Sicilian Journey - Italian American Museum

Janine Coyne
Sicilian Journey
Italian American Museum
March 8 through April 7, 2006 • Curated by Maria Cocchiarelli
ITALIAN
AMERICAN
museum
Italian American Museum
Board of Trustees
Joseph V. Scelsa, Ed.D., President
Philip F. Foglia, Executive Vice President
Cav. Maria T. Fosco, Secretary and Treasurer
Massimo DiFabio, Vice President
Eugene M. Limongelli, Vice President
Ralph A. Tedesco, MFA, Vice President
Robert Ciofalo, Trustee Emeritus
Maria Cocchiarelli, MFA, Curator of Collections
Generous Funding for the Exhibitions
and Programs Have Been Provided by
Patron The Columbus Citizens Foundation, Inc.
This Exhibition is also made possible (in part) by
the New York City Council; City of New York
Department of Cultural Affairs; Tiro A Segno of
New York, Inc., UNICO National Foundation;
Coalition of Italo American Associations, Inc.;
National Italian American Foundation; Queens
College, The City University of New York; John
D. Calandra Italian American Institute; Lawrence
E. Auriana; Federated Kaufmann Fund; New York
State Governor George E. Pataki; New York
State Senator Serphin R. Maltese; New York State
Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio; Joseph J. Grano,
Jr.; Louis J. Cappelli; Richard A. Grace; Alitalia;
Paul David Pope; Katherine & Vincent Bonomo;
Ilaria, Susy and Vincenzo Marra; Mr. & Mrs.
Vincent Morano; Donovan & Giannuzzi; The Frank
J. Guarini Foundation; Mr. & Mrs. Matt Sabatine;
Baronessa Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò; Excavators
Union, Local 731; Louis Tallarini; Lidia Matticchio
Bastianich Foundation; Alfred Catalanotto; Queens
Council of the Arts; Jolly Madison Hotel and Towers
Additional Sponsors for this Exhibition:
The National Organization of Italian American
Women; Associazioni Siciliane Unite of New York;
Gary Portuesi, Authentic Sicily Tours; Joe’s of
Avenue U Focacceria Palermitana; Giusto Priola,
Cacio e Pepe Restaurant NYC
Sicilian
Journey
Photographs by Janine Coyne
Curated by Maria Cocchiarelli
March 8 through April 7, 2006
Italian American Museum
28 West 44th Street
New York NY, 10036
Tel. 212.642.2020
www.italianamericanmuseum.org
Essays by:
Maria Cocchiarelli
Janine Coyne
Mariani Lefas-Tetenes
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by the Italian American Museum
Designer: Michael Esguerra
Exhibition Installer: Justin Ciofalo
Printer: Presentations, Ltd. ,1000 copies.
© 2006 by the Italian American Museum. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or
transmitted in any form without the prior permission, in writing,
of the Italian American Museum.
The photographs contained within by Janine Coyne © 2006.
All rights reserved. No reproductions of the photographs in this
catalogue may be done wihout the express permission of Janine
Coyne.
Janine Coyne would like to thank the Italian American
Museum, Dr. Joseph Scelsa and Maria Cocchiarelli for their
generous support of this exhibition.
On the front cover
Greco-Roman Ruins, Solunto
First in the series
2001, 12” x 10 1/4”, Janine Coyne
On the back cover
Cefalu at Dusk
2001, 12 1/4” x 17”, Janine Coyne
Janine Coyne’s
Choice of Imagery
J
anine Coyne’s photographic essay, Sicilian Journey,
documents life in Sicily today. Coyne’s viewpoint
presents a unique combination of straight
reportage and art photography. Recent trips to
Sicily inspired the black and white gelatin-silver prints
on view at the Italian American Museum from March 8
through April 7, 2006. Relevant to the Italian American
Museum’s focus, this body of work was initiated by Janine
Coyne’s desire to connect to her Sicilian heritage. Travel
themes throughout the history of photography have
remained constant. The attempt for personal growth, as
documented by the lens presents the adventurer with a
moment-by-moment account of distant places.
