New York 1981 Photograph - Limited Edition of 10

Once Upon A Time America “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.” I grew up with coffee, milk and American TV, mostly crime stories. The most exciting was The Naked City (in Italian, La Città in Controluce/The Backlit City). Perhaps, in those times, the word “naked” was too explicit for Italy? Those streets, skyscrapers, the Statue of Liberty, and American cars! Long cars, big engine and bigger curves. Powerful and mysterious. Every episode ended with the narrator intoning, “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them. “ The first time I set foot in America was in New Orleans. I was traveling from Brazil to New York, I’d just caught a boat from Mexico. America seemed immediately familiar; it was something that belonged to my childhood. Those American cars, though, they were still exotic. And to tell the truth, excited me. New Orleans. I walked away from the French Quarter, a guy stopped me, talked endlessly to me. After pleasantries, he said, “What beautiful eyes you have. You could make good money.” I did not understand. “I beg your pardon?” “French job,” he replied. I just did not get it “What is the French Job?” He mimed a blow-job and added, “In my night club, people come from all over America, they pay well “I’m married,” I say “Bring your wife too,” he said smiling. That year in the news, word spread about the plague of the century, the AIDS epidemic. I stayed just a few days in New Orleans. I took a Greyhound bus bound for New York, the trip takes 32 hours and runs through many American states. At each stop new passengers got on and just as many got off, I was the only passenger who left from New Orleans to disembark in New York. Landscapes and people changed constantly. After two months I took a plane and flew to Caracas, Venezuela to work in a friend’s photo studio.