Modernist Art in Ethiopia

Modernist Art in Ethiopia
Author: Elizabeth W. Giorgis
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2019-02-11
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0821446533

If modernism initially came to Africa through colonial contact, what does Ethiopia’s inimitable historical condition—its independence save for five years under Italian occupation—mean for its own modernist tradition? In Modernist Art in Ethiopia—the first book-length study of the topic—Elizabeth W. Giorgis recognizes that her home country’s supposed singularity, particularly as it pertains to its history from 1900 to the present, cannot be conceived outside the broader colonial legacy. She uses the evolution of modernist art in Ethiopia to open up the intellectual, cultural, and political histories of it in a pan-African context. Giorgis explores the varied precedents of the country’s political and intellectual history to understand the ways in which the import and range of visual narratives were mediated across different moments, and to reveal the conditions that account for the extraordinary dynamism of the visual arts in Ethiopia. In locating its arguments at the intersection of visual culture and literary and performance studies, Modernist Art in Ethiopia details how innovations in visual art intersected with shifts in philosophical and ideological narratives of modernity. The result is profoundly innovative work—a bold intellectual, cultural, and political history of Ethiopia, with art as its centerpiece.

Elias Sime

Elias Sime
Author: Tracy L. Adler
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-03-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 3791358812

A first-ever monograph featuring the work of the Ethiopian artist Elias Sime, who brilliantly explores the impact of life in a post-consumerist world. Sime's brightly-colored sculptural tableaus feature found objects including thread, buttons, electrical wires, and computer detritus. This book highlights the artist's work from the last decade, much of which comprises the series entitled "Tightrope." Repurposing salvaged electronic components, such as circuits and keyboards, Sime incorporates the refuse that are the byproducts of technological advancement, and points to the urgency of sustainability. The resulting abstractions reference landscape and the figure as well as traditional Ethiopian textiles. "Tightrope" refers to the precarious balance between the progress technology has made possible and its detrimental impact on the environment. Published with the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art

Marxist Modern

Marxist Modern
Author: Donald Lewis Donham
Publisher: James Currey
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1999
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780852552698

This is a cultural history of the Ethiopian revolution that highlights the role of modernist Marxist ideas as they interacted with local, mostly rural, traditions.

The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art

The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art
Author: Manuel Joo Ramos
Publisher: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2004
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780754650379

In the rural plateaux of northern Ethiopia, one can still find scattered ruins of monumental buildings that are evidently alien to the country's ancient architectural tradition. This little-known and rarely studied architectural heritage is a silent witness to a fascinating if equivocal cultural encounter that took place in the 16th-17th centuries between Catholic Europeans and Orthodox Ethiopians. The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art presents a selection of papers derived from the 5th Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art, which for the first time systematically approached this heritage. Bringing together work by key researchers in the field, these studies open up a particularly rich period in the history of Ethiopia and cast new light on the complexities of cultural and religious (mis)encounters between Africa and Europe.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia
Author:
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2022-12-20
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1647227356

