Wednesday March 18th 2020 at 7.00 pm at the Fondazione Sozzani, Antonio Rovaldi, in conversation with Francesca Benedetto and Lorenzo Giusti, will present the book “The Sound of the Woodpecker Bill: New York City” published by Humboldt Books. Hosted by Davide Rapp, video-artist, director and cinephile.

Antonio Rovaldi, winner of the fifth edition (2019) of the Italian Council, walked in New York City through all five of its symbolic boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Staten Island) exploring their outermost edges.

From that experience came the exhibition promoted by the GAMeC, in Bergamo – The Sound of the Woodpecker Bill – curated by Lorenzo Giusti, Steven Handel and Francesca Benedetto, and the book, which gives us the image of a complex, marginal and unknown New York.

Lorenzo Giusti writes: “Walking is mapping, tracing dots, lines, and circles. But walking is above all opening up the soul to change. And walking in a hybrid, marginal, and changing environment perhaps entails the greatest possible opening to change there can be.”

In the book, the exploration with the images of Rovaldi is accompanied by the maps created by Francesca Benedetto and by the contributions of Francesca Berardi, Cecilia Canziani, Anna de Manincor, Claudia Durastanti, Lorenzo Giusti, Steven N. Handel and Mario Maffi.

The Sound of the Woodpecker Bill: New York City is part of Antonio Rovaldi’s project End. Words from the Margins, New York City, with which the artist was awarded the support of the fifth call of the Italian Council, the program
promoting Italian contemporary art around the world, held by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity and Urban Regeneration of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism. The program is promoted by the GAMeC in partnership with Harvard University (Graduate School of Design), the Kunstmuseum of St Gallen, and Magazzino Italian Art in Cold Spring (NY).