The Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation's Urban Art Program, today announced the completion of "Bettina" Art Installation. Created by artist Jennifer Cecere under the Urban Art Program's partners track, the piece is composed of an 8-foot vinyl mesh doily, which will hang outside the terminal's Ramp E for up to 11 months. Cecere's work is inspired from collecting lace and doilies from auctions and yard sales as a child in rural Indiana. After working with found lace and doilies for years in her studio, Cecere began incorporating them into large-scale outdoor works, while still retaining the charm of a handmade look.

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"Obama in Naples (Waiting for Obama)â" is a love poem to Naples with humor and satire. A journalist who covered the terrible earthquake of 1980 returns after thirty years to report on whether conditions have improved and ends up getting more involved in saving the city than he reckoned for. This play is a humorous and romantic musical fantasia about what would happen if the POTUS would visit Naples. For a few days Naples becomes the capital of the world and Obama a new patron saint of the city. The underlying theme is Southern Italyâ's never-ending woes, summed up by the question: have things gotten better or worse in the last thirty years? The comedy sparkles with songs that are sung in traditional Neapolitan style and bears the distinctive influences of Beckett and commedia dell' arte. The play is translated from the Italian and the Neapolitan by Angela Carabelli and edited by Olga Cortese and Michael F. Moore (not the documentary film maker).

Thirty six works in various media by Italian futurist artists from the 1st and 2nd wave of futurist art. The exhibit, drawn from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Stefano Acunto, illustrates the artists' thinking on energy, color and multimedia possibilities. The group includes Giulio Dâ'Anna, Pippo Rizzo, Gerardo Dottori, Alberto Bragaglia, Roberto Crippa, Giacomo Balla, and Lucio Venna. Exhibit sponsored by the Italian Academy Foundation, Inc. founded 1947.

A lecture by Prof. John Dickie (University College, London) In 1992, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two magistrates who had become figureheads of the struggle against Cosa Nostra, were both murdered by savage mafia bombs. To mark the twentieth anniversary, John Dickie will retell the story of the massacres in Palermo in 1992, showing that the struggle to shape how they would be remembered in the future was an integral aspect of how those shocking and epoch-making events were lived out at the time. But still today the deaths of Falcone and Borsellino remain an unsettling presence in Italian culture. Mystery still surrounds the death of Paolo Borsellino in particular. Only recently, the men found guilty of planting the car bomb that killed him have been released because disturbing evidence has emerged to show that they were wrongly convicted. Did the order to kill Borsellino come from the mafia after all? Or from within the Italian state?

Maestro Davide Zannoni presents a fascinating journey among Italian classical music and Operas. Monteverdi, Rota, Vivaldi, and contemporary composers like Giancarlo Menotti and Davide Zannoni.

Artists: Lauren Alfano, soprano Dewey Moss, baritone Stephanie McGuire, mezzo-soprano Noby Ishida, piano and the Emerald Trio

On the occasion of the first edition of Frieze New York, Charta Books invites you to celebrate its 20 years of activity and the 926 publications 

It will be a perfect occasion to show oldies from the catalogue, the 13 new spring books and the 13 new volumes we are woking on for the fall.

Photographer and 2010 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship recipient S. Billie Mandle presents the works in her Reconciliation project--a photographic series of Catholic confessionals, made from the perspective of the penitent. Using available light, Mandle abstracts the small rooms, looking at the relationship between the tangible structure of the confessional and the intangible ritual of the space. In this presentation, she will discuss and show examples of these photographs, which were influenced by her Italian-American background.

An evening of readings and discussion of the poetry of Eugenio Montale

Eugenio Montale changed Italian poetry forever and helped to create international Modernism. Steeped in the tradition of Dante, Petrarch and Leopardi, yet fiercely innovative, in each new book Montale challenged the styles he had previously established. His poems chart an adventure of consciousness and conscience in response to the shocks of modernity, fascism, and two world wars, and they also present several of the greatest erotic sequences in modern poetry.An evening of readings and comments to celebrate the publication of William Arrowsmithâ's translation of 'The Collected Poems of Eugenio Montale 1925-1977' (W.W. Norton 2012) and Jonathan Galassiâ's revised 'Eugenio Montale:Collected Poems 1920-1954'(Farrar Straus & Giroux 2012).

Readers: Jonathan Galassi, Rosanna Warren, and Fausto Lombardi.Respondent: Professor Rebecca West.

Jolle Greenleaf and Molly Quinn, sopranos; Alexander Woods and Daniel Lee, violin Hank Heijink and Daniel Swenberg, theorbo, Avi Stein, harpsichord. Please call for further information.

