Italian singer Edoardo Bennato presents paintings at Expo

22 settembre 2015

2 min di lettura

(AGI) - Rho (Milan), Sept. 22 -The famous Italiansinger-songwriter Edoardo Bennato, who is also a painter, hasmade a series of paintings of African street vendors. In Italy,these vendors are known as "vucumpra'", or "want to buy", inNeapolitan dialect. A community on the move, they are sofamiliar when they arrive on the beaches carrying items tosell, and yet so foreign when they land on Italian shores. Theexhibition was presented today at the Universal Exposition inMilan in the pavilion of Eataly, the largest Italianmarketplace in the world. The event is the result of acollaboration between Bennato and Eataly owner Oscar Farinetti.Earlier, the two organised the concert 'Bennato and Farmers',in which farmers and Bennato sang. The paintings portrayimmigrant street sellers carrying their loads of merchandise."We are talking about current problems and my intent was toprovoke and trigger a discussion," said the singer-songwriter."I wanted to use a hyper-realistic language, and by painting Iwanted to get a better picture of the problem. It's not thefirst time I have addressed the issue: I also did 10 years ago,but I wanted to tell about this migrating community at a timewhen an important change is happening." Farinetti added,"We are not prepared to deal with the large flows of migrationwe're seeing now and we must take notice. Now we are full ofdoubt, but we will solve it because we have to. However, whilewaiting for new regulations, each of us must know what ishappening. We have welcomed six migrants on our farm, and theyare learning how to farm in our area. These paintings arebeautiful because they deal with a crazy topic such asimmigration in the same style as Bennato's songs: light, yetpowerful, and always expressing a deep respect." VittorioSgarbi, Italian art critic, cultural commentator and televisionpersonality, also spoke at the presentation of the paintings.He praised the works, especially the use of colour. He addedthat he appreciated the African hawkers, because "they sellthings that are worth little for little money." (AGI) .