Exhibition extended!!! October 3 - December 8, 2019. New York Serenade. Ciro Frank Schiappa. Photography exhibition at Disseny Hub Barcelona. Organised by Istituto Italiano di Cultura
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New York Serenade
New York Serenade is an homage to the city of New York and its music. 48 pictures shot with an 8x10 Deardorff view camera, accompained by a few words. With this book we would like to share stories we believe are relevant to describe the continuous changing of the urban landscape and the different forms of art that the city itself produced over the years and is still producing nowadays. We went in search of clubs that have been fundamental in the history of New York’s rock music scene and no longer exist, streets and buildings described in the lyrics of their songs by great New York artists, places where everything happened, portraits of people that represent the spirit of iconic New York songs.

Our aim is to create a real experience for anyone looking at these historic yet unknown places and willing to discover the music that was born there.
New York Serenade is a thematic tour through places in New York City related to the history of Rock music
The streets of New York tell rock’n’roll stories, and to revisit them through large format photography is to re-live the passion and the madness, the innocence and the degradation, the desire to make it and the creative frenzy of the artists who have left an indelible mark on the cultural life of the city.

New York Serenade tells a tale that spans from the 1970s into the new millennium—one that will perhaps never end—through different music genres and generations, to celebrate a past that is fading but not forgotten. While somewhere else, in an as-yet- undiscovered corner of the city, the future of rock ’n’ roll is being born.
“It's midnight in Manhattan, this is no time to get cute. It's a mad dog's promenade So walk tall, or baby don't walk at all... “ Bruce Springsteen, New York City Serenade

When James Brown arrived for the first time in his life New York in April 1959, he headed straight for the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Debbie Harry would make her way right across New York, from Manhattan to Sheepshead Bay, the last exit to Brooklyn, to see punk band The Dictators and their incredible frontman, “Handsome Dick” Manitoba

Bob Dylan went all the way to the swamps of Mermaid Avenue to search for the lost songs of his hero, Woody Guthrie.

Lou Reed wrote a song describing a trip to a Harlem brownstone at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street to buy 26 dollars worth of heroin from a dealer called “the man”

The Ramones came from Queens to the Bowery, setting up their headquarters in the loft of Mexican artist Arturo Vega

We walked the same streets,inspired by the poetry and the sense of wonder of “New York City Serenade”, a song by Bruce Springsteen.
“It's midnight in Manhattan, this is no time to get cute. It's a mad dog's promenade So walk tall, or baby don't walk at all... “ Bruce Springsteen, New York City Serenade

When James Brown arrived for the first time in his life New York in April 1959, he headed straight for the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Debbie Harry would make her way right across New York, from Manhattan to Sheepshead Bay, the last exit to Brooklyn, to see punk band The Dictators and their incredible frontman, “Handsome Dick” Manitoba

Bob Dylan went all the way to the swamps of Mermaid Avenue to search for the lost songs of his hero, Woody Guthrie.

Lou Reed wrote a song describing a trip to a Harlem brownstone at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street to buy 26 dollars worth of heroin from a dealer called “the man”

The Ramones came from Queens to the Bowery, setting up their headquarters in the loft of Mexican artist Arturo Vega

We walked the same streets,inspired by the poetry and the sense of wonder of “New York City Serenade”, a song by Bruce Springsteen.
Ciro Frank Schiappa
New York City Ciro Frank Schiappa was born in 1971 in Dublin, Ireland. He studied photography at Fondazione Studio Marangoni in Firenze, Italy. His photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 1997 European Young Artist Biennial in Torino, the international photography festival of Arles, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Galleria Civica in Modena, his hometown.

Schiappa’s twin photographic interests in portraiture and architecture have continued to develop in his subsequent series beginning with his Circostanze Familiari and continuing on to include Leicamix and Maremmana in which he focuses on how human nature relates to the environment. Schiappa lives and works between Barcelona and Milano.
Ciro Frank Schiappa
New York City Ciro Frank Schiappa was born in 1971 in Dublin, Ireland. He studied photography at Fondazione Studio Marangoni in Firenze, Italy. His photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 1997 European Young Artist Biennial in Torino, the international photography festival of Arles, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Galleria Civica in Modena, his hometown.

Schiappa’s twin photographic interests in portraiture and architecture have continued to develop in his subsequent series beginning with his Circostanze Familiari and continuing on to include Leicamix and Maremmana in which he focuses on how human nature relates to the environment. Schiappa lives and works between Barcelona and Milano.
Michele Primi
Born in Milan in 1973. He has also lived in Barcelona and New York. He is a journalist at Rolling Stone and writes rock history programs for Virgin Radio. He also contributes to Wired, GQ, Icon and La Stampa. He has worked for MTV and has written music and rock culture monographs. In 2014, he published the book Tragedies and Mysteries of Rock‘n’Roll.
“New York Serenade” provides an emotional map. A map for the curious and the passionate willing to follow us through the path that connects the legends of history to the current reality of the places where a music and a style were born.

Discover an unconventional New York: the intense and unpredictable city always bursting with creative energy that gave us and keeps giving us today what we call rock’n’roll.