Down We Went

Last week, a friend at the Academy sent out an email looking for someone to travel down the Tiber River with her. Marie is one of the only people I know who has circumnavigated Manhattan in a row boat (which I did many years ago with urban Outward Bound), so I was excited to go with her, to have a correlation with my New York experience in the same way my walks and maps have connected me to my time in Paris.

Marie Lorenz's project at the Academy is called "The Inner Sea" and over the winter, she built a boat in her studio to navigate the Tiber in order to survey Rome from the water. She has carved local images into the hull and makes beautiful rubbings from them. As an artist, she uses boats she builds to ferry people (friends, acquaintances, or strangers who contact her through her website http://www.marielorenz.com) around the Hudson River. Her work centers on the idea that uncertainty creates awareness, so she searches for the sake of finding what is to be found, and also to change perspective. Riding in a boat puts one in a different relationship to the earth (or to water for that matter) than walking or biking or taking a car.

Marie began the first leg of this journey last Sunday, setting off from the Isola Tiberina in Rome with her friend Melissa, who was visiting from NYC. Matthew and another artist from the Academy, Jeff Williams, went along to see her off and to take pictures. She continued the journey midweek with Eric Bianchi, a scholar at the Academy, and at the end of their day, they stashed the boat near Ostia Antica.

On Friday morning, Marie and I went by bus then train to Ostia Antica, where we found the boat and Marie's supplies exactly where she left them. It was muddy from rainstorms the night before and the river was higher than the last time Marie was out, but the sun was shining, the river sparkled, and it was a perfect day to be out of the city and away from the Academy. Marie put in the oarlocks, explained our path, then we lowered the boat into the river to set off.




When we got in the water, I felt very happy. Marie is wonderfully laid back, but also clearly capable in the water. She wants to see what will happen just by going out and her attitude about the river seems a lot like the reasons I walk so much: to see what there is to see serendipitously.



Some parts of the river felt like they could be anywhere, anytime. The foliage was as unspecific as any other lush green overgrowth found near water and even the architecture was in places indecipherable. From a super-sized stucco bar that could be an Olive Garden in New Jersey or a restaurant in Florida, to an overpass cutting over the river with trucks and boats manufactured in the same way everywhere, there was something vague and familiar about the landscape but then a medieval tower jutted into view behind the boats, signaling something specific.



As we continued towards the ocean, a decaying pier led to a sinking ferryboat hovering on the shore of the Isola Sacra. It was a fairly recent relic on the shores of an island where antiquities routinely wash up and also typical of the sort of rotting things found anywhere human constructions fight nature and time. In other places, the wrecked hull would have been cleared away quickly and my first instinct was to think it wrong that these broken bits hung morbidly to the edge of land, but then, in the United States, the Coliseum would have been torn down long ago. This habit of letting things be makes sense in a place where hollowed out, crumbling remains are one of the prime reasons to visit. Detritus that is not removed and withstands all the elements to survive might turn out to be instructive, could end up being viewed like the Forum one day.



We floated by the ferry, close enough to look in the windows, to see the abandoned seats and tables. It felt ghostly though it probably sank while moored, and if not, everyone on board was surely okay, sinking as close to land as it did.



Despite the wreck, the river had a quiet liveliness: men fishing or earning a livelihood from the water. People out boating for the day. Planes taking off from Fiumicino Airport nearby.



We pulled up onto shore of the Isola Sacra to explore the island, where Marie said people come looking for antiquities coughed up from the Tiber. We trudged around in the shrubs then returned to shore only to get stuck in the silty mud. Marie managed to get out with greater ease than I did: the more I struggled to free myself, the deeper I sank, so I had to pull off my boots to get loose. As mucky and polluted as the Tiber may be, it still felt good to squish my feet in sand, to rinse my toes in water. We ate our picnic lunches and I thought about the age of the river, the way things come back, how a seemingly small incident can be a seed of something larger that re-emerges later in the way Roman pottery washes back up on the Isola Sacra.



I remembered that a few years ago, I went to a former professor's reading in New York. At the end of the reading, I said hello and she remembered me despite the many years since I was her student in college. We got to talking (her novel references the General Slocum tragedy, which I know about from volunteering at the Merchant's House Museum) and Carol mentioned that she was hoping to go back to North Brother Island where she volunteered many years ago. I said I would try to find a way for us to get there and my research led me to Marie's website. When Carol and I realized that North Brother Island is now a protected bird sanctuary and off-limits much of the year, we postponed the idea of contacting Marie (whom I had never met before this year) and I half forgot about her site until the Rome Prize ceremony last spring, when I saw Marie's name again. A nice coincidence and I thought that maybe one day, I would get to go in one of her boats.



