Articles by: Roberta Cutillo

For their third collaboration aimed at promoting Italian artists in the US, Magazzino Italian Art Foundation and NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò chose to showcase works by Renato Leotta, a young but established Italian artist currently in residence at Magazzino in Cold Spring, New York.

“Magazzino is the most lively institution that promotes contemporary Italian art in the United States,” commented Stefano Albertini, the Director of Casa Italiana “we are very privileged to be the venue to which they dedicate every year the exhibit of a young but already established Italian artist.”

Renato Leotta, who lives and works between Acireale (Sicily) and Turin and was the most recent Italian fellow at the American Academy in Rome, uses various media in his practice to explore the forces of nature and their interconnectedness.

“It’s important to give a venue for Italian artists to showcase their work in New York,” explains Nancy Olnick, co-founder of Magazzino along with her husband Giorgio Spanu, “and what better place than Casa Italiana, where the students and faculty can get acquainted with art that they would not usually see.”

The exhibition opens with seven photographs, all part of a series titled Lunagrammas, (“moongrams”) a new project launched by the artist during his Cold Spring residence, featuring images of the moon captured from a camera obscura submerged in the Hudson River.  

Leotta also expanded upon ongoing projects, creating works such as Two Hands, a sculptural installation on view in the third gallery. This work, part of his Gipsoteca project, is composed of two sets of four sand relief sculptures, half of which were cast on Portuguese beaches while the others were realized on the Long Island coast. Here, the artist seeks to capture the moment of contact, the encounter between sea and shore, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Another liminal moment is represented in the works from the Multiverso series, which Leotta realized by dipping strips of cotton fabric into the sea, thus creating or recreating a horizon line, the point where the sky meets the sea.

A work which appears to stand out from the rest is LUCE, a 16mm film shown on an old cubic TV set placed in the corner of Gallery 1 and featuring an out of focus lemon tree. This piece is actually part of a work titled Notte di San Lorenzo, a site-specific installation made out of perforated terracotta tiles, which connects the artist’s lemon grove in Sicily to the Hudson Valley landscape. Leotta had realized a previous iteration of this work in Palermo’s Palazzo Butera on the occasion of the 2018 Manifesta Biennial.

This installation will remain on view on the grounds of Magazzino throughout the Summer.

It’s no news that Italians love designer fashion, but which are the most popular brands across the peninsula? In an initiative named Fashion Geography, Lyst, the fashion industry’s leading search engine, generated a map revealing the most researched brands by Italian men and women in each region.

Lyst was founded in 2010 by Chris Morton and Sebastian Trepca in Shoreditch, London, as “a way for people to find the fashion they always wanted.” Today, the website brings together 5 million products from 12,000 brands. Last year, more than 70 million shoppers across 120 countries began their searches on the platform. As the About page reads, they “track more than 10 million global searches a month, crunching queries, page views and sales statistics every minute, and [...] use this data to tell the stories of what the world wants to wear.”

The data they recorded for Fashion Geography reveals the following about the preferences and tendencies of Italian consumers:

The appeal of ‘Made-in-Italy’ persists, particularly thanks to Gucci, which garners attention across the country. The Florentine brand is in fact the most researched by women in Lombardy (32%), Lazio (21%), Puglia (19%), and Calabria (15%) and by men in Veneto (26%), Lazio (22%), Abruzzo (20%), and Lombardy (17%).

Amongst women, other popular Italian brands are the classic Valentino (the most popular in Veneto) and Prada (Marche), as well as the more contemporary luxury streetwear brand Off-White (Tuscany and Friuli Venezia Giulia). However, Italian women appear to be just as interested in foreign labels, with brands such as the French Celine topping searches in Piemonte (43%) and the British Alexander McQueen dominating Sicily (45%), amongst others.

Italian men show particular interest in Dolce & Gabbana (24% in Sardinia and 18% in Sicily, where the designers are from) and Versace (30% in Calabria and 22% in Molise). Though classic houses persist, luxury streetwear brands are becoming increasingly popular amongst male consumers, even more so than amongst women. Three young Milan-based brands, Marcelo Burlon, Off-White, and Palm Angels are respectively the most popular in Campania, Tuscany, and Emilia Romagna.

As with women, some Italian men also prefer foreign brands, particularly in Piemonte (Burberry), Umbria (Calvin Klein), and Basilicata (Nike.)

Fashion Geography also reveals the types of fashion items that Italians are looking up. Sneakers are the most popular with both men and women, even beating out the quintessential female accessory, the bag, which does, however, remain within the top 5 desired products with crossbody bags coming in second place, followed by shoulder bags. Jackets too are extremely popular across genders.

Perhaps one of the most surprising finds is that Italian men spend on average more money than their female counterparts: 267 euro against 249 euro, subverting in a way the stereotype of the frivolous woman who squanders every penny on clothes and accessories.

Although this data is certainly interesting it is important to keep in mind that it does not account for the population’s overall spending habits.

For one thing, Fashion Geography solely relies on information gathered through the use of the Lyst platform, which means that these statistics reflect the preferences of Lyft users but do not take into account the searches made using other websites, of which there are quite a few (such as Farfetch, Yoox, and Luisa Via Roma, just to name some), not to mention all the generic, non fashion-specific search platforms.