Before the invention of photography, this was not
possible. But as early as the 1839, with the invention of
the daguerreotype, a French publisher named Lerebours,
commissioned images of such far away places as Russia,
America and the Middle East. This series was published
in the early 1840s and included over one hundred travel
photographs. The theme quickly spread and many such
commissioned projects were supported by private and
public sources. Some include the dramatic views of
the Alps made in the 1850s and 60s by Aimé Civiale,
Louis and Auguste Bisson and others. In the United
States, Edward Muybridge, Timothy O’Sullivan, A.J.
Russell, Carleton Watkins, and William Henry Jackson
portrayed the west in the 1860s and 70s. Edward S.
Curtis continued this tradition and published The North
American Indian, with twenty volumes of photographs
taken between 1907 and 1937; it included a forward by
President Theodore Roosevelt.
In the recent past, Walker Evans reported what
he saw in the 1930s of everyday America in his book
American Photographs (1938). Evans’ purpose was
by Maria Cocchiarelli
to search for personal identity inspired by European
writers who whet his visual appetite. In the 1920s,
Edward Weston produced views of Mexico, while Paul
Strand photographed France, Italy, Egypt, Ghana and
Morocco. Similarly, Henry Cartier-Bresson’s spontaneity
directed his travel photographs. In the 1952 book The
Decisive Moment, Cartier-Bresson produced images taken
throughout Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, Mexico,
England, and many other countries, thereby encouraging
the notion of chance in composing a good photograph.
Modernist photographers, while traveling including
Cartier-Bresson, began to reveal themselves in their
work while responding to current trends in other areas
of fine art. Without staging his compositions, CartierBresson was able to capture the decisive moment when all
the formal aspects of a photograph were present and his
subjects exposed their innermost truth and beauty—or
as he said, “the precise organization of form,” paving the
way for contemporary photo essays such as Sicilian Journey.
Janine Coyne has added yet another dimension to personal
exploration while eloquently exposing the rawness of
Sicily with the technical agility of a mature artist.
The photographs from this series lead the viewer
to contemporary insights relevant to our experience
today. Coyne’s commonplace themes of everyday life as
portrayed in art offer an aesthetic question, which has
baffled art historians throughout the last two hundred
years. When Jean Francois Millet (1814 – 1875) painted
the Gleaners in 1857, (dignified peasants harmoniously
cultivating the land) he broke with aesthetic tradition.
His work helped to pose the question: were peasants
worthy subject matter for painting? For Millet, who viewed
his subjects with a deep understanding of their intrinsic
worth, so too does Janine Coyne. She is reflecting her
1
world as she views it, suspending the boundary between
subject and the viewer—this places her in the litany of
important contemporary artists. Her intent that common
people have a deep existence not dependent on their
notoriety or the media’s interpretation for their meaning
mirrors her experience as well as many writers, artists and
theorists of this age.
As an Italian American woman artist, Janine Coyne
communicates her past through her choice of imagery. On
her recent journey to Sicily, Coyne visited the Aeolian
island of Stromboli, the town of her father’s ancestors. She
was moved by this experience while noting how many
of the town’s inhabitants looked so similarly to her own
family members. While walking through this small fishing
village she felt at home in a place so distant from affluence,
consumer concerns and the rush of urban American life.
“These are a raw people, people close to the earth and
the sea, making their living through fishing and farming,”
expressed Coyne.
In 2006, with threats of impending global warming,
nuclear destruction, and terrorist annihilation Janine
Coyne’s camera focuses on a place from the past, while
simultaneously symbolic of the present and future. This
timeless experience through Coyne’s lens is felt through her
images of earth, land and sea. Greco Roman Ruins, Solunto
(2001) is largely composed of repetitions and patterns,
that reverberates a haunting echo, thereby evoking an
unsettling stance concerning the viewer’s separation from
the earth. This photograph may be interpreted as a symbol
for our contemporary predicament of estrangement and the
collective memories that it awakens.
