerous academic awards. A recipient of the Prix de Rome, she is currently a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in art and architectural history from Harvard University.