Curated by Meskerem Assegued the exhibition at the Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa (November 13th to December 4,th 2015) also features work by US-based Ethiopian artist Abel Tilahun. (Courtesy photos)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Wednesday, November 11th, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — A video-art exhibition entitled “Curvature of Events” curated by Ethiopian anthropologist Meskerem Assegued, Founder & Director of Zoma Contemporary Art Center, opens this week at the Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa.
Meskerem initiated the video art exhibition based on pieces “she selected from the permanent collections at the Old Masters Gallery, the New Masters Gallery and the Sculpture Collection [in Dresden, Germany] dating from the mid-1500s to the early 1900s, but excluding the last 100 years from 1914 – 2014.” The works were initially exhibited last year at Germany’s Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden) — one of the oldest museums and cultural institutions in the world.
Curvature of Events is brought to Addis Ababa by the Goethe-Institut Addis Ababa in collaboration with the Ethiopian National Museum and Zoma Contemporary Art Center.
The featured video artists include Abel Tilahun (Ethiopian) who teaches at American University in Washington D.C., as well as Gunter Deller (German) and Barbara Lubich (Italian). The press release noted: “A dance video choreographed by Christian Canciani from Palucca Hochschule Fuer Tanz Dresden for the opening will be incorporated as part of the exhibition.”
“The exhibition is a window into the way Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic artists depicted their society and how artists of our time interpret that perception relating it to the present,” the press release says.
Meskerem, who is also behind the recent successful exhibit at James Cohan Gallery in New York by Ethiopian artist Elias Sime, has worked with several prestigious art festivals including Venice Biennale (2007), Dak-Art Biennale (2004), as well as organizations in the United States such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Santa Monica Museum of Art.
“Meskerem Assegued’s curatorial career goes back over twenty years,” adds the press release. “During the last sixteen years she has curated several exhibitions in Europe, Africa and North America. She is interested in contemporary artistic expressions that deal with historical and socio-cultural contexts. She believes all social issues are relevant everywhere regardless of socio-political, socio-economic and geographical differences.”
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If You Go:
Video Art Exhibition at the Ethiopian National Museum
CURVATURE of EVENTS
BAROQUE. ROMANTICISM. VIDEO
Curator: Meskerem Assegued
Nov. 13 Dec. 4, 2015
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