Interdisciplinary Evenings with Ethiopian artist Ezra Wube

International Fri 11-02-2011

Interdisciplinary Evenings with Ethiopian artist Ezra Wube
By a Correspondent

On Friday February 18th & Saturday February 19th, at 6.30pm ATELIER presents:

A selection of short films that explore Ezra's world view, underscoring recurring motifs and offering a thematic view of his work. The presentation includes seminal pieces, a number of which have seldom, if ever, been seen in Ethiopia, and premieres the new painting/video piece Hisab.

^{Amora 3 by Ezra Wube | Oil on canvas | 20'x30' | 2010}

The presentation is structured around the notion of FLUX & FRAGMENTATION which is used to understand the artist's work as well as the context in which it will be screened.

Films:

Sweep Walk, 1'2", 2007
Hold De Door, 3'3"8, 2008
Head Stance, 2'29", 2007
When We All Met, 3'54"
B-Pop, 2'46", 2007
Amora, 2'40", 2009
Hisab, 7'49", 2011

Ezra Wube (b. 1980, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is regarded as one of the most promising and innovative Ethiopian artists of his generation. Ezra moved to the United States at the age of 18 and received his BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston,and an MA and MFA from Hunter College, New York, NY.

Azene by Ezra Wube In works encompassing video, installations, drawing, painting and performance, Ezra engages mundane situations and interpersonal communication, only to subvert them through paradoxical visual manipulation.

"I want to be here and present even though, as the result of being part of two worlds, my idea of home and identity is no longer singular. My art practice is performative and involves my body as a primal means of communication, affirming I am here. As an immigrant, because of the loss of constancy, it is a necessity to make a new imaginative relationship with the world I live in to make the unfamiliar familiar.

While collaging my past with present experiences, I attempt to make a third entity that is in both the past and the present. My effort to make a narrative is left ambiguous, so that the line between what is real and what is imagined, what is sensical, and nonsensical becomes faint."

Selected exhibitions

"PVE: Performance Video Event", University of the Streets, New York, NY, 2011
"The Video Show", Raritan Valley Community College, NJ, 2011
"African Rhythms / American Echoes", BAM, Brooklyn, New York, 2010
“Freeze Frame”, on tour Miami, Florida, and the Bina Film Festival in New York, 2009
“MA selects MFA”, Hunter College, New York, 2009
“The Happening: Kinetics as Art Object”, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, 2009
“Abyssinia to Harlem and Back”, Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery, New York, 2008
“Here to There”, South Seattle Community College, Seattle, Washington, 2008
“Reflections in Exile: 5 African Artists", South Shore Art Center, Cohasett, 2008
“Ethiopian Millennium”, Blackburn Gallery, Howard University, Washington, DC, 2007
“Story Telling”, United Nations, New York in 2006
“Annual Black Achievement Award”, Dreams of Freedom Museum, Boston, 2003

Related links

Ezra Wube Paintings

Ezra Wube And Time-Based Painting

Posted By: Maggie Otieno

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