Admission: $30, $20 for students and seniors

In Honor of Aileen Riotto Sirey, Ph.D.

To celebrate her 32 years of committed service and contributions to the Italian American community, her retirement and status as Founder and Chair Emerita.Special Remarks By Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Matilda Raffa Cuomo.

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Charta published Francesco Clemente. Made in India in 2011, Francesco Clemente. A private Geography in 2010, Francesco Clemente in 2009, Francesco Clemente the Sopranos in 2008, Francesco Clemente Works 1971-1979 in 2007, Francesco Clemente in 2000.

Followed by a screening of the documentary about the previous edition (2011) directed by Carlotta Corradi featuring Cathleen Schine, Mario Desiati, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Phillip Lopate, Sandro Veronesi, David Leavitt, and Donna Tartt.Le Conversazioni is a literary festival created by Antonio Monda and Davide Azzolini that takes place annually on the Isle of Capri with the participation of some of the leading lights in contemporary English literature.

Using Italian-American and Mexican-American examples from her research on Catholic women's domestic altar traditions, folklorist Kay Turner discusses the liveliness of relationships between women and the saints they venerate personally. For these women, holy images and statues are not just static representations, but signs of affiliation and maternal legacy. At the altar associations with the saints are built over time, using multiple means such as prayer, narrative, and ritual.

The Met's survey of Alexander McQueen last spring proved to be a box-office bonanza, attracting huge crowds that made it the museum's eighth-biggest on record. Expect more of the same with this exhibit bringing together designs and accessories by two iconic names of cutting-edge Italian fashion from two different eras: Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada.

In his debut story collection, Joseph Salvatore presents characters damaged and yet dignified, yearning for something that they seem unable to identify, much less to ask for. A body- pierced goth girl cage-dances for a living while putting herself through school. A New York City academic reevaluates her closest relationships while considering breast-reduction surgery. A chatty Gulf War veteran is plagued by a sexual-identity crisis. The characters in this collection search for meaning through the crucible of bodies--both their own and others'. Salvatore's stylized writing coaxes readers into murky territories as his characters spiral deeper into existential rabbit holes.

The author in conversation with: Drew Christiansen, S.J. (Editor in Chief of America) Lupieri's lively historical-sociological study masterfully weaves together a tapestry of ideas, individuals, and people groups, linking them throughout to present-day realities in often surprising ways. In the process, Lupieri exposes the economic, political, and religious justifications and motivations behind the European con- quests and uncovers some of the historical roots of genocide, racism, and just war theory. Like most stories, this narrative contains the vicissitudes of men and women who have committed despicable crimes, performed acts of great heroism, and stooped to shameful compromises.

The Italian Cultural Institute of New York hosts the press conference unveiling the program of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition â“ la Biennale di Venezia with the participation of Paolo Baratta, President of Biennale di Venezia and David Chipperfield, Director of 13th International Architecture Exhibition.

Carlo Petrini is the founder of the International Slow Food Movement, which for 20 years has waged a war on mass-produced meals. In October 2004 he founded the first University of Gastronomic Sciences (Pollenzo, Italy), a school committed to bridging the gap between agriculture and gastronomy and specifically devoted to the study the inextricable link between food and culture. In the 1980s Petrini first came to prominence for taking part in a campaign against the fast food chain McDonaldâ's opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. He is the author of multiple publications and an editor at the publishing house Slow Food Editore.

The Accademia Carrara is one of Italy's premier art museums but remains too little known outside the country. The temporary closure and restoration of its galleries, housed in a grand neoclassical building in the North Italian city of Bergamo, has made possible a welcome collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bringing to New York fifteen of the Accademia's masterpieces by Venetian and North Italian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including Giovanni Bellini's haunting Pietà with the Virgin and Saint John, the predella panels from Lorenzo Lotto's celebrated Martinengo altarpiece, and Orpheus and Eurydice, an ambitious composition from Titian's early career.The exhibition and accompanying publication illuminate not only the quality of the Accademia Carrara's holdings but also the unique position the museum occupies in the history of art, collecting, and connoisseurship in the northern Italian regions of Lombardy and the Veneto. As the custodian of three superlative, formerly private collections-those of the Bergamo native Count Giacomo Carrara (1714-1796), who founded the institution in the late eighteenth century, Guglielmo Lochis (1789-1859), and the great connoisseur Giovanni Morelli (1826-1891)-the Accademia Carrara has served to transform the collecting practices and artistic pursuits of three individuals into a reflection of the cultural history of Bergamo, a civic-minded vision whose influence extends far beyond the city's borders.

