The Smoking Table
Bekele Mekonnen
2025
Since the 1990s, Bekele Mekonnen has been one of the country’s first (and one of the few) conceptual artists, leaving behind techniques and figurative languages - dominant in Ethiopian art — to work with ideas addressing politics, society and everyday life. The Smoking Table builds a space for historical and cultural negotiation in the specific context of Italy: a platform around which to question coloniality that is still part of everyday culture in Italy today. Conceived within the frame of the exhibition Africa. Le collezioni dimenticate, which took place at Musei Reali, Turin, in 2023, Bekele Mekonnen conceived this work as a result of a residence at Musei Reali, where he studied the Savoy collections from Eastern Africa and conceived this site-specific artwork. The Berlin Conference table is the core of this work, which has been acquired by Musei Reali. It demands us to observe the mindset that led European nations to think they could partition and settle in Africa, in the late 19th century. It also recalls how even today this extractive partitioning underpins the global economy led by Western governments and multinational corporations.
The installation involves newspapers produced in Italy and Ethiopia during the fascist occupation of the country (1936-1941) and drawings of the artist. Furthermore in recalls images of missionaries, soldiers, engineers and travellers (who, as in other african countries, paved the path on which European colonial occupation was later consolidated): they embody the parallel research devices (collecting, archiving, studying, interpreting, converting) that are still in place today.
The smoking table points out the colonial roots of the Eurocentric mindset which conceived anthropological and natural history museums; the exotization and racialization of the black bodies; the hegemonic narrations of civilising missions; the superiority of Europe. Without facing the,, the ashes of the empire will keep on burning, says Bekele with this work.
The Smoking Table
Bekele Mekonnen
Curated by: Lucrezia Cippitelli
Research residency and installation installation realised and produced as part of the exhibition: Africa. Le collezioni dimenticate
Conceived and produced by: Musei Reali, Direzione Regionale Musei Piemonte, Museo di Antropologia ed Etnografia dell’Università di Torino
In collaboration with: Museo delle Civiltà di Roma (LOGO)
Residence, exhibition and publication supported by: PAC2022-2023 - Piano per l’Arte Contemporanea, promosso dalla Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero della Cultura
Publication in: English & Italian
Authors: Lucrezia Cippitelli, Edoardo Giustetto, Bekele Mekonnen, Enrica Pagella
Graphic design: Brice Delarue
Paper: Arena Natural Rough
Printed by: Arti Grafiche Larovere, Milan
Print run: 250
Published by: Kunstverein Publishing Milano
ISBN: 978-88-32125-17-7
