Andrea Modica: Lentini

Andrea Modica: Lentini by Aline SmithsonMarch 29, 2019

©Andrea Modica, from Lentini

Kris Graves Projects is releasing LOST: II, a compilation of books showcasing twenty cities shot by twenty photographers. Photographer Andrea Modica’s contribution to the project is Lentini, which reflects thirty years of consideration of a small Italian town in the Province of Syracuse in South East Sicily. These quiet and poetic photographs give us a glimpse into every day life, exquisitely captured with an 8 x 10″ camera. The LOST:ll books have already been collected by the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art. These are limited edition and selling out fast!

©Andrea Modica, Lentini cover and spreads

Andrea Modica was born in New York City and lives in Philadelphia, where she works as a photographer and teaches at Drexel University and the International Center of Photography. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar and a Knight Award recipient.

Her photographs have been featured in many publications, including the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Newsweek and American Photo. Her books include Treadwell, Barbara, Minor League, Human Being, Fountain, As We Wait and most recently,January 1.

Modica has exhibited extensively and has had solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts.

Her photographs are part of the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, and the Bibliotheque Nationale.

©Andrea Modica, from Lentini

Lentini

The first time I had some extra money in my pocket, shortly after graduate school, I bought a plane ticket to Italy. I arrived in Rome, and with my large-format camera in a backpack and no particular agenda, I got on a train headed south. On that trip, I met a couple traveling home to Sicily with their daughter. I suspect now that they were concerned for me – a young, inexperienced traveler with little knowledge of the Italian language, wandering into Sicily. As they learned of my plans, or lack thereof, they invited me to stay with them and their extended family in Lentini. It was a remarkable and influential experience, and it was the beginning of a thirty-year relationship with a forgotten little city and its lovely residents.

All the photographs in this book were made from 1987 through 2017, with an 8X10” view camera.