MACRO–Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma presents “New York Shots”, a new project by American photographer Howard Schatz devoted to boxing icons. From March 25, the Museum Hall will become a unique, stunning artistic ring, and an arena for ten large photographs in which Schatz investigates the theme of the body and its role in Italo-American culture.
The “ New York Shots” exhibition, which originally grew out of a publishing idea, offers a reflection on the Italo-American world through art and boxing, two means of expression in which Italians have excelled, achieving fame and glory in America. The exhibition consists the photos taken by Schatz of Italo-American and other boxing figures from New York. The show will be held in the Museum’s Hall. Schatz’s works at MACRO are part of am award-winning series which has earned Schatz the American Photo: Images of the Year and the Prix de la Photographie Paris, Photographer of the Year awards.
“New York Shots” – a tripartite project: exhibition, catalogue, and an event – is the final outcome of a meeting of ideas and dynamic energies focused on a single world. Boxing, with its inner essence and in its natural setting, which has always been New York, yet with an Italian tradition that led to the Olympic triumph in 1960 in Rome.
This project bestrides two worlds: art and culture in their traditional forms, and “popular culture”, in which boxing and sport in general are often pigeonholed. Two worlds which come together in Schatz’s stunning photos.
In 2010 Howard Schatz (Chicago, Illinois, 1940) won the prestigious American Photo: Images of the Year award and the Prix de la Photographie Paris as Photographer of the Year. His photographs have been shown the International Center of Photography in New York, at the University Art Museum of California State University, Long Beach, at the Fresno Art Museum in Fresno, at the Elysse Museum and at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica in Milan, at the Boston Museum of Fine Art in Boston, at the Museum of New Art in Detroit, at the New York Public Library and in many other museums and public spaces around the world. His photos have been published in the world’s leading magazines, including Time, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine, Vogue, Vogue Italia, GQ Italia, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Stern, Life, Black/White, and American Photo. He has created extraordinary images for Ralph Lauren RLX, Escada, Sergio Tacchini, Nike, Reebok, Wolford, Etienne Aigner, Sony, Adidas, Finlandia Vodka, MGM Grand Hotel, Virgin Records, and Mercedes-Benz. Howard Schatz’s work is represented in New York by the Staley Wise Gallery, in Boston by the Robert Klein Gallery, in Chicago by the Catherine Edelman Gallery, and in Denver by Gallery M, and in Weggis.