Luca Vitone creates Chanukkiah for Casale Monferrato Jewish community

Artist Luca Vitone has created a Chanukkiah titled "Ottava in nona" for the Jewish community of Casale Monferrato as part of the "Cara Casale" project. The work consists of a toy piano with eight colored candles on the white keys and a ninth candle (Shammash) on the piano body. Vitone, who is not religious, accepted the commission as a challenge to conceive a sacred object and due to his long-standing attraction to Judaism. His connection to Casale Monferrato began in 2013 with a project on Eternit, the asbestos manufacturer, and deepened during a 2015 residency for a monument in Parco Eternot, where he met the Carmi family and the Synagogue. The exhibition also includes other works: "Non siamo mai soli" (1994), a drawing from memory of an apartment alongside a 19th-century German Gothic Bible inherited from a friend's grandmother; and "Le cinque pietre di Davide" (2016), a sculpture referencing David and Goliath and Noah's Ark, previously shown at the Synagogue of Ostia Antica during the Biennale della Memoria. A second path presents a video and photographic works related to the 2013 Eternit project, addressing the asbestos tragedy in Casale Monferrato. Vitone (Genoa, 1964) began his artistic practice in the 1980s, known for a multidisciplinary approach.