Curated by Joanne Mattera and Joseph Sciorra Exhibition opening takes place on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at 6pm. The work of the twenty-one artists featured in this exhibit offers a richness of form, medium, subject matter, color, and style that is a delight and a revelation to behold. Connections to a discernable Italian art tradition—or for that matter to Italian American aesthetic practices more specifically—vary across the exhibition, ranging from the explicit to the suggestive to the nonexistent. After the opening on September 27, the exhibition will be accessible during business hours, 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday, and is located in the Galleria of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.

Detail of Due Facc', by John Avelluto, 2020

Today's New York Times features an article by James Barron that details Calandra's Dr. Joseph Sciorra's tireless campaign to recognize the life of dockworker Pete Panto by erecting a gravestone for the murdered labor activist buried in the St. Charles Cemetery on Long Island. Read the article here. And please consider attending the commemoration of Panto that will take place at the gravesite on Tuesday, September 26, 2023, at 2:30pm. Click here for the address and further details.

Calandra's dean Anthony Tamburri was in Italy recently, representing the Institute and Queens College, CUNY, at a number of events. One of these was a presentation, organized by the mayor of Settefrati, of a book titled Una Nuova e Più Grande Settefrati sul Suolo D'America (A new and greater Settefrati on American soil), written by Mario Vitti (edited by Dean Tamburri). The book covers the immigration of Italians from Settefrati (Frosinone province) to Connecticut. Dean Tamburri made some remarks at the event. (Video is in Italian; the book is in Italian and in English.)   https://www.facebook.com/extratvitaly/videos/1027538078603420

Today, Wednesday, August 23, 2023, marks two solemn anninversaries: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927 in Boston; and Yusuf Hawkins was murdered in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1989.

The 2023 edition of the Italian Diaspora Summer Studies Seminar at Roma Tre University has concluded, and it was a huge success. For more information on the Seminar or to apply for next year's trip and course of study, please go to our IDSSS page. Buona estate.