From Tuesday, November 13, 2018 to Tuesday, December 18, 2018. From 6:00 pm To 8:00 pm EDT. Entrance: Free. Italian Cultural Institute of New York, 686 Park Avenue - New York, NY 10065. Organized by the American Academy in Rome and presented in the US by the Italian Cultural Institute, this exhibition highlights how photography has framed modern perceptions of Matera, a southern Italian town noted for its millennia-old cave dwellings.

A palimpsest of history and traditions characteristic of Mediterranean culture, Matera in the twentieth century was transformed in the collective imagination from an ancient backwater at the edge of civilization to a cultural bellwether for the future of Europe. In the 1940s, following the publication of Italian author Carlo Levi’s best-selling memoir, Christ Stopped at Eboli, Matera became a symbol of southern Italian backwardness. Today, just over a generation later, Matera has emerged as a model of authenticity that will represent Europe as Capital of Culture in 2019.