Standing amid her biggest artistic achievement, three square blocks in New York City containing 41 billboard-sized screens with images of iconic American landscapes and people, Daniella Vale giggles.
“I’m not used to being on this side of the camera,” she tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
Vale, 37, of New York City directed “Path of Liberty: That Which Unites Us,” an exhibit sponsored by The Soloviev Foundation as a prelude to the 250th anniversary of the United States. She interviewed, snapped still photos, and filmed videos of 55 individuals – from immigrants to Native Americans, astronauts to farmers, artists to lobster fishermen.
“With this piece,” she says, “we tried to answer the question of: what does it mean to be American – where have we lived up to that and where do we need to do work to live up to that?”
The exhibit features three Pittsburghers: Samuel W. Black, director of the African American Program at the Heinz History Center; Tom Reinheimer, marketing director of the Duquesne Incline; and Lilly Abreu, singer, linguist and advocate for the disability community. Vale revealed that the nighttime exhibit harkens back to her Pittsburgh roots. She graduated from the former Schenley High School in Oakland and walked the same halls as pop artist Andy Warhol, a 1945 alumnus.
“Most of the inspiration for this project came from things I’d seen at a Carnegie International or the Warhol Museum or things that, just growing up, were part of the culture of Pittsburgh,” she says.
Dark times, glorious times
Dressed in blue jeans, a silk blouse with a paisley print and a linen coat with a ‘70s hippy vibe, Vale recently gave Pittsburgh City Paper a special tour of the 6.7-acre installation in Freedom Plaza.
The highlight of her career rests on the largest undeveloped spot in Manhattan, with green shrubs in the foreground and night-lit skyscrapers, including the Chrysler Building, in the background. The exhibit’s soundtrack of chirping crickets and peaceful tones tempers the hubbub of New York.
Though the nation seems so divided, Vale says, the 55 people she interviewed show common themes of equality, justice, and freedom. On separate screens Black and Reinheimer, atop Mt. Washington with Downtown looming behind, discuss democracy. “We have a country that has worked for 250 years, has seen some very dark times, and has seen some very glorious times,” Black intones. “Being an American means that I have an opportunity to leave this country better for a generation after me.”
Reinheimer says democracy means voting for, and convincing people, who should lead our country. “However,” he adds, “the main thing it means is that these people do what our forefathers intended to do.”
Abreu plays the piano as she teaches voice to nonvoice majors at Carnegie Mellon University. She says being an American means “to help others thrive. Not to accumulate, but to share.”
A young movie maven
Vale grew up on the South Side with her mother Cynthia, a visual artist, and uncles Leo and JT, filmmakers now both deceased. Her father, Arnold Mincone of Pleasant Hills, was a bus driver.
As a child, Vale would sneak downstairs at night to watch movies, often those of Stanley Kubrick or Ridley Scott, with Uncle Leo. Leo let his niece use his Beaulieu movie camera. Vale was so young then that he called her Princess Di, and she called him “Yellow” because she couldn’t say “Leo.”
“Literally, as young as I can remember, I was consuming classic films and playing with cameras, and Uncle Leo would bring home celluloid scraps that I would make scratch films on,” Vale recalls.
As a junior, she worked on a project at the Andy Warhol Museum in which she examined old Schenley yearbooks when Warhol went there, and time capsules of the stuff on his work desk that he cleared off every month. Though not an original fan of his art, she read his books and came to appreciate him.
In a media literacy class at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, one of Vale’s teachers, Olivia Ciummo, admired her inquisitiveness. “When you have that much curiosity, you’re always bound to make an interesting piece of media,” Ciummo, now an artist and filmmaker in Los Angeles whom Vale consulted on “Path of Liberty,” tells City Paper.
Vale majored in film at Temple University, studied in Japan, and worked in Bollywood. Like Warhol, she decided to make New York her home base. She has since worked for major media companies including Vice, MTV, and Vh1.
She still credits her education at Schenley, the ghostly shadow of Warhol, and the artistic optimism of Pittsburgh’s indie punk scene in the ‘90s with helping shape her.
“Being around that energy to this day is still the place where I feel most at home and alive,” she says.
Your second family
In ways big and small, the faces on the 15-by-20-foot screens tell how they try to make their corner of the country better — perhaps none as memorably as Lt. Mickey Kross, a retired New York City firefighter.
Assigned to evacuate survivors on 9/11, he reached the 23rd floor of the North Tower when it collapsed. Shielded from falling debris by his helmet, he was buried in rubble about three hours before his rescue.
With Freedom Tower in the background, he says, “Being a firefighter, you learn to work in a community of people. When you go to work, you’re going to your second family. You’re going to your other house where you live. I was part of making the city function. And I loved it.”
Julie Gable of New Orleans teaches young people how to grow food. “In order to feed nine people in my household, we had to go fishing, we had to go hunting, we had to have a garden,” she says. “I now have evolved to a position where I can help others. That means a lot to me.”
The agora
Vale’s favorite part of the project is the central plaza with four granite slabs reminiscent of Stonehenge, surrounded by eight video screens.
“That’s a little bid nodding to the agora, this circular central place where people can come and gather and discuss,” she says. “That’s what’s so important about democracy.”
Her agora, originating from the ancient Greek marketplace, bombards viewers with a bonanza of Americana. It’s like the grand finale of a Fourth of July fireworks.
Horses graze in a wooden-fenced field. Grand Canyon rocks blaze in shades of red. Forests burst in autumn hues. And the American flag flutters in a breeze. All the while, stirring music rouses visitors to images of the beauty and diversity of America.
“I’ve been lucky enough to get out and see the world,” Vale says. “It’s almost like you have go out and see everything to be able to appreciate what you always had.”
