Gebre kristos desta biography of abraham

“POSTER ART EXHIBITION”

This edition of Architects ወርሃዊ brought a special event that shifted its gear to explore
“GRAPHICS DESIGN and ARCHITECTURE”, a poster art exhibition on Modern and Iconic Original American & Swiss Posters with Guenet Abraham at Gebrekristos Desta Center. Guenet Abraham is a design professional and an associate professor in the visual arts department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She also organized and curated this exhibition of posters, which were collected over 30 years ranging from the 1940s to late 2022. Our session with her involved a guided tour of these poster designs, a presentation, and a Q&A session with the audience. Stay tuned as we unravel the experience!

If you’re unfamiliar with Guenet Abraham, you may have come across her remarkable contributions at the NALA (National Archive and Library Agency). In 2019, she initiated wall typography designs that breathed fresh vitality into previously overlooked corridors, infusing them with new life. Ironically, Guenet’s career did not start in graphic design. Even if she aimed to become a painter by studying at the Ale School of Fine Arts and Design, her family had to move to the USA and she ended up doing an undergraduate degree in business and computer programming. Surprisingly, she excelled in this field and showed unexpected talent. Programming back in the day used to involve lots of manual work which required attention to detail to maintain accuracy. This gave her a knack for looking at typography and details. Fast forward to the present, in concert with her philosophy as an educator, who teaches graphic design, Guenet maintains an active design book design practice.

Following her background presentation, it was now time for a guided tour of the many posters spread on the walls inside Gebrekristos Desta Center. As we toured the posters, Guenet illustrated the concept of graphic design. “The simplest form of communicatio

Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. For centuries, Ethiopian art has been dominated by Ethiopian Orthodox Church iconography. However, the status quo, through the course of time, changed and art—especially paintings—started to show alternative ways of describing visual experiences, writes Tibebeselassie Tigabu.

Golgotha is believed by many to be Gebrekristos Desta’s masterpiece. The painting depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in a very unique way. It is also deemed to be a thought provoking experimentation of Gebrekristos, who was also a poet and considered to be the father of modern Ethiopian art.

For the naked eye, Golgotha represents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in red. However, this painted is a radical shift from the depiction of the crucifixion as presented by Ethiopian Orthodox Iconography; which frequently illustrates inner peace and consolation.

Elizabeth Woldegiorgis (PhD), art historian and director of the Modern Art Museum Gebrekristos Desta Centre, in her 2010 dissertation presented to Cornell University in 2010 describes the painting as an art that shows the agony of Jesus Christ.

“He defies this concept in Golgotha as if to intentionally deconstruct the Orthodox mythology. In this painting, there is no edification, no peace, no contrition, and no hope; there is only despair as if the death of Christ imitates ordinary human death,” reads the dissertation.

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Gebrekristos is one of the leading figures in interdisciplinary experimentation in the arts and also in introducing and pushing the discussion on non-figurative art in Ethiopia.

According to the dissertation, during his twenties, which was in the 1950s, Gebrekristos’ early works revolved around reflecting on societal issues such as poor families, be

This is a list of notable Ethiopians, sorted by the fields for which they are best known. The list includes people born in and residing in Ethiopia, as well as people strongly associated with Ethiopia, and people of significant Ethiopian ancestry.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Academics and philosophers

Artists

Athletes

The second chapter of Modern Art Museum: Gebre Kristos Desta Center’s “Min Neber?” featured Robel Temesgen’s Adbar, a study of physical spaces that embody spirits and their interaction with believers and inhabitants of the area. The first chapter showed the talismanic works of Henok Melkamzer, paintings that explore the ancient and controversial craft of Telsem. Director of the Modern Art Museum Elizabeth WoldeGiorgis (PhD) curated this two-fold exhibition to highlight these esoteric beliefs and create a conversation about modern Ethiopian art.

Most towns and villages in Ethiopia are usually positioned around a notable hill, water source or large tree, which can be used as meeting point or town center. However, Ethiopians have a far deeper connection to such locations. Inhabitants believe these locations or adbars host spirits that offer protection. Robel’s upbringing in a sheltered Orthodox Christian household allowed him few colorful glimpses of these types of belief systems where certain locations are soaked in butter or scented with incense. The relationship, according to Robel, isn’t just between a person and the spirit but also between the person and the physical space. His work contemplates the intertwined relationship between people that build and bless places of worship and in turn taking blessings from the place.

To research these places and study their social relevance to this date, Robel traveled around Bishoftu aka DebreZeit, studying locations that celebrate Irrecha, Bahir Dar and Gonder passively observing adbars and interviewing residents. He observed, believers add layers to ordinary things like trees or mountains through rituals and incantations, making the landscape more removed and distant. Robel attempts to traverse and inhabit these spaces, penetrating the metaphysical membrane separating people from these spirits’ homes. Navigating through metaphysical space and playing with his own vivid imagination, Robe