Reblogged from the Calandra Italian American Institute, a CUNY-affiliated intellectual and cultural center located in Manhattan
The Calandra Institute presents an exhibition by Lo Studio dei Nipoti (“The Studio of the Grandchildren”), a nonprofit artist collective for U.S. artists of southern Italian ancestry. The works featured here, by artists Nancy Agati, Cianne Fragione, Rose Michelle Taverniti, and Marisa Tesauro, represent an effort to engage with immigrant culture in the United States through the lens of the Italian-American experience while seeking to evoke realities of Italian-American life in their true range and variety.
Nancy Agati; eastwest; 2010; mica mounted to black paper, stitched, on pedestal; 30 x 44 inches
Cianne Fragione; Monasterace, now cat’s done mewing, bedroom’s touched by white moon; 2012; lithographic crayon, Conte crayon, graphite pastel, collage and oil on paper; 45 x 37 inches
Lo Studio dei Nipoti was founded as an online community in 2009 by Taverniti. In the summer of 2012, Lo Studio established a residency program in Monasterace, Calabria. This exhibition’s artists were among the first participants.
Agati is a sculptor whose structures refer to traditional cultural forms and Italian fine-craft traditions with their emphasis on high skill and careful finish. Fragione, a painter, revels in both the light of the Italian south and its distinctive indigenous forms, visible in decorative designs and church architecture. Taverniti works on drafting film, creating large-scale drawings that study the rich surface textures of centuries-old buildings in rural Calabria. Tesauro constructs sculptures that convey the complex textures of an ancient landscape — human and natural — in continual decay and renewal.
On view: September 12, 2013 – January 10, 2014
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9 am – 5 pm
Exhibition opening: Thursday, September 12, 2013, 6 pm
Artists’ talk: Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 6 pm