When Coyne pulls in the lens more closely to explore
human interactions the unspoken communication between
photographer and sitter becomes a powerful experience for
the viewer. In her environmental portraiture, there remains
an unspoken dialogue—one in which the subject has quietly
agreed to be included. The subject’s sense of character, and
the ensuing unfolding of the human drama awaken a part
of the viewer’s sense of wonder. This is apparent in Meat
Delivery, Taomina (1997), where the experience of a child’s
first confrontation with the idea of mortality may magnify
our own.
Throughout the rest of the series Sicilian Journey, Janine
Coyne reverberates her focused sensibility as a thoughtful
contemporary artist. The following images included in this
exhibition reveal the depth and quality of her work.
top
The Meat Delivery, Taormina
17” x 13”, 1997, Janine Coyne
bottom
Greco-Roman Ruins, Solunto
First in the series
12” x 10 1/4”, 2001, Janine Coyne
Sicilian Journey
by Janine Coyne
P
hotography is my passion. Through the
camera’s lens, I am able to view life with a
strong sense of humanity. This passion runs
through all my activities—viewing the work
of other photographers, shooting and printing my
images, and guiding my students. I am reflected in my
photographs. How I respond to my subject is based on
my deep interest in human interactions. Photographing
people in their environment excites me because of
the potential of my sitters to reveal what is not visible
through their external layer. My subjects’ persona,
sensitivity and depth might otherwise go unnoticed
without my particular point of view. When they allow
me to view them in this manner, I in turn am able to
freeze them and this moment in time. Environmental
portraiture and candid expression combined with the
aesthetic elements of composition, light and tonality
transform my form of visual journalism into fine art.
Each photograph has strength of its own; yet by grouping
them into a photo essay I am able to explore with my
camera to create a broader vision of the subject. Though
the image is captured in a brief second, I would like to
create an indelible image within the viewer’s memory
that is ultimately timeless. The moment may pass us by
but the image will continue forever.
Sicilian Journey is especially meaningful to me. My
paternal grandparents Frank and Giovannina Cortese lived
on the Aeolian Island of Stromboli where my grandfather
was a fisherman. They immigrated to America and never
Maria Cocchiarelli is the Curator of Collections at the Italian
American Museum in New York City. Most recently, she curated
a major exhibition on the Piccirilli brothers, Freeing the Angel
from the Stone, IAM 2005.
2
returned to their homeland. Over the years I remained
curious about the land of my ancestry, having heard these
stories many times over. I made a brief visit to Sicily in
1976 and felt compelled to return. In 1997, I arrived with a
passion to photograph and explore this unfamiliar territory.
I became quickly entranced by its untouched nature and
found each town, large and small filled with potential
imagery. Each area I visited had rich examples of Sicilian
Baroque art and architecture, and an abundance of GrecoRoman ruins. However even with that rich backdrop, it
was the people who captivated my imagination. Because
my subjects were comfortable in their environment, they
permitted me to use my camera in their setting. In these
environmental portraits, I hope to convey a sense of
tradition, a strong work ethic and a dedication to the land
and sea, which has shaped their lives and Sicily’s history.
In 2001, I anxiously returned to seek other
destinations on the island of Sicily, now with a sharper
vision based on my earlier work. Siracusa and Cefalu,
both cities with powerful histories since antiquity
provided me with a different perspective. I began to view
the landscape in a more abstract manner and responded
to the intricate details of architectural structures and
those found in the ruins. Yet, as in 1997, the people of
Sicily once again lured me into their world. Through
my work these ordinary individuals living their daily
lives are transformed into images that will hopefully
transcend time. I look forward to returning, once again
and continuing my photographic journey of Sicily.
Janine Coyne currently teaches photography at Kingsborough Community College and The College of Staten Island, The City
University of New York. She has traveled extensively throughout Italy, Ireland, Greece, Germany, France and the United States.
