Lo Studio dei Nipoti exhibits at Hillyer Art Space, Washington DC in September

September 7–28, 2012

Hillyer Art Space is located at 9 Hillyer Ct. NW, Washington, D.C. 20008

Reception: Friday, September 7, 6–9 p.m.

Gallery Hours: Mon 12-5, Tues-Fri 12-6, Sat 12-5 and by appointment

Contact Us: 202.338.0680    Gallery General Info: gallery@artsandartists.org

Lo Studio dei Nipoti
(The Studio of the Grandchildren, Nieces and Nephews)

As recently as September, 2010, the New York Times reported that the City University of New York would continue to regard Italian Americans as an affimative action category in its contract and employment negotiations with faculty and staff. The stir of controversy that followed this announcement only exposed what is common knowledge for most Italian Americans. While they are widely viewed as a successful ethnic culture in contemporary American life — and therefore safely assimilated — they do in fact represent a singular cultural group, often insular and marked by a retention of their Mediterranean cultural heritage as they continue to make their way through the realities of modern-day America.

Lo Studio dei Nipoti (The Studio of the Grandchildren, Nieces and Nephews) was organized in early 2009 as an artistic expression of what has been called the “long-lasting spiral across the sea” that characterizes America’s complex relationship with Italy and the waves of Italian immigrates who have come here during the past two centuries. It is perhaps the first organization of its kind, a consortium of visual artists who are either Southern Italian American or American citizens of Southern Italian birth, and to one degree or another, we are all interested in the heritage and influence of immigration from Southern Italy, the highly distinct culture from which more than eighty percent of the 26 million Italian Americans are descended.

This is our first group exhibition, and to our knowledge, the first exhibition of its kind.

The work is challenging, but not angry. It represents an effort to engage the profound issues that continue to mark immigrant culture in the United States through the filter of the Italian-American experience and to propose the realities of Italian-American life in their true range and variety — to lift the masks created by the glib cultural stereotypes that have been propagated by the popular media. Since the first great waves of American immigration in the nineteenth century, our lives have been colored by our struggle with the persistent dual loyalties of “becoming American” and with preserving crucial elements of our cultural legacy. Certainly we know the experience of “hiding” our culture from a surrounding, sometimes threatening society in order to fit in, and how this has affected our children and grandchildren. The artists of Lo Studio dei Nipoti are engrossed in these issues, which emerge from their work, and it is through their work that they clarify the experiences for themselves and, at the same time, share them with others.

Participating artists: Valerie Constantino, Gina Rose Grey, Chenoa Goodfried, Marietta Leis, Curtis Bartone, Calcagno Cullen, Marisa Dipaola, Denise Manseau, Joan Giordano, Rose Michelle Taverniti, Ruth Wetzel, Rosa Spina, Nancy Agati, Marisa Teasuro, and Cianne Fragione.

Co-curated by Cianne Fragione and Rose Michelle Taverniti

www.lostudiodeinipoti.com
Founder: Rose Michelle Taverniti