Now Thatís Italian Institute Defies Cliches but Promotes Popular, Classic Culture of Italy Institute by Gary Tischler The new home of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (Italian Cultural Institute) on the sixth floor on 2025 M Street NW, Washington, D.C., has a certain austere, and decidedly compact, pragmatic and modern feel to it. Part of the feeling is because its exhibition space in January housed "Depero for Campari," a generous and characteristic exhibition of the works of perhaps the most futurist of all Italian futurist artists, Fortunato Depero. But in another way, it reflects the task at hand for the institute's director, Annamaria Lelli, whose job constitutes an active reflection on how to present Italian culture in the capital of the United States. Put another way, Lelli has to deal with what's new and less well known, with the influence of cliches, and with the Italian layered past. "In a very general way, there's the matter of food and Sofia Loren and opera, all the great cliches about Italian culture, both popular and classic," she said. "People know about these things, they know [Frederico] Fellini, they know Marcello and Verdi and Milan, and Callas, and Rome and the Renaissance, not to mention aspects of Italian-American culture." They don't know as much, for instance, about design, which Lelli sees as hugely important in 20th-century Italian art and culture. "That is why we had the exhibition on contemporary Italian design at the new Italian Embassy," she said. "This is very much a contemporary Italian contribution, its reputation for purity and pragmatism, everything from formal design to cars, to jewelry and architecture." Another way of looking at things is to think of bridges from the past to the future. Lelli, who comes from a small town along the river Po where the famed Carthaginian General Hannibal inflicted a nearly disastrous defeat on the Romans, understands the pervasive influence of a past cultural heritage. "You can live in a house in Italy," she said, "and you can dig down and end up in Etruscan times, in ancient Rome, and work yourself past the Renaissance to modern times." "You have to be in the present, the moment," she said. "That doesn't mean you forget the past or ignore it. With us, it comes with us anyway." The institute, which is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tries to promote Italian culture in a variety of ways. It does this through many venues, either through events from lectures, exhibitions, musical performances, and films at the institute itself or through cooperative efforts with other Washington institutions, such as the current exhibition of works of Italian artists Lillo Bartoloni, "An Artist's Homage to Isaac Bashevis Singer," now at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery at the D.C. Jewish Community Center. The offerings at the institute are, to say the least, eclectic. As part of the centennial of the death of Verdi, there was a lecture by Denise Gallon on Verdi's development as a composer last month. The present, musically speaking, comes into view Feb. 5 in a lecture by Italian pianist Roberto Prossda, who will discuss the major musical tendencies of seven composers of the Italian avant-garde, and then, in a joint project with the World Bank, perform in the World Bank Mozart Festival Feb. 10. In addition, the institute participates in the annual European Immersion Day, a one-day language-immersion program co-sponsored by the institute, Alliance Francaise and the Goethe Institut. Everyone knows Fellini and Antonini, not to mention Rossellini, Visconti and DaSica, but few people outside of Italy and Europe know about Valerio Zurlini. They can do something about that when the institute sponsors a special series of his eight feature films along with the National Gallery of Art Feb. 17 to March 18. Lelli started out as a sociologist but joined the ministry and made her way to a variety of cultural assignments, including a stint in Chicago, where she met her husband, biologist Alexander Himmelfarb. She has been in Washington since 1996. While she is an obvious admirer of modern design, she is also a book lover without equal. In fact, when it comes to art and culture, it's fairly obvious that Lelli is a Renaissance person. Her affection for the texture of books is matched by her vivid memories of attending a rehearsal of a Pirandello play in Milan, her love of the moment in theater. She can talk about the past without having to live in it and anticipate the artistic joys of the here and now. Her knowledge is matched by her enthusiasm. She mentions artists and designers, novelists and contemporary film directors who are not necessarily familiar but soon become immediate and vivid. In her presence, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura seems to expand and contain a whole cultural world. Gary Tischler is the arts writer for The Washington Diplomat.