Reproductions of her photographs in this catalogue are from original gelatin-silver prints.
3
TOP The Soccer Players, Taormina, 1997, 17 1/2” x 13”, Janine Coyne
Women Leaving Church, Cefalu, 2001, 14 3/4” x 19 1/4”, Janine Coyne
bottom Lovers, Giardini-Naxos, 1997, 17 1/2” x 13 3/4”, Janine Coyne
4
5
above, left
Convento Dei Cappuccini,
Palermo, 1997, 10” x 13”
Janine Coyne
above, Right
Children Playing, Taormina,
1997, 10” x 13”, Janine Coyne
Below, left
Relief-Villa Palagonia, Bagheria,
2001, 17” x 12 3/4”, Janine Coyne
The Monk, Palermo, 2001, 11 1/4” x 16 3/4”, Janine Coyne
6
7
The Shuttered Door, Cefalu
2001, 12” x 16 1/4”, Janine Coyne
Man With His Boots, Lipari
1997, 11 1/4” x 16 1/2”, Janine Coyne
8
The Fisherman, Stromboli
1997, 13” x 17”, Janine Coyne
Cefalu at Dusk
2001, 12 1/4” x 17”, Janine Coyne
9
above, left
Fisherman Mending His Nets, Lipari
1997, 11 3/4” x 17 1/4”, Janine Coyne
above, Right
Largo S. Caterina, Taormina
1997, 12 1/2” x 17”, Janine Coyne
Below, right
Woman On Her Balcony, Taormina
1997, 11 1/2” x 16 1/2”, Janine Coyne
Shopkeeper, Lipari, 1997, 11” x 16”, Janine Coyne
10
11
left
Laundry Drying, Lipari
1997, 12 1/4” x 16 3/4”, Janine Coyne
Below
The Domes, Lipari
1997, 18 1/2” x 13 3/4”, Janine Coyne
TOP Bar, Taormina, 2001, 16 3/4” x 11 1/4”, Janine Coyne
bottom The Meat Delivery, Taormina, 1997, 17” x 13”, Janine Coyne
12
13
Encounters with Sicily
L
TOP LEFT Greco-Roman Ruins (second in series), Solunto, 2001, 9 1/2” x 12 1/2”, Janine Coyne
TOP right Under The Arch, Taormina, 1997, 12 1/2” x 17”, Janine Coyne
bottom The Field Workers, Milazzo, 1997, 17 1/2” x 12”, Janine Coyne
14
ike all journeys to the lands of one’s family
and ancestors, Sicilian Journey conveys subtle,
sometimes unconscious responses to the
complex experience of return. Shorter in
scope than Janine Coyne’s other substantial photo essays
(on Ellis Island prior to its reopening as a museum and
on battered women’s shelters in Brooklyn), it is also
presumably one of her most personal. Despite its succinct
character, Coyne’s distinctive approach is revealed as
she captures the recurring rhythms and routines of daily
life. Made during two intense trips in 1997 and 2001,
Coyne’s immersion and response to the places and people
she encountered was necessarily quick and fresh yet the
resulting photographs demonstrate an effort to convey a
timeless essence, both aesthetic and emotional, filtered
through her psyche. Sicily is a place that is familiar
to Coyne through family memories and community
references, as well as through depictions in popular
films such as Roberto Rosellini’s Stromboli or Guiseppe
Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, and even tourist images. Yet,
for this very reason, it is also a place frequently unknown
in reality—in fact, an idealized conception of Sicily, and
indeed of the Mediterranean in general, haunts Coyne’s
endeavor, as it does many historic and contemporary
artistic efforts that have tried to interpret and understand
evocative places such as Sicily.
