MAHLER & LEWITT STUDIOS

Both the sculptor Anna Mahler and the American artist Sol LeWitt lived and worked for many years in the Umbrian town of Spoleto. Today, thanks to the availability of their studios, their heirs Marina Mahler and Carol LeWitt have started a residency program curated by Guy Robertson and Eva LeWitt, expanding opportunities for a new generation of artists, curators, and writers. Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi wished to contribute to the Mahler & LeWitt Studios’ valuable work in cultural promotion in Spoleto establishing a collaboration under which the Foundation supports the Studios’ residency program, as well as other cultural projects.

On the occasion of the Spoleto64 Festival dei Due Mondi, the Foundation conferred the Carla Fendi Award 2021 on Carol LeWitt and Marina Mahler, accompanied by a three-year funding intended to support residencies for selected artists and designers working at the intersection of fashion, art, and sustainability. Following the French designer of Malian origin Maïté Ouceni, the program included the American photographer of Dominican origin Luis Alberto Rodriguez, author of the photographic exhibition Legami, and the set designer Afra Zamara, who curated the exhibition design produced by the Foundation.

Other shared projects with the Mahler & LeWitt Studios included the co-production of The Neon Hieroglyph by Turner Prize–winning artist Tai Shani, later featured in the major exhibition The Horror Show! at Somerset House in London, as well as the exclusive production of three documentaries — Notes on Stones, About Sol, and Mahler & LeWitt Studios — presented at the Spoleto64 and subsequently shown at various Italian and international venues, including the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York.

For Spoleto68, the Carla Fendi Foundation honored artist William Kentridge with the Carla Fendi Award in recognition of his exceptional artistic achievement and his work in support of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, the performing arts center he founded in South Africa together with Bronwyn Lace. In collaboration with the Mahler & LeWitt Studios, an original project was realized which included the preview presentation of four animated diorama by Anathi Conjwa, William Kentridge, Micca Manganye, and Sabine Theunissen in the exhibition Unhappen Unhappen Unhappen – Pepper’s Ghost Dioramas, as well as artist residencies, workshops, and a lecture by William Kentridge at the Caio Melisso Carla Fendi theatre.