A monolithic collection of images captured by photographer Joey L. over the course of thirteen years with the support of his dedicated Ethiopian crew. "Joey L.’s Ethiopia book is a true love letter to my home country of Ethiopia, the land of milk and honey. His imagery does a beautiful job of capturing the diversity of the country and culture. The astonishing landscapes, beautiful people, and vibrant culture. It can all be found all here in this book. Looking at the images, I can't wait to go back to my motherland." - Marcus Samuelsson, Acclaimed chef, Author, and Restaurateur Ethiopia: A Photographic Tribute to East Africa's Diverse Cultures & Traditions is a visual ode to every region of the country and a celebration of all the diverse peoples found within. This highly anticipated volume includes both the iconic landmarks and landscapes found exclusively within Ethiopia, and regions that are lesser known to tourists and travellers. From the cosmopolitan hub of Addis Ababa famous for its Ethiopian Jazz, to the hinterlands of the Gambela region, where the Majang people climb trees over 150 feet tall to collect wild honey. From the north’s Orthodox Tewahedo historic sites, to the Islamic influence spread across the east within Afar and Somali communities, to the Animist spiritualities of the southern nations. The book is a first of its kind—underscoring what makes each region of Ethiopia unique, yet uniting all in one cohesive visual style. Every walk of life is dignified in their own unique way. The flow of the collection is guided by immersive environmental images, landscapes, and classic still life. Interspersed into the narrative are thoughtful portraits, all photographed within the same “nomadic studio tent” the team built and took across the country. The portraits have a familiarity that only a decade of commitment to a single project can produce. The subjects are introduced by name. One spread of the book shows the same girl, Gure, photographed nearly ten years apart. On the book cover is a rare portrait of Fentale and Woday, two Kereyu men who travel to the market once a week to trade camels and try to meet potential wives with their carefully crafted hairstyles. There is Captain Amsale, a charismatic pilot of Ethiopian Airlines—the first to fly internationally with an all-female flight crew. Deeper within the book, we meet Mories, one of the last remaining subsistence crocodile hunters of the Dassanach, whose nomadic existence is kept alive by following the legends of their ancestors. These seemingly disconnected cultural threads are woven together masterfully in order to truly see Ethiopia—which itself is the sum of all the diverse lands and the proud people who inhabit it. 300+ COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS: Hundreds of intimate fine art photographs capture the diverse people and landscapes of Ethiopia and East Africa. STUNNING LANDSCAPES: Joey captures distinct—and often overlooked—natural features of Ethiopia's interior, from its vast deserts, sprawling mountain ranges, and dense forests. VIBRANT CITIES: Scenes from cities like Addis Ababa reveal a vibrant energy, alight with jazz clubs, musicians, youth culture, and so much more. DIVERSE CULTURES: Visually explore the Orthodox Tewahedo historic sites, see the Islamic influence on the Afar and Somali communities, and experience the Animist spiritualities of the southern nations.

Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia

Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia
Author: Gérard Prunier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 548
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 1849042616

"Seeks to dispel the myths and clichés surrounding contemporary perceptions of Ethiopia by providing a rare overview of the country's recent history, politics and culture. Explores the unique features of this often misrepresented country as it strives to make itself heard in the modern world"-- Publisher description.

Modernism on the Nile

Modernism on the Nile
Author: Alex Dika Seggerman
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2019-08-13
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1469653052

Analyzing the modernist art movement that arose in Cairo and Alexandria from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s, Alex Dika Seggerman reveals how the visual arts were part of a multifaceted transnational modernism. While the work of diverse, major Egyptian artists during this era may have appeared to be secular, she argues, it reflected the subtle but essential inflection of Islam, as a faith, history, and lived experience, in the overarching development of Middle Eastern modernity. Challenging typical views of modernism in art history as solely Euro-American, and expanding the conventional periodization of Islamic art history, Seggerman theorizes a "constellational modernism" for the emerging field of global modernism. Rather than seeing modernism in a generalized, hyperconnected network, she finds that art and artists circulated in distinct constellations that encompassed finite local and transnational relations. Such constellations, which could engage visual systems both along and beyond the Nile, from Los Angeles to Delhi, were materialized in visual culture that ranged from oil paintings and sculpture to photography and prints. Based on extensive research in Egypt, Europe, and the United States, this richly illustrated book poses a compelling argument for the importance of Muslim networks to global modernism.

Ethnic Modernism

Ethnic Modernism
Author: Werner Sollors
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674030916

Werner Sollors's monograph looks into how African American, European immigrant and other minority writers gave the United States its increasingly multicultural self-awareness, focusing on their use of the strategies opened up by modernism.

The Cambridge Companion to Modernism

The Cambridge Companion to Modernism
Author: Michael Levenson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 1999-02-11
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780521498661

In The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, ten eminent scholars from Britain and the United States offer timely new appraisals of the revolutionary cultural transformations of the first decades of the twentieth century. Chapters on the major literary genres, intellectual, political and institutional contexts, film and the visual arts, provide both close analyses of individual works and a broader set of interpretive narratives. A chronology and guide to further reading supply valuable orientation for the study of Modernism. Readers will be able to use the book at once as a standard work of reference and as a stimulating source of compelling new readings of works by writers and artists from Joyce and Woolf to Stein, Picasso, Chaplin, H. D. and Freud, and many others. Students will find much-needed help with the difficulties of approaching Modernism, while the essays' original contributions will send scholars back to this volume for stimulating re-evaluation.