Images of unfamiliar lands have been a staple of
photography since its inception in the 19th century. The
work of early photographers such as Timothy O’Sullivan
in the American West, Francis Frith in Egypt and the
Middle East, and John Thomson in China seemingly had
several objectives: the gathering of scientific knowledge,
cultural acquisition, even personal exploration. In
fact, these motivations can undoubtedly be linked to
by Mariani Lefas-Tetenes
colonialist institutions that harnessed photography
to further their goals. Such early photography was for
a long time viewed as objective reportage. However,
more recently, the photo essay has been understood as
permeated with both the conscious and unconscious
desires of the photographer, influenced by class, ethnicity
and other factors. In the 20th century, photographs
by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Sebastiao Salgado, for
example, which forcefully demonstrate documentary
photography’s aesthetic and socially activist capacities,
have been analyzed as shaped by often undisclosed
aspects of the photographers’ cultural, ethnic and
historical positions.1
These contexts and issues within the history of
photography are relevant in understanding Coyne’s
Sicilian Journey for several reasons. Firstly, her series
continues the tradition of photographing other cultures
from an ambiguous position where the photographer
is both an outsider and an insider. An earlier example
of this complex and sometimes problematic endeavor
is Greek-American Constantine Manos’ three-year
exploration of Greece in the 1960s. In Coyne’s situation,
she herself is not Sicilian and yet has connections
as the descendent of Sicilian-American immigrants.
Furthermore, Coyne’s intimate approach, evident in
many of her close-framed compositions that tend to focus
in on her subjects, also demonstrates an assumption that
intimacy and knowledge is possible through photography.
Indeed, Coyne shares this widespread belief, with its
humanistic bent, with such important photographers
as W. Eugene Smith, who she certainly admires. This
tradition of humanitarian photography of which Coyne’s
work is a part has played a powerful role in reportage and
continues to inform many contemporary photographers,
15
Janine Coyne
even though it has been questioned and criticized by
other practitioners.2 Finally, Coyne’s emphasis on
aesthetic concerns suggests an inclination to subdue the
chaotic flux of the world. In this regard, Paul Strand’s
mid-20th century photographs of working class Italians
come to mind: like Strand, Coyne idealizes her subjects
and emphasizes their dignified humanity through
aesthetic means.3 Her photographs of single fishermen
especially aggrandize the men and their livelihood,
ascribing to the worker a powerful timeless quality. Surely
related to the personal fact that Coyne’s grandfather was
himself a fisherman, her depictions are also part of a wellestablished pictorial tradition that ennobles rural life, its
people and landscape.
And yet, Coyne’s project is uniquely her own. Her
series embodies a private goal and a personal passage—a
journey to see the land of her grandparents, to assimilate
the experience through her own eyes and identity.
Shared by countless individuals who have experienced
migration and its ramifications, this type of return has
been facilitated in the 20th century by mass travel and
tourism. Coyne’s work reminds us that there is always an
interchange between personal and collective experience;
that the personal journey is always filtered through
collective memories and shared representations.
To a large extent Coyne leaves the traditional
mystique of Sicily and its people intact. Her series
includes images of traditional forms of labor (fishing
and farming) and records gendered social customs (men
passing the time with male companions, women leaving
church together, adolescents socializing at a soccer
game). Only in subtle, almost unnoticeable ways do
discrepancies in the conventional picture emerge: In
The Field Workers, Milazzo (1997), the cement buildings
framing the seemingly idyllic fieldworkers introduce
a contrast between timeless agricultural labor and
encroaching modern life. Interestingly, it is the wideangle view that allows this insight to emerge rather than
the tighter frame that Coyne favors. In Under the Arch,
Taormina (1997), the woman poised to cross the street
appears frozen in time and space. Not only is the woman
compositionally embedded into layers of overlapping
planes, but the surface textures of the old walls and the
markings of the traffic crossing register the cohabitation
of the past within the present. This photograph also
suggests that reality is itself a construction: the windows
of the building to the left are painted rather than real
and the woman herself has the look of another era in her
refined presentation.
