Continuity and change: three generations of Ethiopian artists

Samuel P. Harn Museum ,of Art University of Florida January 23-April 29, 2007

Diggs Gallery

May 25--December 8,

MAJOR EXHIBITION SUPPORT IS PROVIDED BY NORTHERN TRUST BANK WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM THE HARN MUSEUM'S MARGARET J. EARLY PROGRAM ENDOWMENT, HARN PROGRAM ENDOWMENT, AND 150TH ANNIVERSARY CULTURAL PLAZA ENDOWMENT, AND THE STATE OF FLORIDA DIVISION OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS. MAJOR SUPPORT FOR THE EXHIBITION CATALOGUE COMES FROM DR. MADELYN LOCHKHART, THE C. FREDERICK AND AASE B. THOMPSON FOUNDATION JOHN EARLY PUBLICATION ENDOWMENT AND THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA OFFICE OF GRADUATES RESEARCH, WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM INDIVIDUAL DONORS.

THE FULLY ILLUSTRATED EXHIBITION CATALOGUE INCLUDES ESSAYS BY ACHAMYELEH DEBELA, HERAN SEREKE-BRHAN AND SHIFERAW BEKELE, GETA MEKONNEN, REBECCA MARTIN NAGY, AND LEAN NIEDERSTADT AND CATALOGUE ENTRIES BY REBECCA MARTIN NAGY WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF JAIME BAIRD AND NICHOLAS FRECH, AND AN EXTENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Continuity and Change: Three Generations of Ethiopian Artists" tells the story of modern and contemporary art in Ethiopia from the 1940s to the present and explores the role of Emperor Haile Selassie's support of artists as part of a purposeful strategy for the modernization of Ethiopia. The exhibition also examines the influence of the School of Fine Arts in Addis Ababa, one of Africa's leading art academies. In particular, "Continuity and Change" focuses on those artists who were and are active in Addis Ababa within the context of the political and social upheavals of twentiethcentury Ethiopia. Artists active in Addis Ababa are still largely unknown outside Ethiopia and a narrow circle of international curators and collectors. "Continuity and Change" introduces a number of these artists to US audiences for the first time. Of the twenty-three artists in the exhibition, twenty are still living and active as artists. The exhibition is organized by Harn Museum of Art Director Rebecca Martin Nagy and North Carolina Central University Professor Achamyeleh Debela.

THE EXHIBITION

In recent decades museum audiences in the United States have had several opportunities to learn about the rich artistic heritage of Ethiopia, particularly the predominantly Christian traditions of the Ethiopian highlands. Notably, the exhibition "African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia," which traveled to a number of venues from 1993 to 1996, offered a window into the long and colorful history of the art of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where painting has been the dominant medium of artistic expression for more than six hundred years. In addition to organizing "African Zion" with the nonprofit group Intercultura, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has assembled, handsomely installed, and duly published an impressive permanent collection of Ethiopian Christian art, offering a wider public the opportunity to experience and learn about these treasures. In 1999 the exhibition "Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity" organized by Michigan State University Museum of Art, presented a broader spectrum of Ethiopian art, from baskets and woodwork to contemporary painting. The exhibition "Painting Ethiopia: The Life and Work of Qes Adamu Tesfaw" featuring the paintings of a contemporary traditional artist of both religious and secular works, opened at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and is currently traveling to museums in the United States. "Ethiopian Passages: Contemporary Art from the Diaspora" at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution in 2003 highlighted the work of ten Ethiopian artists who live and work in the United States and France. For the exhibition "Continuity and Change: Three Generations of Ethiopian Artists," my co-curator Achamyeleh Debela and I have chosen to focus on artists who were and are active in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's cosmopolitan capital city, and to consider their careers and work in the context of seven decades of political and social change. (1)

The first generation of artists included in the exhibition benefited from the patronage of Emperor Haile Selassie. He supported the education of artists in foreign academies but also played a significant role in the establishment of the Addis Ababa Fine Arts School in 1957/58, where many of the same artists eventually were employed as faculty. (2) A few of these teachers left Ethiopia in the early years of the Derg (1974-1991), the repressive Marxist regime of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, as did some of their students. (3) Other members of the second generation of contemporary artists in Addis Ababa studied in Eastern Bloc countries and returned to Ethiopia to teach or pursue their careers during the Derg years. The youngest artists in the exhibition, the third generation shaped by the Addis Ababa Fine Arts School, studied and launched their careers during the sixteen years of relative freedom and creative energy since the overthrow of Mengistu's government in 1991. They are central players in the vibrant and expanding art scene that characterizes Addis Ababa in the first decade of the twenty-first century.