New York Shots

New YorkShots is the story of Italians in America, seen through their successes, defeats and battles, inside and outside the ring. The author adopts a disjointed, narrative and critical approach with the explicit aim of bringing different energy forms together and creating unison between the words - and experiences - of champions past and present and those of intellectuals celebrated by New York and America over the years. The result is an intimate and passionate ballad describing New York, the golden age of boxing and those who, more than all others, practised, promoted and made it legendary- the Italo-Americans. This book demonstrates that boxing remains a place that produces myth, a sacred space that can civilise us, basically, "one of the fine arts" (Walter Pater). Enhanced by photographs by the maestro Howard Schatz and the words of the screenwriter and character in cult television series The Sopranos Michael Imperioli. AUTHOR: Gabriele Tinti curated Universal Embassy, Art Mama and Memorial for the fifth, sixth and seventh editions respectively of the Festival Internazionale della Fotografia di Roma. Long obsessed with boxing, he started thinking about all the implications between art and sport with the All Muscles project, a series of interviews and investigations for major art, literature and sports magazines. Integral parts of the project were the book Legendary Hearts (published by Damiani in 2009, preface by Nino Benvenuti and pictures by Franko B), the recent reading on Arthur Cravan (early twentieth-century poet and boxer) at the Festival della Poesia in Modena and the Box(e) exhibition at the Jerome Zodo Contemporary, for which Tinti took fighting inside an art gallery. ILLUSTRATIONS: 30 colour *