Harrison REVIEW THE
September 8, 2017 | Vol. 5, Number 36 | www.harrisonreview.com
Race heats up, Giordano officially in GOP primary By FRANCO FINO Staff Writer
FALL FOR THE ARTS
The fall season brings various art exhibits and events to the area. Find out what’s happening in our Fall for the Arts section. For more, see page 11.
Neuberger Museum opens Ignacio Iturria exhibit
For children, the little shoeboxes they paint and furnish become theaters where imaginary dramas and psychological interplay are carried out. For Ignacio Iturria, one of Uruguay’s leading artists, childhood tableaux are inspiration for the canvases he paints. Playful and allegorical rather than sinister or brooding, his is a dream world created within a shadow box grid where whimsical people, animals, and distorted, surreal household items and furnishings, reflect a wide cultural and historical mix of individuals, urban life, social currents, and fantasy.
From Sept. 24, 2017 through Feb. 25, 2018, the Neuberger Museum of Art will present “A Studio in the Gallery: The Playful Universe of Ignacio Iturria,” an interactive exhibition that illustrates key moments in the artist’s trajectory over the past 30 years, and features a living studio in which the artist will work in collaboration with SUNY Purchase College students to create new works during a two-month residency. The works will then become part of the retrospective of the artist’s key 40 paintings and sculptures on view in the exhibition. During the course of the res-
idency, visitors will be invited to enter the space and meet the artist. Iturria’s work can be fun, brooding, and nostalgic. Piling layer upon layer of paint, his paintings take on a sculptural feeling. Some of his creatures, built out of “great rich gobs” of paint, take on anthropomorphic characteristics. He once commented: “I have always liked to humanize objects and things. It is my way of incorporating them and loving them.” He creates small characters and enlarged objects, making improbable scenes seem possible. “He creates small worlds that
pose big questions,” notes Dr. Patrice Giasson, the Alex Gordon Curator of Art of the Americas. “There is a noticeable lack of pretention. Yet, by using trompe l’oeil effects in his small, theatrical, softly contoured stages, he pushes us to connect our instinct for play and fantasy with adult concerns and memories. We see the spectacle of people in the present, with their histories, their dreams, their fears, and their desires. His work is utterly unique.” Events and programs offered in conjunction with “A Studio in the Gallery” will be announced at a later date. (Submitted)
An appellate court ruling to put Michael Giordano back in the running for the Harrison receiver of taxes election will stand, as the New York Court of Appeals dismissed the case on Aug. 30. With the 2nd Department of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division’s decision serving as the final determination in a case that has garnered significant attention locally, Giordano can now officially run in a Sept. 12 Republican primary against Rosa Mastrogiacomo-Luongo, the party-backed candidate. Giordano, who currently works in the Harrison tax receiver’s office, will have little time to turn his attention to the upcoming primary, however. But the winner of that race will move on to the general election and face Maria Mioli Pennella, a registered Republican running on the Democratic line, and independent candidate Helen Pesce. Joe Angilletta, Mastrogiacomo-Luongo’s campaign manager and uncle, said a primary doesn’t help his niece, but they’re still confident the candidate will win. “We’re going to keep on fighting and we’re going to let the people decide who’s best for the [position],” he said. Last month, in state Supreme Court, Giordano challenged the Westchester County Board of Elections’, BOE, determination that ended up with him being removed from the ballot. After that court upheld the BOE’s decision, the candidate filed an appeal with the appellate court. Giordano was initially removed from the primary ballot
after more than half of the objections filed with the BOE were upheld, some of which contended that the signatures Giordano collected did not correctly list the proper municipality where he was seeking elected office. In total, the BOE sustained 200 objections of 377 that were filed, leaving Giordano short of the required 285 signatures needed to trigger a Republican primary. Several other objections maintained that Giordano is not a resident of the town/village of Harrison and that he received petition signatures from residents that are not registered in the town/village Republican Party. Giordano’s candidacy was first called into question in July after the Review discovered that he owns a home in the village of Brewster in Putnam County in addition to his residence at 14 Woodside Ave. in West Harrison. On tax forms, he has indicated that his primary residence is his Blossom Lane property in Brewster. Under that address, Giordano collects a School Tax Relief Exemption, known as the STAR exemption, which he’s received since 2001. According to the New York state Department of Taxation GIORDANO continued on page 5