So here I was, on the Tiber, in one of Marie's boats. After lunch, we continued towards the ocean, this time wearing life preservers in case the water grew less friendly, or the carabinieri came by.



As we approached the ocean, structures for leisure, fishing shacks or small abodes for weekend getaways, were interspersed with what seemed to be ramshackle residences. Some were very beat and collapse felt imminent. When we reached the ocean, the water was choppy, with the one visible sail boat tacking widely to each side. Marie talked about the possibility of taking the boat out again on open waters. A lone fisherman stood at the end of the jetty and despite the wind and surf, there was a certain quiet too. Mid-afternoon on a Friday, the few scattered people fishing (mostly men) seemed out for escape more than for leisure. We tied the boat up and decided to explore the jetty where we found a strange bunker type structure. Marie walked out into the water, climbed up the rocks to gage the surf and the possibilities for sailing the boat another day.



We headed back to the boat, then back up the Tiber. At first, we were both rowing (Marie rowed alone all morning) and it was going well. But the tide turned against us, making our progress very slow. Marie decided we should find a place to stash the boat and call it a day. We pulled up next to an empty lot, between a boat business and what seemed to be a very nice residence. There was plenty of green growth to camouflage the boat.




A man working in the garden nearby let us out and we hoped he would keep the boat a secret until Marie returned, which he did. We were right near the medieval tower I had seen earlier from the river. We walked back towards where we hoped to find a train station, past a mix of hopeful new and crumbling old architecture. There was an air of faded glory to the place, of the recent past (as compared to the ancient past) like in Coney Island or Belmar, New Jersey. Marie asked for directions from a man with a food cart selling prosciutto, marinated artichokes, fresh fruit and fava beans.




In Coney Island, he would have been offering junk food or packaged goods. The man directed us to the boardwalk, where another man gave us directions to the bus. We made our way back to Rome, the day having passed by too quickly.

Double click on any of these images to see them larger and also check out Marie's log of the day, plus all of her other trips, at:
http://www.marielorenz.com/inprogress/?p=2315

The Capitoline

One of the benefits of living in Rome is that we visit the sort of cultural sites we don’t get to in New York City as often as we would like.  We have the idea of going, but are busy working and assume the show will be there tomorrow, next week, next month, then time slips past and the exhibit we’ve read about is gone.

Living for a finite time in Rome, surrounded by things that have been around forever and will certainly be here tomorrow or the next day or the day after, our sense of time is more immediate and we make lists of things to see and do and actually go.

Maybe because it is usual to do nothing but work in New York, whereas it is unusually hard to get work done work in Rome, we have been visiting sites (in this case, because a trip was organized by the Academy) like the Capitoline Museums.

Set on the Campidoglio just above the Forum with a piazza designed by Michelangelo, the Capitoline is full of the detritus of ancient Rome: classical sculpture and archaeological finds from the iconographic statue of a she-wolf suckling Remus and Romulus to a pair of enormous marble feet the size of a car to a room of ancient marble busts impressive even to weary New Yorkers used to the bounty of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Leaving aside the fact that no building or institution in New York City is remotely as old as the Capitoline, whose foundation dates to 1471 making it one of the oldest public collections in the world, everything here seems weighted and manages to refocus our priorities to garner our attention: from a random Roman column that forms the corner of a restaurant to the starlings swirling overhead in the late afternoon bringing to mind the practice of augury, we are constantly aware here of how lengthy Rome’s history is, but how brief it will be for us.

Contraband Photo Series #1 or Getting Away with Things

In a bureaucracy like France, there are rules of engagement dictating how things will work and those rules must be followed, step by step.  Adopt the protocol and things will go swimmingly. Ignore the process, intentionally or not, and you will not get very far. In Italy, there are also rules and layers of procedures, but the rules are sometimes flexible and can change with each election.  This is a country where two of the current President's most admired traits are that he gets things done amidst chaos, including things that shouldn't be done, and that he gets away with things that shouldn't be done. 

