The temporary exhibition presents a selection of about four hundred traditional African currencies and emblems of power. Made of metal, they were used between the 19th and early 20th century in West and Central Africa, mostly in Cameroon, Chad, Republic of Congo (or Congo), Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia, Tanzania.

Traditional money and emblems of power first came to Europe in the 19th century in the context of the first explorations and colonisation of the African continent’s hinterland, which were supported by ethnographic research aimed at documenting knowledge of ‘other’ peoples, also through the collection of material culture objects.

Starting in the third quarter of the 20th century, following the acculturation phenomena that historicised many local traditions, these works were gradually alienated from their homelands. Thanks to their strikingly ‘modern’ appearance, in the West they attracted the attention of a heterogeneous collectorism that selected them according to their specific interests: from ethnic art to numismatics, via modern art and interior design.

The works presented in the exhibition illustrate the function and the journey of these objects and the surprising resemantisation they have undergone over time in the passage from Africa to Europe, positioning themselves between art and culture, past and present, prestige of a culture of origin that creates and prestige of a culture of destination that interprets and renews.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the musealisation of two important collections, assembled by Giorgio Antonini and Pieter and Catherine Coray between the 1980s and the beginning of the 2000s, at a time when African metalwork was most available on the art market. The exhibition is completed with loans from the collections of Fabrizio Rossini.