I am delighted to represent my government at the inauguration of this - PDF document

I am delighted to represent my government at the inauguration of this extraordinary exhibition organized by the American Academy in Rome and by the Phillips Collection which I would like vey much to anniversary of its foundation. Let me start by thanking deeply the Director of the Phillips Collection, Dr. Dorothy Kosinski, Chairman George Vrandenburg, the curator PePresident of the American Academy in Rome Adele Chatfield-Taylor rticular the Mayor of This event highlights a significant page in the vast history which Italy and the United States share in the realms of Arts and Culture. In many ways, Guston’s artistic expression shows how intense and vibrant the intellectual background which joins the US to my Country continues to be today. Philip Guston, Roma comes to the “magical rooms” of the Phillips Collection in Washington following a very successful run at Since 1894, the American Academy in Rome has been helping to promote and enhance creative interaction between American artists and its President, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, who has managed to admirably blend past and future in the Academy’s work. She has given this institution a modern and vital potential that the American spirit represents for artists working in the Philip Guston always had a very personal, I connection to Italy. Tonight we remember this. We remember the many masters who inspired him, from Masaccio to Piero della Francesca, from Giotto to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and De Chirico. His passionate interest in Italy grew stronger after he decided to move there in 1970 om most of the art establishment upon his return to figurative art; a criticism ungenerously moved to him, who was the very father of expressionism, together with Pollock, It was at this difficult time that Guston painted the “Roma” series, which we are privileged to admire tonight. Through these masterpieces we will see how, at the start of the 1970s, Guston saw Italy as a place where he could draw inspiration, or meditate on art, or yet abandon himself to nostalgia of the past – in other words, where he could flee the pressure of the world. From ancient Etruscan ruins to Fellini’s films, this collection depicts and confirms the ties oh this great artist with the eternal city. As some Italian critics have written, in Italy Guston portrayed himself as the “great heretic of 20 Century painting, an This special rapport between Guston and Rome becomes even more significant if we view it within the wider framework of this year’s y’s Unification. Nowhere can the 150 Anniversary of the Italian Unification be better appreciated and understood than in the United States; for the values of freedom and equality which are shared by both our Countries; for they have driven the birth of the U.S. as much as the fight for Italian independence, during the Risorgimento. In no other place have the layers of a common history connected more political thinkers, science, 2011 has therefore become the year of the Italian culture in the U.S., through many programs placed under the Auspices of the President of the Italian Republic. Unique bonds, confirmed by President Obama in his Columbus Day proclamation, when he recalled the 150 Anniversary Philip Guston has greatly contributed to renewing our friendship, Grazie.