The shared concept of the CARPEL Curated Artist Series, which will unfold throughout the year, is “sofra” a table for sharing, a space for coming together, where shared experiences, emotions, and ideas take shape. The series explores the rituals of celebration and the creation of cherished memories across different cultures, from past to present, by tracing their origins and bringing these diverse traditions together.
Opening its doors to art and hosting the series at its new location, SMELT TORINO transforms, in parallel with its “Curated Food Culture” approach, from a restaurant where artworks are simply exhibited into an interactive space where art, gastronomy, music, conversation, and sharing intersect.
Bringing together different people around the same table, where stories are shared and connections are formed, the series traces the cultural memory of the table from the banquets and feasts of antiquity to contemporary art practices today. As the first artist in the series, Meltem Şahin interprets the concept of “sofra” through her work “The Kline of Kybele and Dionysos,” drawing on her multidisciplinary practice, which encompasses mythological narratives and a range of techniques.
Exploring the meanings and associations carried by the concepts of sofra and food among humanity’s oldest rituals and some of the most symbolic narratives in art history through mythology and different cultures, Şahin’s work created for the CARPEL Curated Artist Series brings together Dionysos, the Greek god of wine and feasting, and Kybele, the Anatolian goddess of nature and fertility. The work also draws on the convivium, the banquets held in Ancient Rome as spaces for social and intellectual gathering, and the reclining figures associated with the triclinium, the three-couch room where these feasts took place.
In her description of the work, Meltem Şahin summarizes the ideas subtly woven into the piece as follows:
"Two deities recline at an eternal feast, where day meets night.
Kybele comes crowned in wheat. The lion walks in her feet, the pomegranate ripens in her belly, and a small sun burns on the skin of her tympanon, beating time for the harvest. She offers bread.
Dionysos comes crowned in horns and wears the moon. Ivy climbs his arms in heart shaped leaves, grapes hang at his ears, the leopard's spots run down his legs, and a serpent winds across his chest. From his kantharos he offers wine.
Bread and wine. Sun and moon. Lion and leopard. Grain and grape. Two gods at the oldest feast there is.”
The installation will be on view at SMELT Torino through December 27, 2026.