Direct references to Sicily’s ancient past, and
to mortality and memory in general, are evident in
other photographs that veer Coyne’s project in a more
pensive direction. Her interpretations of ancient ruins
are emptied of contemporary people, and Greco-Roman
Ruins, Solunto (second in the series) (2001) especially,
evokes multiple readings about the transience of life, the
erosion of human monuments as well as the relationship
of past and present. Without sentimentality, Convento Dei
Cappucini, Palermo (1997) brings us close to the preserved
bodies of deceased citizens in a catacomb. The inclusion
of such images taps into photography’s long-term
preoccupation with remembering and memorialization.
Simultaneously, they highlight the peculiar nature of
making pictures on a journey like Coyne’s. After all, it
can be an unsettling as well as a gratifying experience to
recognize familiar-looking physiognomies, and yet, to not
speak their language. What does it mean to ‘return’ to the
home of one’s ancestors but not to your own home? This
interpretation of Coyne’s work lies just under the surface
of her photographs. Nevertheless, read in this way, her
Sicilian Journey negotiates the uncanny experience,
lived by every visitor like her, of returning to places and
people, both familiar and inevitably unknown.
For such an analysis of these photographers, see Mariani LefasTetenes, “The Predicament of Documentary Photography: The Work
of Sebastiao Salgado,” MA thesis, Art History and Criticism, State
University of New York, Stony Brook, 1995.
2
For a critique of traditional assumptions in documentary photography,
see Martha Rosler, “In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On Documentary
Photography),” in The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of
Photography, Richard Bolton, ed. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990),
303-340.
3
Jonathan Green, American Photography, A Critical History 1945 to the
Present, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984), 17-20.
1
B AC K G RO U N D
1977
1971
Master of Fine Arts - Photography
Bachelor of Arts - Fine Arts
Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn College, Brookyn, New York
S O LO E X H I B I T I O N S
2005
2005
2001
Sicily, A Visual Passage
Sicily, A Visual Passage
Sicily, A Photo Essay
2001
2001
2000
1999
1996
1993
1990
Sicily, A Day In The Life
Sicily, A Photo Essay
Sicily, A Photo Essay
Sicilian Impressions
Angels By The Sea
Angels By The Sea
Ellis Island,
The Restoration and The Ruins
Ellis Island,
The Restoration and The Ruins
The Human Environment
1990
1985
ArtSee Gallery, NYC
The Spotlight Gallery Wagner College, Staten Island NY
The Wall Gallery at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
(CUNY), NYC
The Williamsburg Art Nexus, Brooklyn, NY
The Art Gallery, Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY
The Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, Staten Island, NY
The Gallery at The College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY
Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY
The Henry Street Settlement, NYC
The American Museum of Immigration at The Statue of Liberty, NYC
The Sea Cliff Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY
Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY
S E L E C T E D G RO U P E X H I B I T I O N S
2002
2001
1999
1999
1998
1994
1984
1984
1987-present
America
Uno Spettro d’Immagini
The Summer Show
Esposizione Belle Arti E Cultura
Intimate Objects
The M.F.A. Alumni Exhibition
Twenty-nine Photographers
Twenty-nine Photographers
Annual Faculty Exhibition
The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C.
The Godwin-Ternbach Museum Queens, NY
The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C.
The State Capitol, Albany, NY
The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C.
The Art Gallery at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
The Queens Museum, Queens, NY
The Art Gallery at Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
The Brooklyn Museum
The Museum of The City of New York
The National Museum of Immigration at Ellis Island
The Women’s Research and Development Fund at Hunter College
The Beinert Collection
A RT I C L E S
Mariani Lefas-Tetenes is an art historian and critic originally from Greece. Most recently, she has taught Art History in the Art
Department at Kingsborough Community College, The City University of New York.
16
America Oggi, January 2, 2005, page 14
The Italian Tribune, January 3, 2001
The Italian Tribune, November 9, 2000 page 19
New York Daily News, October 31,2000 page 5
Photographer’s Forum Magazine, Vol 17 No. 3, May 1995 pages 24-29