The ANNOTICO Report
New Age Media Concepts
NAMC Newswire
Sunday, 24 April 2005
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, (NAMC) - The Italian American Museum
and the John D.
Calandra Italian American Institute/Queens College, The
City University of
New York, will present a new exhibition, Architecture
of Devotion: Italian
American Religious Expression in New York City-Photographs
by Larry
Racioppo from April 25 through May 20, 2005. The opening
reception of this
exhibition, will be held on Wednesday, May 4 from 6 to
8 p.m.
When viewing photographer Larry Racioppo's images, one
feels transported to
remote villages in Italy. The photos show elaborate gold
shrines adorned
with colorful figurines of Jesus and Mary, a winding
path lined with
statues of angels leading to a stone chapel, or a shell-decorated
cross
resting inside a blue-tinged grotto with its miraculous
water. But if you
look closely at the captions—Lisanti Family Chapel, Bronx;
Abate Family
Yard Shrine, Williamsburg; the Joseph Pezza Shed at St.
Anslem's RC Church,
Brooklyn—you realize that these religious sites are located
in New York.
The show consists of 14 huge photographs (20" x 24" to
30" x 40") of
personal shrines, sites, and structures of Catholic iconography,
rituals,
and feasts that have been built in various New York City
neighborhoods. The
exhibition is a walking tour through a sacred past, one
that lives in the
hearts and minds of generations of Italian Americans.
Raccioppo’s
larger-than-life holy renderings of rosary beads, angels,
and statues of
saints look both ancient and new.
"I'm interested in the way people express their faith
by building things,”
says Racioppo, a Brooklyn native, born in 1947, who has
taken photographs
throughout the city since 1971. "I think it's an Italian
American thing to
want to build."
The exhibit depicts such sites as the Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel Grotto, built
in 1937 by Italian immigrant men in Rosebank, Staten
Island, and now listed
on the National and New York State Register of Historic
Places. The exhibit
also includes photographs of the Giglio Feast, which
began in 1903 in
Williamsburg by immigrants from Nola. In this ritual,
125 men lift a
multi-storied, tapering tower known as a giglio (lily
in English) and a
boat structure throughout neighborhood streets. Raccioppo’s
photographs
also show the 16-square-foot Joseph Pezza shed, located
in the parking lot
of a Brooklyn church. It is decorated inside and out
with religious
imagery, toys, flags and photos by long-time attendant
Joseph Pezza.
Shaped by his Italian American Catholic background, Racioppo
is drawn to
this subject matter on subconscious and visceral levels.
The images bring
him back to his childhood in the 1950s and visits to
his grandmother, who
prayed before her bedroom altar, crowded with saints
and candles.
After stumbling upon the Abate family shrine in Williamsburg,
Racioppo knew
he had to find and photograph similar sights. The Abate
shrine was built by
80-year-old Vincent Abate (the father of the current
owner) in gratitude
for his safe return from World War II. To this day, the
large stone grotto
with its statue of the Blessed Mother draws pilgrims
bearing flowers who
light candles in devotion. "I saw that and thought it
was very moving,"
says Racioppo.
When he is not discovering these "amazing little pockets
around the city,"
Racioppo works as a staff photographer for New York City
Department of
Housing Preservation and Development. Racioppo is interested
in "how people
change the urban environment."
Racioppo, who holds a graduate degree from Brooklyn College,
is deeply
connected to his working class roots, which have greatly
influenced his
perspective on art. "My father is a retired longshoreman,"
he says. "I
believe that art should be accessible to all people."
The Italian American Museum is open Monday through Friday
from 10:00 am -
4:00 pm, and by appointment. The Italian American Museum
is in transitional
residence at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute/Queens
College, The City University of New York. It is located
at 28 West 44th
Street, 17th floor, New York, NY 10036. For further information,
please
call Maria Fosco (212) 642-2020 or visit www.italianamericanmuseum.org