BY TODD MAISEL
A year after a tribute to Mother
Cabrini was skipped by City Hall’s
much vaunted “She Built NYC”
commission, Governor Andrew Cuomo
gave America’s fi rst saint the respect she
deserved with the unveiling of the new
statue in Battery Park City Monday afternoon
for Columbus Day.
Cuomo pulled the red cloth off of the
bronze statue that faces the Statue of
Liberty across the harbor. He aid he was
proud that they could get this statue done
in a year.
“This Columbus Day, the celebration
of Mother Cabrini is even more appropriate
than when we announced it last year
because of the diffi culties that we are facing,”
Cuomo said. “We all know that these
are challenging times, but we also know
that in the book of life, it is not what one
does when the sun is shining that tests our
metal – it’s what one does in the fury of the
storm, and that’s where we are today. In
this complex world, may this statue serve
to remind us of the principles that made
us great as a country and as a people and
the principles that keep us special on this
globe – the values of Mother Cabrini: compassion,
acceptance, community, freedom,
faith, hope and love.”
The artists, Giancarlo Biagi and his coartist
Jill Burett Biagi, were on hand with
their two adopted children from China,
Layla Marie and Michelle. Giancarlo,
Battery Park City gets statue
dedicated to Mother Cabrini
Giancarlo Biagi and his co-artist Jill Burkee Biagi, proudly show their statue
of A statue of Mother Cabrini unveiled today in Battery Park City, behind the
Jewish Heritage Museum this afternoon.
himself an immigrant of Italy, expressed
pride in their ability to capture the essence
of Mother Cabrini even in the shot period
of time they had to do it.
“For us, because we worked so hard on
this we still pinch each other to see if we
are dreaming or is this really happening,
for us it’s our glorious moment, like Andy
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
Warhol said in 1968, ‘We are living our
15 minutes. We’re really happy its here
and we are here,” Giancarlo said of their
marathon to fi nish the statue on time for
Columbus Day.
“It’s one of those pieces that you do very
fast, because there is no time – to look for
any errors, but our expertise, Jill and I have
been working on these since 1975, so we’ve
been doing this a long time,” Biagi said of
his duet with his partner on the statue. “Its
like playing a piano with four hands. We
create all the notes in there, we were going
around sculpting and I was surprised by
what she was doing and I was trying to
catch up with her, and she was surprised
by the things I was doing. We have the
achievement and it came out perfectly in
the end, we did the drawing and its almost
identical.”
His co-artist Jill described the scene,
Mother Cabrini crossing the Atlantic to
immigrate to the United States making
her “kind of a sailor.” One of the children
represents Mother Cabrini when she was
younger – with a book, representing a
dedication to education and her hand on
the book showing “steadfastness in the face
of adversity that Mother Cabrini faced in
her life.”
The boy is an immigrant, as is Giancarlo,
“I felt that the role of the boy, you can see
his expression his facing uncertainty – a
little scared, fresh off the boat. It signifi es
that we all come from some place else while
carrying our traditions, culture, our beliefs
to the new land.”
Medusa statue near courthouse flips script
on mythology in message for justice
BY MARK HALLUM
Before she was a hero, she was a monstrous
villain who was decapitated
by the legendary Perseus, but in
recent years, people are seeing this a little
different; maybe Perseus was the villain.
In a more favorable turn of the page
for modern audiences, would it not have
been better if Perseus had been the one
whose head was removed in a melee of
self-defense?
That’s what a new seven-foot statue
in Collect Pond Park, “Medusa With the
Head of Perseus,”facing the New York
County Criminal Courthouse on Centre
Street means to the activist group MWTH
Project who commissioned the bronze
sculpture by Argentine- Italian artist Luciano
Garbati.
The context for Medusa’s taking the
head of Perseus in Greek mythology has
shifted over the years, especially as the
controversy surrounding the appointment
of Brett Kavanagh as associate justice of
New York County Criminal Courthouse
the U.S. Supreme Court, explained Bek
Andersen founder of the MWTH Project
(pronounces “myth”).
“In 2018, around the time of the Kavanagh
hearings, this image went viral
in certain circles, I came across it and
arranged to bring the version that existed
at the time to New York from Buenos
Ares,” Andersen said. “The location was
chosen to be across from the courthouse
before the Weinstein trial was even happening,
but what I think that does is show
the ongoing relevance of the work. We’ve
received thousands of emails from women
thanking us and Luciano for making the
work and sharing it.”
Funding through a private patron of the
arts, a reproduction of Garbati’s original
piece made in 2008 was placed on the east
side of the park through the city Department
of Parks and Recreation’s Art in the
Parks program.
“I would have never been able to imagine
at the time that 12 years later I would
be standing here to formally present the
bronze version,” Garbati said. “When I
created the sculpture, it has had a life of its
own since being shared on social media in
2018, the sculpture resonated with people
causing them to create new meanings for
the work and sparking emotions, thoughts
and conversations.”
Garbati’s work is the direct counterpart
of Benvenuto Cellini’s “Perseus with the
Head of Medusa” (1545-1554), which still
sits in the Piazza Della Signora in Florence,
Italy.
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