Issue #129
Vincenzo Amato
L'Uomo del Rinascimento
I was born in Palermo, Sicily.
I moved to New York in the early 90’s where I’ve been making and exhibiting my sculptures with the Earl McGrath Gallery.
In NYC I also started acting thanks to Emanuele Crialese who cast me in 1998 for his first feature Once We Were Strangers. I was also in other movies like Respiro (2002), Golden Door (2006) and Unbroken (2014).
I am a sculptor and I am an actor also. Every morning I go to my studio to work with steel, my favorite material. Sometimes I have to go to midtown for an audition or I have to read a script. And when I am offered an interesting film I close the studio and I go to the set. Sometimes in the City, sometimes in Italy. In my studio I enjoy the quiet of being alone and my independence. On set I enjoy the company of the crew and being guided by a director. Yes it looks like I live a double life but it is really one. For fun i love to walk in nature. And I love daydreaming and time traveling.
I never thought I would even visit NY. I came to NYC for a wedding and I never left. New York was my place and I did not know it until I was 27.
My best memory of the City is the first time I saw it. I arrived by night, during the drive from JFK to my arrival on the Hudson, I felt I had landed in a strange place in India. I had imagined a completely different city…
This location means a lot to me: the lower east side, the parking lot outside my studio.. this has been my playground for the past 20 years.
I like this project because it shows humans who have left their comfort zone and dared to reinvent themselves somewhere else. A bunch of courageous nuts..
That is an inevitable role. And we should always remember that to the people of the new country that welcomes us we are Italy. We should always be careful about our behavior, our style in every aspect of life, even our words..
