ROMA AMOR debuts in New York. Why did you decide to show this in NYC?

Who would pass up an opportunity to show in NY? But the first and foremost reason why I decided to exhibit here is because it would not be easy to exhibit these photographs in Italy.

These photographs have not been shown anywhere in Italy. Why is that?

No, I have decided to show it first in New York or perhaps Berlin, but not Italy.  It is very strong. The message behind the exhibition. The photographs represent the crisis of Italy, of the last years in Italy, the decadence of art and beauty. I wanted to represent a slaughterhouse, the decay of everything that is art and is beauty.

 
Do you find the exhibit and the message you are conveying too strong for the Italian public or for the officials?
 

Now that the government in Italy has changed I hope that it will not be too strong for the officials, but for the most part I mean the public. I showed it to some of my friends, who know and like my work and they couldn’t handle it. They said: “Mino, this is too much!” But this was my goal. I wanted to shock, punch, kick…  I am well aware that after seeing a few of these images for some it may be a bit too much.

These are created using Photoshop? Layering one image over another? How was the idea born?

Yes, the images are layered. I shot the background not for this purpose. I already had them in my files, because I work a lot in the theater, in opera. I made the background slaughterhouse images for a production of Macbeth (a bloody and gruesome play as you know). The slides were projected in the background. Imagine Andrea Bocelli singing with this in the background?  Quite powerful. After that production some critics stated that the images were too shocking. After all most people are used to seeing baroque and rococo staging styles. Then I went through a personal crisis, and I myself began to criticize everything around me, and from that the idea for this project arose. I decided to combine the slaughterhouse images with the many postcard type pictures of Rome I had in my collection to convey a strong and important message to the public. 

That of the decay of art and beauty in Italy? It’s disheartening to even hear that. The whole world associates Italy with precisely that. Is there any hope?

The geese will save Rome once again… haha… Notice the more peaceful part of the exhibition displayed in the smaller room near the exit to the garden. People need to breathe and laugh a little, so I made part of the exhibit amusing. I make books for children with geese as the subject, so once again my previous work came in handy. This part of the exhibit is more of a play-on-words… on history in a way. I hope the public will enjoy it.

More info at: Mino La Franca [2]

Venue:
Casa Italiana [3]
Exibihition Opening on February 6th at 6:30 PM
On view until February 28th. Monday through Friday from 10 Am to 5 PM