Sicilian Journey

J a n i n e C o y n e

Italian American MuseumMarch 8 through April 7, 2006 • Curated by Maria Cocchiarelli

Italian American Museum Board of Trustees

Joseph V. Scelsa, Ed.D., PresidentPhilip F. Foglia, Executive Vice PresidentCav. Maria T. Fosco, Secretary and TreasurerMassimo DiFabio, Vice PresidentEugene M. Limongelli, Vice PresidentRalph A. Tedesco, MFA, Vice PresidentRobert Ciofalo, Trustee EmeritusMaria Cocchiarelli, MFA, Curator of Collections

Generous Funding for the Exhibitionsand 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

SicilianJourneyPhotographs by Janine CoyneCurated by Mar ia Cocchiare l l i

March 8 through April 7, 2006Italian American Museum28 West 44th StreetNew York NY, 10036Tel. 212.642.2020www.italianamericanmuseum.org

Essays by:Maria CocchiarelliJanine CoyneMariani Lefas-Tetenes

Printed in the United States of America.Published by the Italian American MuseumDesigner: Michael EsguerraExhibition Installer: Justin CiofaloPrinter: 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.

ITALIANAMERICAN

m u s e u m

Janine Coyne’s photographic essay,

Janine Coyne’s photographic essay,

JSicilian Journey,

documents life in Sicily today. Coyne’s viewpoint Jdocuments life in Sicily today. Coyne’s viewpoint Jpresents a unique combination of straight Jpresents a unique combination of straight Jreportage and art photography. Recent trips to Jreportage and art photography. Recent trips to JSicily 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

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 fi ne art. Without staging his compositions, Cartier-Bresson was able to capture the decisive moment when all decisive moment when all decisive momentthe 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 baffl ed art historians throughout the last two hundred years. When Jean Francois Millet (1814 – 1875) painted the Gleaners in 1857, (dignifi ed 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 refl ecting her

On the front coverGreco-Roman Ruins, Solunto First in the series2001, 12” x 10 1/4”, Janine Coyne

On the back coverCefalu at Dusk2001, 12 1/4” x 17”, Janine Coyne

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Janine Coyne’sChoice of Imagery by Maria Cocchiarelli

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 fi shing village she felt at home in a place so distant from affl uence, 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 fi shing 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 fi rst 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.

Photography 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 refl ected 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 fi ne 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 fi sherman. They immigrated to America and never

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 fi lled with potential imagery. Each area I visited had rich examples of Sicilian Baroque art and architecture, and an abundance of Greco-Roman 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.

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Sicilian Journey by Janine Coyne

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.

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.

topThe Meat Delivery, Taormina17” x 13”, 1997, Janine Coyne

bottomGreco-Roman Ruins, SoluntoFirst in the series12” x 10 1/4”, 2001, Janine Coyne

Women Leaving Church, Cefalu, 2001, 14 3/4” x 19 1/4”, Janine Coyne TOP The Soccer Players, Taormina, 1997, 17 1/2” x 13”, Janine Coyne

bottom Lovers, Giardini-Naxos, 1997, 17 1/2” x 13 3/4”, Janine Coyne

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The Monk, Palermo, 2001, 11 1/4” x 16 3/4”, Janine Coyne

above, leftConvento Dei Cappuccini,Palermo, 1997, 10” x 13”Janine Coyne

above, RightChildren Playing, Taormina,1997, 10” x 13”, Janine Coyne

Below, leftRelief-Villa Palagonia, Bagheria, 2001, 17” x 12 3/4”, Janine Coyne

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The Shuttered Door, Cefalu2001, 12” x 16 1/4”, Janine Coyne

Man With His Boots, Lipari1997, 11 1/4” x 16 1/2”, Janine Coyne

The Fisherman, Stromboli1997, 13” x 17”, Janine Coyne

Cefalu at Dusk2001, 12 1/4” x 17”, Janine Coyne

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above, leftFisherman Mending His Nets, Lipari1997, 11 3/4” x 17 1/4”, Janine Coyne

above, RightLargo S. Caterina, Taormina1997, 12 1/2” x 17”, Janine Coyne

Below, rightWoman On Her Balcony, Taormina1997, 11 1/2” x 16 1/2”, Janine Coyne

Shopkeeper, Lipari, 1997, 11” x 16”, Janine Coyne

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TOP Bar, Taormina, 2001, 16 3/4” x 11 1/4”, Janine Coyne

bottom The Meat Delivery, Taormina, 1997, 17” x 13”, Janine Coyne

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leftLaundry Drying, Lipari1997, 12 1/4” x 16 3/4”, Janine Coyne

BelowThe Domes, Lipari1997, 18 1/2” x 13 3/4”, Janine Coyne

Like 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, fi ltered 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 fi lms 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 scientifi c knowledge, cultural acquisition, even personal exploration. In fact, these motivations can undoubtedly be linked to

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, infl uenced 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,

Encounters with Sicily by Mariani Lefas-Tetenes

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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

B AC K G RO U N D

1977 Master of Fine Arts - Photography Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York1971 Bachelor of Arts - Fine Arts Brooklyn College, Brookyn, New York

S O L O E X H I B I T I O N S

2005 Sicily, A Visual Passage ArtSee Gallery, NYC2005 Sicily, A Visual Passage The Spotlight Gallery Wagner College, Staten Island NY2001 Sicily, A Photo Essay The Wall Gallery at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), NYC2001 Sicily, A Day In The Life The Williamsburg Art Nexus, Brooklyn, NY2001 Sicily, A Photo Essay The Art Gallery, Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY2000 Sicily, A Photo Essay The Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, Staten Island, NY1999 Sicilian Impressions The Gallery at The College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY1996 Angels By The Sea Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY1993 Angels By The Sea The Henry Street Settlement, NYC1990 Ellis Island, The American Museum of Immigration at The Statue of Liberty, NYC

The Restoration and The Ruins1990 Ellis Island, The Sea Cliff Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY

The Restoration and The Ruins1985 The Human Environment 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 America The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C.2001 Uno Spettro d’Immagini The Godwin-Ternbach Museum Queens, NY1999 The Summer Show The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C.1999 Esposizione Belle Arti E Cultura The State Capitol, Albany, NY1998 Intimate Objects The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C.1994 The M.F.A. Alumni Exhibition The Art Gallery at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY1984 Twenty-nine Photographers The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY1984 Twenty-nine Photographers The Queens Museum, Queens, NY1987-present Annual Faculty Exhibition The Art Gallery at Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY

P E R M A N E N T C O L L E C T I O N S

The Brooklyn MuseumThe Museum of The City of New YorkThe National Museum of Immigration at Ellis IslandThe Women’s Research and Development Fund at Hunter CollegeThe Beinert Collection

A RT I C L E S

America Oggi, January 2, 2005, page 14The Italian Tribune, January 3, 2001The Italian Tribune, November 9, 2000 page 19New York Daily News, October 31,2000 page 5Photographer’s Forum Magazine, Vol 17 No. 3, May 1995 pages 24-29

J a n i n e C o y n e

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 fl ux 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 dignifi ed humanity through aesthetic means.3 Her photographs of single fi shermen 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 fi sherman, her depictions are also part of a well-established 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 ramifi cations, 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 fi ltered 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 (fi shing 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 fi eldworkers introduce a contrast between timeless agricultural labor and encroaching modern life. Interestingly, it is the wide-angle 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 traffi c 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 refi ned 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.

1 For such an analysis of these photographers, see Mariani Lefas-Tetenes, “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.

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.

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