Call for Applications - Nanni Balestrini, Center for Italian Modern Art Fellowship, NY.

General Information
Each year the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) awards multiple Fellowships to support research on and the study of Italian modern and contemporary art for doctoral and post-doctoral scholars. Citizens of all nationalities are eligible. CIMA offers a unique experience to its fellows: its exhibition program serves as a hub for scholars from different academic backgrounds to share—with each other and with the public—research that speaks to the artworks on view. The fellowship has two main components: 1) research conducted through close examination of the artworks and individualized study of a topic raised by the exhibition; 2) community engagement, through public programming in collaboration with CIMA staff and in-person exhibition tours. During their residency, fellows also have the opportunity to pursue their own research and connect with scholars and other professionals in and around New York.

Winter 2023- Spring 2024 CIMA exhibition and Fellowships
CIMA’s Winter-Spring 2024 exhibition will be dedicated to Italian artist and writer Nanni Balestrini (1935-2019). The exhibition focuses on two crucial decades in the career of the Neoavanguardia artist, the 1960s and the 1970s. It begins ideally in 1963, the year in which the Gruppo 63 literary movement was founded in Palermo with Balestrini among its founders. It then concludes in 1980, the year of the release of Blackout, a short poem conceived in the aftermath of the New York City blackout of 1977. Planned as an "action for voice" to be performed by Demetrio Stratos in May 1979, the work was never performed due to the premature death of the Greek vocal experimenter and to Balestrini’s indictment in the 1979 investigations surrounding Autonomia Operaia. Much emphasis has been placed on the exclusively typographical character of writing in Balestrini's plastic works. This exhibition will instead draw attention to the double acoustic and visual level of Balestrini's word or, better yet, to what Paolo Fabbri described as its "phonic-optic indiscernibility". Examining the relationship between Balestrini and Luigi Nono, which lasted an entire decade, and focusing on their collaboration, will shed further light on the search for the disalienation of the word pursued by both. As a point of reference for historical precedents, the exhibition will also include a selection of Futurist freewordist visual poems, a literary-artistic form of expression that was coopted by the Italian Neoavanguardia in the 1960s due to the revolutionary potential of the historical avant-garde movement.
Some of the possible research subjects include (but are not limited to):

• Monographic approaches to Balestrini and Nono’s work, across all media.
• The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s in Italy and beyond.
• The use of words in art: Futurist freewordist poetry, calligrammes, concrete poetry, visual poetry, collage, word painting.
• Experimental music of the 1960s
• The early days of computer art and the concept of an open work of art.
• Balestrini’s reception in the United States.
• Art as a form of political resistance and revolution.
• The workerist movement in Italy and its relationship with the visual arts and literature.
• The reappropriation of Futurist avant-garde aesthetics and literary models by the Neoavanguardia.
• Relationships, parallels, and differences between Neoavanguardia and its international interlocutors: Fluxus, Neo-Dada, Nouveau Réalisme

The deadline for this CIMA Fellowship application is Sunday, December 10, 2023. The selection process will be completed before the end of the year and may include a phone or video interview if necessary. Application materials must be submitted in English.

Fellowship Details

• Fellowship Duration: the 2024 CIMA Fellowships will last five months, encompassing the Spring semester of the 2024 academic year, from February 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2024. Graduate and Post-Graduate Fellows from the disciplines of Art History, Italian Studies, Music, History, and other fields in the Humanities may apply.
• Stipend and Benefits: Fellowship stipends vary in range, based on need and length of term, and typically include a living allowance of $3,750 per month. If appropriate, health insurance coverage will also be reimbursed, as well as travel costs from a fellow’s permanent residence to and from CIMA. CIMA fellows’ tax liability to the U.S. government will be determined in accordance with the tax regulations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
• Resources: Fellows are given a desk at CIMA but are also encouraged to work at a desk provided for them in the main gallery, surrounded by the works that they are researching. They may apply to receive privileges at New York City research libraries through the MaRLI program, and through the research branch of the New York Public Library.
• Responsibilities: Fellows are expected to be present in New York during the term of their fellowship and to participate in the intellectual life and programming of CIMA, though a small research budget to support short research trips to archives elsewhere in the United States will be made available. Fellowship responsibilities include but are not limited to leading CIMA’s public tours (which occur twice a week on Fridays and Saturdays) as well as private guided visits for school groups and special constituents (on average once or twice a week, with the possibility of tours for children or other special activities) and to participating in the public and members’ programming through the run of the exhibition; these duties are shared evenly among the fellows. Fellows interact with a wide variety of public audiences, sharing their research in many different ways, including through guided tours. For this reason, CIMA is seeking candidates who have the ability to express themselves clearly in English.
• CIMA fellows will be present for the installation and de-installation of the exhibition and will collaborate on the planning of the season’s public programs. The fellows work together with CIMA staff to organize the exhibition’s Study Days—an international conference that brings together the fellows and other scholars to share research that stems from the exhibition on view. Fellows are encouraged to contribute to CIMA’s blog and to propose public programming; they are also invited to pursue their own projects and take advantage of the rich cultural life of New York. CIMA makes every effort to assist the fellows in making professional contacts during their residency.

The Selection Process

A committee of experts drawn from CIMA’s advisory board and CIMA’s university partners will meet to select the 2024 fellows. Candidates for CIMA Fellowships are chosen based on their academic potential and curriculum vitae, their proposed plans of study, their spoken and written English and Italian language abilities, and the correlation between their proposals and CIMA’s annual study topic. At CIMA we wish to foster a mix of emerging scholars from different schools of thought, who employ different methodologies and approaches, in order to encourage dialogue and exchange. All other factors being equal, preference will be given to those applicants who have not had extensive prior experience living, studying, and/or working in New York. CIMA selects fellows on an objective and non-discriminatory basis without regard to race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. For this application, CIMA will accept pre-doctoral candidates, and post-doctoral candidates who have attained their PhD within the past 7 years.

The Application

The application should be emailed to infoitalianmodernart.org by Sunday, December 10, 2023. The email subject line should state “Nanni Balestrini fellowship” and the applicant’s first and last name. If the applicant does not receive confirmation or receipt within one week, please contact CIMA by phone or email. Please submit the following information in a single PDF document in 12pt Times font. Please do not send multiple attachments.

• Cover letter with applicant information and project summary

Name, Email, Phone, Address, Current Position

Brief statement describing your background, relevant experience, and particular interests (250-word limit)

Brief summary of proposed study, also relating your project to CIMA’s study theme (350-word limit)

• Proposal
Project Statement (1,500-word limit)

• Curriculum Vitae
A curriculum vitae (maximum of three pages)

• References
Please provide the names, phone numbers, and email addresses for three references. Please instruct your references to submit their letters directly to CIMA by Sunday, December 10, 2023. CIMA prefers letters as single page PDFs sent to infoitalianmodernart.org with the applicant’s first name and last name in the email subject line.