A seminar on Giorgio Bassani, one of the most prominent Italian novelists of the 20th century and his relationship to America, followed by the screening of Un autore, una citta' (An Author, a Town), a documentary by Rai Teche, 1978-1979.Speakers: Roberta Antognini, Paola Bassani Pacht, Cristina Della Coletta, Millicent Marcus.

An event for Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò Members only.

Underworld Productions Opera will present Don Pasquale & His Trophy Wife, an interpretation of Donizetti's 1843 opera buffa.  The lead singers will be Peter Castaldi, baritone (Don Pasquale); Amelia Watkins, soprano (Norina); Nils Neubert, tenor (Ernesto); Matthew Singer, baritone (Malatesta); and Juliana Valente/Lauren Alfano (Notary). Designers are Kia Rogers (lighting), Nikki Black (set) and Edgar Cortes (costumes).

$30,000 in scholarships will be awarded to 15-20 outstanding students who study Italian at WCC. Outstanding students of Italian and students of the day/evening Saturday community program will be recognized for their achievements. Officers and members of the Italian Club will be recognized for their contribution. Reception with dolci and caffe' will follow the ceremony. All are welcome to attend.

Through the Young Italian Film Directors Prize, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York aims to reaffirm its strong interest in Italian cinema. The winning directors Silvia Luzi, Luca Bellino and Fabio Mollo, will attend.At this event they have the opportunity to get acquainted with significant American cinema representatives and to present their works to high profile experts. This program will also enable them to live a unique experience in the city that has always been an ideal setting for cinema.

Program: 5:15pm - Screening of the winning documentary and short film. Giganti, by Fabio Mollo, short film - La Minaccia, by Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino, documentary 7:00pm - Round Table Conversation and discussion with the winning filmakers and guest speakers

Tony Russo and Andrea Kish of Aries Wine & Spirits will showcase some of the finest wines of the region of Campania such as: Cantravelli Greco di Tufo DOCG, Cantravelli Fiano di Avellino DOCG, Cantravelli Aglianico DOC, Cantravelli Taurasi Riserva DOCG along with hors d'oeuvres, and a wine with family ties Giuseppe Apicella Costa dAmalfi Rosso. For Adults 21 and over. Registration Fee: Members $50, Non-members $60.Must register in advance and prepay.

Federico Rampini, writer and journalist for "La Repubblica" in New York City, presents his new book "Alla mia Sinistra"  in a special occasion.  The book deals with the new challenges the world is facing and the failure of capitalism, who might destroy the democracy and the common good. Organized by Circolo PD New York 20 copies will be offered in a special lottery

RSVP at info@circolopdny.org 

Documentary FilmFederal Hill, Providence, Rhode Island's "Little Italy", is one of America's most storied neighborhoods. Relive the traditions and challenges of Italian Americans whose ancestors immigrated for a better future. Attacking stereotypes, this moving and lively depiction of the Italian American experience was filmed on location in historic Federal Hill. The soundtrack features traditional Italian folk and classical music recorded live.

A film by Fred Kudjo Kuwornu In Italian with English subtitles 18 Ius Soli is an Award-winning grassroot Italian documentary about the issue of citizenship for the 1.000.000 children born in Italy whose citizenship is denied because - born of immigrant parents - they have no Italian "blood".

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director and Silvana Patriarca (Fordham University), Teresa Fiore (Montclair University), Anibal Rosario Lebron (Hofstra University)

On the occasion of the American publication of "Emmaus".

Author Alessandro Baricco in conversation with translator Ann Goldstein (The New Yorker). The Italy of Alessandro Baricco's Emmaus is one of stark contrasts: the secular and the pious, the rich and the poor, those with "a capacity for destiny" and those who "cannot afford it." And it's in the religiously devout lower-class that we find our four protagonists: Bobby, the Saint, Luca, and the unnamed narrator-all from proud, struggling families, and all lusting after Andre, a hyper-sexual woman whose reckless, provocative exploits goad these four friends from adolescence to manhood. Baricco renders the details of post-war, working-class Italian life with a poet's eye, moving effortlessly from the quotidian to the profound. A brilliant portrait of the perils and uncertainties of youth and faith, Emmaus is a remarkable novel from one of the very best writers in Europe.

Documentary Film. Ubaldo explores a cultural festival more than 800 years old that can be found in only two places in the world, Gubbio, Italy and Jessup, Pennsylvania. Known as "La Festa Dei Ceri", the historic importance and epic folklore preserved in this celebration have survived unchanged because it reflects the soul of each town and their Christian devotion to three saints. Participating in the festival is a very important experience in the lives of the residents of these sister cities. Their stories create a uniquely intimate bridge between two countries, two cultures and two communities over which they share their past and present, and traditions.