Post-colonialism, a primary theme among the artists of the French Academy in Rome

When the male branch of the Medici family died out in the 17th century, the Villa that the Grand Duke of Tuscany had founded in Rome passed into the hands of the House of Lorraine and, in times of Napoleon, to the Kingdom of Etruria.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
24 July 2022 Sunday 18:01
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Post-colonialism, a primary theme among the artists of the French Academy in Rome

When the male branch of the Medici family died out in the 17th century, the Villa that the Grand Duke of Tuscany had founded in Rome passed into the hands of the House of Lorraine and, in times of Napoleon, to the Kingdom of Etruria. It was thus that Bonaparte came into possession of the Villa Medici and transferred it to the French Academy in Rome. Since then it has housed the winners of the prestigious Prix de Rome.

Located next to the Iglesia de la Trinidad del Monte, it is open to the public to contemplate its gardens and imagine its heyday, with all the sculptures and fountains, but also the interior of the elegant building which, apart from the room where he was detained Galileo, houses from the paintings of Velázquez to the friezes and ceilings of the Florentine Mannerist Jacopo Zucchi.

Like all the families of the Renaissance (the Barnerini or the Pamfili, from which Innocent X emerged), the Medici sought the papacy. Power meant being Pope. And there were families that claimed to be descendants of the Caesar family, claiming to be patricians. In fact it was through Rome that the Hellenistic culture survived.

The concern of art today is very different. And among the concerns of the Villa Medici pensionnaires is post-colonialism. His request to remove the Indian tapestries from the great hall caused a stir in the French media, which lamented that the culture of cancellation had reached there.

"It seemed to us that they were pieces to contextualize in a museum and not to have in the main hall," recalls Parra. “Post-colonialism is not a priority issue in my field of music, although I will deal with it in an opera I am doing about the Congo. On the other hand, in literature and the plastic arts I have seen that it is essential”.

One of the writers with whom the musician has collaborated during his stay at the Villa Medici is the Algerian Kaouther Adimi ( Stones in the pocket ), who wanted to project The Battle of Algiers , by Guillo Pontecorvo, here. Parra put music to a story he wrote about the two peacocks that remain in the gardens of the Villa and, together with his partner, the pianist Imma Santacreu, he set one of the chapters of Adimi's latest novel to music at the pensionnaires' vernissage , Au vent mauvais .

In it, he recounts an episode of World War II in which North African soldiers who fought for France against the Nazis were later imprisoned in Versailles and treated like plague-stricken immigrants. They weren't even allowed to go to the movies, lest you mix with whites... One of them was the author's grandfather.

“We did a music reading in which Imma played a kind of Sarabanda and we combined the Versailles arrogance with the scratch of stomach rage...”.

France integrates the creators of the former colonies, makes them pensionnaires in Rome... but it has not overcome the crisis in Algeria.