Contact:  Info (at) ArtMonastery (dot) org

The Art Monastery Project brings Living Art Experiment

to New York at Fundraiser Gala

American artists Christopher Fülling and Betsy McCall, along with a team of international collaborators, moved to Italy’s Calvi dell’Umbria this January to develop The Art Monastery Project. Over the next few years they will attract artists, musicians, and scholars to a former Ursuline convent at the center of this picturesque hillside town forty-five minutes north of Rome. There, they will create a community that produces relevant contemporary art deeply inspired by monastic tradition. On April 12th New Yorkers can catch a glimpse of this unique vision when Fülling and McCall host a concert and silent auction fundraiser at CUNY’s Great Hall.

“Like many people, we’ve come to that time in our lives when we need to stop the compromises and just go for what matters,” says Ms. McCall. “For us, that means creating an intentional community where the depth of collaboration and vitality of discussion produces genuinely transformative art.” A bit of that art will be on display at the event, with a Baroque concert featuring Phoebe Jevtovic Alexander, Brooke Bryant, and Avi Stein, accomplished musicians who will be collaborating with them in Italy as well. Famed New York portrait artist Antony Zito will be creating custom on-the-spot portraits. Accompanied by Italian wine and hors d’oeuvres and a silent auction of art and opportunities, the evening will bring la dolce vita to New York.

DISCIPLINE AMONGST BOHEMIAN ARTISTS?

The initial inspiration for the Art Monastery Project came from Fülling’s experience with the German monks of Maria Laach while directing a reconstruction of a Baroque Easter Vespers. The beauty and history of the architecture, the regularity and discipline of the daily schedule, the contemplative practice and the Gregorian chant rituals all helped to focus the mind and inspire the spirit throughout the creative process.

As Fülling observes, “It’s ironic but true that today’s artistic avant garde is less and less concerned with self-expression and ‘breaking the rules’--which have all been broken. I'm much more inspired by the discipline and collaboration of intentional living and the efficacy of the art such lifestyles can produce.” According to Erik Davis, a culture critic and author of Techgnosis and The Visionary State, a survey of California’s spiritual communities, “Artists today are increasingly unsatisfied with the gallery or the concert hall. They have an urgent desire to explore new forms of communication and collaboration, to make work that engages the world in new ways. What’s marvelous about the Art Monastery is how they are riding this edge by rooting themselves in the best of tradition.”

WHAT’S TO COME AT THE ART MONASTERY?

Although the Art Monastery is non-dogmatic and multidisciplinary, its art will initially focus on work linked to the spectacular Baroque convent in Calvi dell’Umbria. A reconstruction of an Ursuline nuns’ vespers by Baroque composer (and Ursuline nun) Isabella Leonarda will draw together experts in religious design, music and liturgy. With the premier set for July 19th in Calvi, the vespers will be performed by an all-women’s ensemble led by Candace Smith of Cappella Artemisia, a preeminent authority on Baroque Nuns’ music. In co-production with La Maddalena, a song revue exploring the varied aspects of Mary Magdalene, this first season promises to straddle the fence between tradition and the avant-garde, creating beautiful concerts in the process.

But Mr. Fülling and Ms. McCall have been laying the groundwork for the premier since last summer. In June 2007 Ms. McCall installed an exhibition in the town hall with noted London artist, Sarah Baker. Fülling’s 17thC ensemble, The Pacelli Project, performed a Baroque concert in the town’s oldest church. Then the town threw a party with a traditional Italian band, local wine, and porchetta for hundreds. As McCall put it, “Dancing in the piazza and feeling the abundant goodwill convinced all involved that our experimental life-as-art vision had found a perfect home in this traditional community.”