Italy–Africa: A Contradictory Inventory of Modernity

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Notes

I would like to thank Luciano and Laura Fiume together with Zeuditu Negash for all their support and for sharing with me their precious memories and archive of Salvatore Fiume.

Color versions of one or more of the figures in this article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/rcin.

1 Présence Africaine: A forum, a movement, a network, curated by Sarah Frioux-Salgas, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, November 10, 2009–January 31, 2010.

2 The Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists took place at the Istituto Italiano per l'Africa (the Italian Institute for Africa) in Rome, which was founded as a colonial institute in 1906. Today it is known as Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente ISIAO (Italian Institute for African and Oriental Studies). It holds an important photographic archive, specialist library, and a collection of colonial and African art but is currently under threat of being liquidated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, despite resounding opposition (http://www.asaiafrica.org/contatti/liquidazione-isiao/).

3 For the purpose of clarity, I include here the original Italian text: “L'inizio dell'elaborazione critica è la coscienza di quello che è realmente, cioè un “conosci te stesso” come prodotto del process storico finora svoltosi che ha lasciato in te stesso un'infinità di tracce accolte senza beneficio d'inventario. Occorre fare inizialmente un tale inventario.” (Gramsci, 1975, Vol II, Quaderni 6 (VIII) – II (XVIII), p. 1376).

4 A testament to pan-African opposition against the Italian war in Ethiopia (1935–1936) on both sides of the Atlantic is the painting by the Harlem Renaissance artist Loïs Mailou Jones titled The Ascent of Ethiopia, 1932, and Leopold Senghor's poem À l'appel del la race de Saba, published in 1936 in reaction against the Italian military occupation of Addis Ababa.

5 Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell'Istituto italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (Africa: Quarterly journal for the study and documentation of the Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient) published between 1946 and 2009, began as Africa, Notiziario dell'Associazione fra le imprese italiane (Africa: News from the Association of Italian businesses) in 1946; then changed to Affrica: rivista mensile di interessi coloniali (Affrica: monthly journal about colonial interests) in 1947, followed by Affrica: rivista mensile di interessi affricani (Africa: Monthly journal of African interests) the following year; to its current name, which dates back to 1957 (http://www.jstor.org/journal/africa2).

6 Ethiopian opposition to Italian colonialism resulted in the Ethiopian victories at the battles of Dogali (1887), Amba Alagi (1895), and Adwa (1896) followed by negotiations at the Treaty of Wuchale between King Menelik II and Italy in 1889 and subsequent disputes over the degree of autonomy exercised by Ethiopia. From a postcolonial perspective, Ethiopia represents a direct challenge to the colonizer–colonized paradigm.

7 Italy's imperial ambitions in Africa began shortly after Italian unification in the 1860s when it officially acquired Assab in current Eritrea in 1882 from the privately owned Italian Shipping Company Società Rubattino.

8 Ethiopian requests for the return of the Aksum Obelisk were consistently denied despite Italy signing a United Nations restitution pledge in 1947. The obelisk was finally returned to Ethiopia in 2005.

9 For a sociohistorical study of Ethiopia during this period, see Zewde (2014).

10 Arturo Mezzedimi, Hailé Selassié: A Testimony for Reappraisal, 1992 (http://www.arturomezzedimi.it/en/pubblicazione_pdf.pdf).

11 Wifredo Lam was a featured artist at the 36th Venice Biennale in 1972.

12 Salvatore Fiume's work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, the Puškin Museum of Moscow, the Museum of Modern Art of Milan, and the Vatican Museum. Fiume's artistic legacy is kept alive through the Salvatore Fiume Foundation run by his son Luciano and daughter Laura Fiume.

13 The Musée Dynamique was opened by Léopold Sédar Senghor in Dakar in 1966 as part of the First World Festival of Black Arts.

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Helena Cantone

Helena Cantone ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London researching the work of Salvatore Fiume (1915–1997) and the artistic exchanges between Italy and Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. She graduated in History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS in 1998 and went on to obtain an MA in Education at Goldsmiths University and to cofound an arts education charity in London working with young people. Helena is editor of H-AfrArts, a humanities and social sciences online network dedicated to the expressive arts of Africa and the Diaspora.