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Asni Gallery

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Asni Gallery

Phone:
+251 91 120 6697

Address:
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Attraction Location

Asni Gallery Videos

EDSA(Ethio - Danish Space Agency)

Installation made with Leikun Nahusenay and TS Hawk At Asni Gallery, Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Painting: Yohannes Gedamu 1947-2010

In 2001, while I was vacationing in Addis, I happen to watch an Ethiopian TV interview of Yohannes. The journalist asked him to explain his work. Yohannes told the journalist that everybody is entitled to figure out what it is and see and understand it in his or her own way. Few days later I was able to meet him at his Addis Ababa residence. There were a number of artists at his residence including Zerihun Yetmgeta, Bekele Mekonnen, Geta Mekonnen, Behailu Bezabih and Konjit Seyoum, Asni Gallery owner. Several artists from the younger generation as well hang around at his residence. At that point, I asked Yohannes the same question the journalist asked him. Yohannes gave me the same answer he gave for the journalist. The veteran artist who had taken the path to absolute did not want to reduce his work to few words for a television audience or even for his aficionado.

Yohannes Gedamu who studied under Gebre Kristos Desta, the pioneer of Ethiopian abstract art had shared the experience and beliefs of the pioneers of Ethiopian Modernism. From the Ethiopian art historical perspective, the art and artistic philosophy of Yohannes Gedamu falls right in the center of the Ethiopian modernism of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is probably the only artist of his generation who remained committed to abstract and abstract expressionism. He was the consummate abstract painter and his contribution and legacy will be felt by the young generation artists.
Esseye G Medhin

we are still here salima punjani.m4v

In the current contemporary art environment in Addis Ababa, there has been a strong focus on the city's deconstruction and construction, demolition and rebuilding, what is lost or what no longer exists. I feel there is a gap in documenting what is still here, while it is still here.

We are Still Here started with the intention of questioning what modernization and gentrification do to social connections between people. I chose to focus on Ginfle in Arrat Kilo, an area set for destruction in the near future, but also an area to which I have a strong attachment to, my current neighborhood.

The process was full of challenges, including a strong questioning of my belonging and role as a foreigner in documenting the lives of others. Although those portrayed in these photographs are people who I consider my neighbors, what is the role of an outsider in interpreting the lives of others for presentation and viewing?

My intention is to show you how things are the way they are now before they change. The audio and photographic slideshow combines excerpts from interviews around Ginfle with different merchants and residents as well as sounds heard while walking in the area. The music in the background is inspired by traditional Tizita chords, symbolizing the feeling of nostalgia present in the neighborhood, nostalgia for a present which will soon be the past.

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