What Are You Working On Now? Lee Cannarozzo

What are you working on now? is a Couch in the Desert series where we ask artists what they are making and thinking about in and outside the studio.

Lee Cannarozzo

From September 16th to November 16th I’ll be an artist in residence at the Coalesce Center For Biological Art. While in residence at Coalesce, I will be working on a project titled “Cugini,” which utilizes DNA sequencing visualization taken from fig trees found throughout the boroughs of NYC.

This project began when my fiancée and I were walking in our neighborhood in Brooklyn, and we noticed a fig tree planted in a sidewalk tree plot. Curious as to how a tree found primarily in Mediterranean climates made its way to New York, I began researching the history of NYC’s fig trees. The article “Italy to Brooklyn, Fig by Fig” written in 2012 in the New York Times by Melissa Clark became a springboard for my understanding of the socio-cultural history tied to the presence of fig trees in Brooklyn. Brought over by Italian (im)migrants, stowed away in suitcases holding cloths and a select few valuables, these new Americans brought with them a plant that was a reminder of their ancestral home. Over time, many of the NYC figs have been given colloquial cultivar names such as “Brooklyn White.” Part of the goal for this project is to compare the DNA sequences of the fig trees found in NYC to fig trees in Italy, in order to determine the true cultivar names of the NYC fig trees.

There’s a lot of science and sociology involved in this project and if you’re reading this you might be wondering where the art is.

Lee Cannarozzo, *Flax Estate #7 Documentation*, Digital Photograph, 2022. Photo courtesy of Liz Rudnick

My practice over the past seven years can generally be categorized as either Land art or more broadly, Conceptual art, with my recent works primarily taking the form of land-based installations that utilize plants to convey a socio-cultural history.

“Cugini” is an extension of that modus operandi, and the output of this project will likely be two-fold.

Part one will eventually entail the placement of a NYC fig tree grown from a cutting in a public space and/or sculpture garden, surrounded by a two-foot tall fence that mimics one of the tree plot fence designs authorized by the city of New York.

Part two of “Cugini” will be the creation of a series of works that incorporate the fig tree DNA sequence visualizations that I’ll be generating while in residence at Coalesce. With that said, residencies always tend to change how I look at my work and as I move forward in the residency and the process of sequencing the fig tree DNA, the visual output of my project might shift.

Whether my project changes over the course of my residency or remains the same, the ultimate goal of this investigation is to keep the culture of fig tree growing in NYC alive by illuminating the history and contemporary life of fig trees found throughout the boroughs of NYC.

Lee Cannarozzo is an artist and arts professional originally from Las Vegas, NV. He holds a BA in Art History from UNLV, and an MFA in Studio Art from SUNY University at Buffalo. Cannarozzo's work has been exhibited in various cultural centers such as The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, The Burchfield Penney Art Center, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Visual Studies Workshop, and PS122. Currently, he lives in Brooklyn, NY and will be an artist in residence at The Coalesce Center For Biological Art from September through November of 2024.

See more of Lee’s work on his website and instagram.

Images courtesy of the artist.

Published by Lyssa Park on Sept 22