Change here might mean that something once allowed has become unacceptable.  The person thwarting you from a desk or window might be saying, “No way, no how, and not for any particularly good reason,” like the woman at the post office who claimed there was no such thing as a post card stamp, so we went to another post office to purchase them.  Or perhaps the answer is, “You may not because the new administration's rules haven't been passed down yet, so no just in case.” And then there is the “No you may not until you shout like a lunatic silencing the angry figure who has appeared to impede you," which means you are going to get away with it.  Getting away with something seems to be a well-practiced sport here involving hand gestures, a flushed face, and a steely resolve.

One of the more frustrating rule changes is the randomly enforced prohibition against photography at museums or cultural sites, which is especially vexing as these institutions were created by and for art.  At some, guards stand by while visitors take pictures and at others, arms flail and eyes flash as a crazed form approaches ranting madly. In these instances, you tuck the camera away immediately, into your pocket or under your arm.  These photos were all taken against the rules, usually from my pocket or under my arm just to see what I would get, which is to say, what I would get away with while getting yelled at.

We visited the Sistine Chapel on one of those rainy late fall/almost winter days, when the little bit of gloomy light has disappeared by four in the afternoon.  From the front entrance to the chapel, a guard shouts “Quiet!”every few minutes.  The wandering masses pause for a brief second as if in detention, their necks craned and their heads titled towards the ceiling. Another guard patrols the crowd. There is a confusing sign with a symbol of a camera and a flash and an X over the drawing. Photography is permitted along the route to the Sistine Chapel, so I began taking photographs of people staring at the ceiling when the circling guard descended and demanded, “You will now erase.” (It is okay to photograph Raphael, but not Michelangelo apparently.)  He stood over me as I punched buttons on the camera and then I lied, “Sorry. I deleted them.”

Not satisfied,  the guard glared at me intensely as I put my camera in my bag.  He asked, “Why would you take photographs? There is a sign.”  I explained that the sign had a flash and so I was confused as photography is allowed throughout the Vatican.  He repeated, “Why? Why would you take a picture? The sign is very clear.” I apologized once more and noted that others were taking pictures as well, so the sign is not terribly clear. (One should never try to explain anything in a situation like this one.)  The guard locked his eyes on my face and reiterated over and over that the sign could not possibly be misunderstood by anyone. I was beginning to wonder what I should say besides, “I’m sorry” to make the guard leave me alone when my friend stared him down and said in a deep, stern voice, “She said she’s sorry; she won’t take more pictures.” The guard immediately turned away to pester another couple nearby. In Rome, whether one is enforcing the rules or breaking the rules, a forceful tone, (accompanied by glaring and hand gestures) is the way to get away with it.

The Realms of the Unreal

The very geography of the Academy cements a feeling of divine isolation because we enter by climbing up a steep hill (450 steps from the first stair in Trastevere to the last one near the Fontana Paola via the sharpest but most direct route) and then proceed through a series of gates and doors to get past the porter, the fountain, into the cortile, then on to the salone, the bar, or our room, which requires yet another flight.  

Inside our enclosed world, I am reminded that the word “paradise” derives from the Persian word for an enclosed garden and though it is sometimes too cold or too hot, and at this time of year the rain can drive down, just outside the windows hang fat Roman clouds against which smoky tendrils of starlings undulate and the dreamy cityscape is from a painting.  

Since we arrived I have been staying up much too late but on one of our earliest nights we were determined to go to sleep early, only to realize it was a holiday.  Live music thumped louder and louder into our room until we pulled ourselves out of bed and headed to the Fontana Paola to find it alive with people and noise.  In America, we have Hallmark holidays, but anyone wandering from the Campo Dei Fiori across the Ponte Sisto towards Trastevere late in the night (or early in the morning depending on your definition) might think that Italy has Red Bull ones.  

After that night of throngs dancing at the Fontana, I gave up on the idea of early sleep.  These pictures are from a cocktail party in September.  One night this week, a well-known multi-media artist and DJ gave a lecture/performance about his work.  The following night, an archaeologist discussed a large collection of antiquities she studies.

  

These two presentations were both, in essence, discussing sampling. The statues from the 19th century collection had been cobbled together from a mix of antiquities and modern elements, so much so that a statue said to be of the goddess Diana was actually comprised of 150 different pieces shaped together to create an idea of Diana. And where else but the Academy might dialogue be patched together between DJs and classicists?