On November 2, 2024, on the occasion of Artissima 31st edition, Tosetti Value – The Family office has promoted the talk “Abother day of life. Stories of journeys, nations, borders, and words.”
Marcella Beccaria (Vice-Director at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli TO) in dialogue with Kiluanji Kia Henda (Artist) and Lorenzo Vitturi (Artista).
Some people embark on a journey in search of something, while others are compelled to leave. There’s a time to go, a time to stay, and a moment when neither is possible. The talk Another Day of Life begins with an artwork and a book. The artwork is “75” by Kiluanji Kia Henda, winner of the 2023 Tosetti Value Photography Award, a series of 75 frames taken from the video “Concrete Affection” flanked by drawings in Chinese ink currently installed in the Celeste Lounge at the fair. The book is Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuściński, in which the renowned Polish journalist chronicles the last days of Portuguese colonial rule in Angola in 1975. Kapuściński vividly portrays the chaotic exodus of Portuguese citizens fleeing the country, juxtaposed with the arrival of thousands of Angolans forced to migrate from rural areas to the capital, Luanda. This movement, shifting metaphorically between fullness, emptiness, and renewal, sparks the core theme of Tosetti Value’s talk at Artissima 2024.
From a different lens, Lorenzo Vitturi delves into Africa and the theme of migration with two compelling projects. One is Money Must Be Made, created during his time in Lagos, Nigeria, a country with one of Africa’s highest population surpluses. In this vibrant metropolis, the relentless pace of global capitalism collides with a fierce internal dynamism, governed by a singular unwritten rule: “money must be made.” This project has already become part of the Tosetti Value corporate collection. Vitturi’s second project, Caminantes (2017-), draws on his own mixed heritage and a pivotal family story: a journey that led to his parents’ meeting. In the 1960s, Vitturi’s father crossed the Atlantic to open a Murano glass factory in Peru, where he met his mother. In Caminantes, travel becomes not only a means to reconnect with personal roots but also a conduit for exchanges that reveal diverse narratives. For both Vitturi and Henda, these different trajectories and stories – each journey a promise of an undefined future—become central to their art. In the end, every journey requires leaving something behind to create space for something new.
Photo courtesy: © Perottino-Piva-Peirone / Artissima
