Luigi Christopher Veggetti Kan Ku – Art Exhibition

From September 8 to October 14,  the Fortino in Forte dei Marmi hosts work by the Zairean artist Luigi Christopher Veggetti Kanku.
This artist’s subjects include the town’s seascape, promenades, boats and marina, which he potrays like no-one before him. Veggetti Kanku describes Forte dei Marmi as “striking and inspirational” and this town was his chosen starting point of a tour of various Italian towns. His vision of the town’s symbolic locations is original, dreamy, never banal, intimate and precious: the beach, promenade, boats and sea with indistinct, anonymous figures. Some thirty canvases will be on show at the Fortino from 8 September to 14 October (Open every day from 10 – 12.30 am / 3 – 6.30 pm – admission free).

“Forte dei Marmi – as the artist explained at his first one-man exhibition at the town – is the place that inspired me to better know the world of the marina – something I had always snubbed before having been used to seeing it treated in a banal and obvious way. This town gave rise to my quest in finding a different interpretational and representational viewpoint of the sea not only on a visual but above all an intimate level”.

Forte dei Marmi is also the first of a collection of volumes dedicated to Italian towns published by Allemandi, with whom Veggett Kanku is currently collaborating.

The exhibition is promoted by the Forte dei Marmi Town Council and Villa Bertelli Foundation and sponsored by the Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca e Bassilichi Foundation and forms part of the Forte 012 – Arte Contemporanea programme (Artistic Director – Enrico Mattei). The inauguration is on Saturday 8 September, at 6pm, attended by the Town Mayor Umberto Buratti and the artist.

Biographical notes

Luigi Christopher Veggetti Kanku was born in Kinshasa, Zaire on 27/12/1979. He currently lives and works in Milan. He obtained a diploma in graphic advertising from I.T.C.S GADDA in Paderno Dugnano (MI), where he also held his first exhibition in 1999.

In the following three years he refined his painting technique at the studio of Uboldo (VA), under the direction of Vanni Saltarelli. His first important collaborations with galleries began in 2002. From 2003 to 2010 he took part in various one-man and group exhibitions, receiving both national and international recognition. His public and critical acclaim was such as to draw the attention of Mondadori. In September 2010 his first nationally distributed catalogue was published by Giorgio Mondadori: “30 Tele” curated by Laura Luppi. 2012 saw the beginning of an important project with Allemandi with the publication of a series dedicated to the towns of Italy portrayed by the artist. The first volume of the collection will be distributed in the autumn of the same year.