Additionally, searching for a product does not necessarily lead to purchasing it, meaning that these maps are, if anything, more reflective of each region’s desires rather than what its inhabitants actually buy and wear.

This being said, knowing the aspirations of fashion consumers across Italy is certainly useful, particularly for both national and global brands wishing to market their products on the Italian market. It can also be seen as a reflection of the broader economic and cultural behaviors and influences of Italians today.

The celebrations of the Via Crucis, which recall Jesus’ journey from the moment of his betrayal and capture to that of his crucifixion, take on an additional meaning on the night of Good Friday, as Pope Francis draws a parallel between this Biblical plight and the one endured today by migrants and other victims of power and self-service.

At each of the 14 stations of the cross, the Pope recites a meditation written by the head of the 'Slaves No More' Association, Eugenia Bonetti, an 80-year-old missionary who has devoted her life to helping the victims of human trafficking and sex slavery.

These meditations are strong and to the point, calling out governments, legislations, all those who are in power to stop the suffering of their fellow humans but choose to remain indifferent. “Deserts and seas have become the new cemeteries of today,” one of them reads, “there are no answers to these deaths. There are, however, responsibilities [...] while governments argue, locked inside the palaces of power, the Sahara fills with the skeletons of people who have faced pain, hunger, and thirst.”

Through God, Bonetti invokes the people holding positions of power, asking them to listen to those who are suffering, “those without a home, the young without hopes, without jobs, and without perspectives.” She also brings up “the immigrants forced to live in shacks on the margins of our societies, after having suffered unspeakable hardships,” noting how these are “unsafe camps, burnt and destroyed along with the dreams and hopes of thousands of men and women.”

The missionary also discusses the tragedy of human trafficking, the issue to which she has devoted her life. “Everything is for sale,” she condemns, “even the bodies of children.” The meditations point out how we are all responsible for what is happening, how indifference is the real enemy. This also means that we have the power to change the situation.

Bonetti urges everyone to welcome diversity because ‘the other’ is “not a problem, but a precious resource for our blinded cities.” and recognizes the volunteers and NGOs who “during these last months, have risked their lives, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, to save those of many families in search of safety and opportunity.”

This year’s edition of the Annual NOIAW Luncheon recognized the achievements of two remarkable Italian American Women, Sandra L. DePoalo (Global Head of Anti-Money Laundering)  and Judith A. Salerno (President of the New York Academy of Medicine), as well as the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, which received the Friend of NOIAW award.

As Roma Torre, award-winning TV news anchor, theatre critic and the event’s emcee, remarked, “For nearly 39 years, NOIAW has remained steadfast in its mission of uniting, inspiring, celebrating, and empowering women through Italian heritage and culture.” She thanked the organization, of which she is a member, for “having allowed me to connect with other Italian American women and reflect on my own legacy through my mother and my ancestry and how it impacted me personally and professionally.”

Maria Tamburri, Chair of NOIAW’s National Board of Directors, then came to the stage to thank this year’s honorees, as well as the members of the board, and even members of the distinguished board, such as former first lady of the State of New York, founder of the Mentoring USA program, and founding member of NOIAW itself, Matilda Cuomo, who was present at the event, along with her daughter, Dr. Margaret Cuomo.

The Consul General of Italy, Francesco Genuardi, expressed his gratitude towards the organization and the work it does, acting as a “pillar for those nearly four million Italian Americans in the Tri-State area” and “a bridge between the generations, between the different layers of Italians and Italian Americans here.”

Both honorees remembered the stories of their families, of how they came to the United States from Italy, facing hardships and working hard to ensure that their children and grandchildren would have a better life. Sandra DePoalo explained how, thanks to the example set by her parents and grandparents she and her brother “learned that through hard work, commitment, and our family’s support, we can achieve anything that we put our hearts to.”

She also stressed the importance of mentoring younger generations, stating that “There is no greater joy than seeing another young woman achieve more than she ever believed possible. And what NOIAW does through its mentoring program and through its scholarships reinforces that very same message.”

The second honoree, Judith Salerno, also acknowledged the Italian American women who inspired her throughout her life, such as her mother, a child of Italian immigrants who, as the eldest, had to work to support her family and later to provide a better education and a better life for her own children, as well as her Italian grandmothers, with whom she shared a bedroom growing up, and whom she thanked for bravely crossing the Atlantic, thus providing their descendants with more opportunities for a better future.

It was then the turn of the Queens College (CUNY) John D. Calandra Italian American Institute to accept the 2019 Friend of NOIAW award. Founded in 1979 with the aim to redress imbalances in treatment of Italian Americans in higher education, the Institute now follows its mission to further explore and promulgate the experience and foster the education of and about Italian Americans throughout numerous activities.  

Dr. Anthony Tamburri, the Dean of Calandra, stressed the importance of having the support of the community and of maintaining a dialog with Italy, through local Italian Institutions. “It’s important for us to understand the Italy of the past through our own historical immigration experience, and it’s important for us to understand the Italy of the present with regarding what Italy is going through now with their own immigration issues,” he stated.

Like every year, scholarships were then given out to six young Italian American women in order to support the studies they are carrying out across a variety of fields. Each of them had expressed what their Italian heritage means to them.

Finally, Torre concluded the event by asking everyone present, honorees and guests, to give themselves a round of applause for showing what it means to be true Italians, “shattering the awful stereotype that has too long dominated the perception of what it is to be Italian in this country.”