Represented by Addis Fine Artists Girma Berta, Leikun Nahusenay, and Abiy Solomon will display their work from May 2-8 at the 19th edition of Salon Zurcher, New York.
Girma Berta is an award-winning young artist whose works fuses street photography with fine art. Born in 1990, Girma is a self-taught photographer. In his Moving Shadows series, solitary figures are juxtaposed against vibrant backgrounds, creating truly unique artworks which exemplify the contrasting colors and personalities on the street of his hometown.
Leikun Nahusenay’s multidiscipline practice is based in Addis Ababa, where he works from the Nas Gedame studio creating exquisite artworks. Abiy Solomon’s photography series, Primordial Modernity: The Raw Spirit of Lalibela, offers a meditation on spirituality and the profound interiority of faith, as he photographs monks in Lalibela exiting and entering the hushed, dark spaces within the ancient rock-hewn churches. Addis Fine is a gallery space based in Addis Ababa showcasing a diverse set of Modern and contemporary art from the region.
Photo exhibition @ Dinq Gallery
A photo exhibition entitled “Urbamorphosis- The changing Faces of Addis Ababa is scheduled to showcase on May 11-21 at Dinq Gallery. This exhibition consists of the works of Nebila Abdulmelik and John Kaninda. Professor Teshome Gabriel wrote, “If we understand the present as constantly existing, the future in the present and the past also is in the present.” Not only do the images in Urbamorphosis capture change, they reveal the persistence of the past and the whispers of the future in present-day Addis Ababa.
In this exhibit, the city speaks in a world where the onslaught and persistence of change have undermined our capacity at an individual and collective remembering. In times of rapid change, photography becomes an urgent undertaking and the photographer takes on the role od a historian archiving what will soon be lost as well as a witness, testifying to what is becoming. The city, unrelenting in its change, continues to assert increasingly that it belongs to no one.
Ethio-Swedish artist Daniel Lemma performed in Addis
Ethio-Swedish artist Daniel Lemma performed on April 29 at the Swedish Embassy. Born in 1972 in Ethiopia Daniel is a Swedish based musician/ singer- songwriter. His music is firmly connected to an American tradition of roots music, with visible ties to early blues and gospel. He has referred to singers such as Lead Belly and Pops Staples as being very influential to him but also artists such as chuck Berry, James Brown and Bob Dylan. In the mid-nineties, Lemma was a part of the group Mo Blues. He later moved to New York, where he recorded an album (for Palls Records) that was never released due to a legal dispute. After returning to Sweden in 2000, Daniel recorded the soundtrack to Josef Fares movie Jalla Jalla (which in turn rendered Daniel a Grammys nomination for best song, the romantic “If I used to Love you’). Daniel has released three albums for Warner Music: Morning Train (2001), Meeting at the Building (2003) and Dreamers and Fools (2005).
Facing the Climate @ Alliance Ethio-Françiase
An exhibition that looks the climate from new angles entitled “Facing the Climate” is displaying this week at the Alliance Ethio-Française. In conjunction with the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009, a group of 25 Nordic newspaper cartoonists provided some amusing and alarming reflections on climate change. To illustrate Sweden’s active involvement in this area, the Swedish institute has developed the digital climate exhibition Facing the Climate in collaboration with Magnus Bard, Helena Lindholm and Riber Hansson. The five pens commenting on the global climate dilemma in this display belong to Magnus Bard, Riber Hansson, Hellena Lindhomlm, Love Antell and Karin Sunvission. Ordinarily, their trenchant cartoons about current topics appear in both the national and the international daily press and often cause a stir. Facing the climate is part of a concerted drive by the Swedish Institute to promote sustainable development.
Facing the climate attracted more than 37,000 visitors during autumn 2010 when it was shown in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Malaysia, Latvia, and Syria.