The show features some modest attempts at still life, suggestive of Italy’s finest painters and a few photographs that might well have been a Facebook moment, but the visitor will also relish other works that make them hungry for more. What characterizes these food images of A Flavor of Italy is not the prepared meal of social media but the raw form and exquisite colors of that which sustains and nourishes: succulent orange melons bursting with juices and seeds; speckled fish filets skating across a bed of ice; unripe olives spilling over aged hands; stippled chickens donning lustrous checkered tail feathers; and iridescent blue minnows crisscrossing like the secret passageways of Venice.

Unlike the prepared, packaged foods that take up the majority of shelves in American grocery stores today, the world of Italian food — as represented in this exhibition — more closely resembles America’s whole foods/slow foods movements of recent years. Unadulterated, undetermined nourishment — its final intention left up to the imagination, and skillset, of the viewer.

The Global Line

The roots of the exhibition may be tethered to the rolling hills and cerulean waters of Italy, but the notion of humanity’s interconnectedness — in the simplest of ways — runs deep. Consider, for example, the large number of works depicting laundry included in the show. For Randall, laundry titillates the senses as much as a bucolic landscape or a ripe fruit, “I love fresh laundry — its scent, the way it glints in the sun, quivers in the breeze and blows clear havoc in the wind.” Indeed, some of the most exquisite, ethereal works of the exhibition are those of laundry. Salmon colored blouses, faded denim, aubergine towels, and white undergarments arc across canals, waffle in lake breezes, and cling to the sides of age-old facades. The images serve as a metaphor for the ritual of washing and drying clothing — a subjective relationship ultimately linking us to each other one clothespin at a time.

Schorr notes, “The first time I went to Europe I was blown away by the laundry hanging everywhere. One of my first shots of laundry was in the Jewish ghetto of Venice, and it remains one of my most favorite pieces for what it says and doesn’t say.” While walking through the ghetto, the atrocities of European pogroms still lurk in the winding alleyways; lines of laundry symbolize a connecting line between past and present. Schorr admits that finding new ways to shoot laundry can be challenging. In her latest photograph, Lavenderia, her photographer’s eye captures the hues of bleached and vibrant fabrics, the uneven layers of brickwork, and the inky canal waters reflecting a gray sky. But she admits that it wasn’t just about the laundry. It was also the “unseen” that sparked her curiosity: who lives there, and what does their apartment look like? At the top of the photograph a window with open shutters spills off the scene — an invitation to drift away from the photo and imagine the other half of the story.

Gilbert Rios’s Il Bucato exemplifies the globalization of today’s world economy: a line of men’s chinos and button down shirts — standard clothing for men of Berlin, Buenos Aires, Queens, and Toronto. At once the viewer can identify with the individual components of the scene, possibly even identify the brand of clothing. And yet, the flavor of Italy is not lost — a jalousie balcony with terra cotta pots and, as Rios notes, orange pants define a particular sense of place. Such images suggest that the world has become a tiny place, and in its compact nature, cultures, while different, share much in common. For Rios, “Seeing the difference, or similarity, only increases [his] connection to what it is.”

Humanity’s Similarities

As any curator will tell you, pulling together a group show is an arduous task. Add to that a mixture of professional artists, artists-in-training, photography, collage, paintings, and sculpture and, well, the process can be daunting. Randall, who represents 10 artists, is not unfamiliar with group shows — Chace-Randall Gallery hosts one each winter. Yet she admits that the selection process, which required her to select 100 entries from over 500 submissions, was a challenge. “Let’s say, perhaps, the first 50 were easy for my gallerist eye,” she explains. “Novice or professional, this is not my troupe of artists, but that’s not to say there aren’t some very special works here. Ones I could happily live with.”

Any group exhibition of such range in craft, skillset and media, will have works that stand out and works that sit quietly in the background, eagerly awaiting a nod from the audience. A Flavor of Italy is no different. Varying levels of talent are hung side by side, each with its own space to release the aromas and scents of the Italian culture and landscape. Rios, a contemplative photographer, strives “to see the world in complete equanimity.” It is a way to view the world, he explains, through the eyes of a six-month-old child whose visual experience has yet to be clouded by “judgment, labels or associations.”

Perhaps this is the overarching theme of the exhibition: humanity’s similarities. The word “community” arose time and again in the course of conducting interviews for this piece. Over 25 percent of participants in Il Chiostro workshops are “repeat students,” returning to a creative environment that nourishes the human soul with talented instructors, camaraderie among fellow artists, and, yes, large bowls of pasta. It is this notion of interconnectedness and the sharing of the human spirit that exudes from the director, his artists, and the exhibition itself. A Flavor of Italy is a large family reunion, showcasing whimsical and poignant works of art, with a little slice of the world served on the side.

25CPW Gallery is located at 25 Central Park West, New York, New York. “A Flavor of Italy” runs through March 31. For more information call (212) 203-0250 or e-mail [email protected].

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Featured image: “A Delicate Bridge” by artist Margrethe Siebert. Photo Credit/Courtesy of: Margrethe Siebert.