Elias Sime: Tightrope

The first major museum exhibition to focus on the work of contemporary Ethiopian artist Elias Sime (Ethiopian, born 1968), Tightrope features more than two dozen works of art in varying scales and showcases brightly-colored tableaux and sculptural assemblages rooted in both the figurative and abstract modes of modern Ethiopian art. Sime repurposes salvaged electronic components such as circuits and keyboards in his work to explore the precarious balance between the progress that technology has made possible and its detrimental impact on the global environment. The exhibition explores how devices intended to connect us have instead mediated our interactions while simultaneously creating massive amounts of e-waste. Sime’s work—like topographical maps or aerial perspectives of vast landscapes—also points to the natural pathways existing in the environment, revealing that the organic fibers which connect us are not unlike the inner workings of man-made machines. Deconstructing them can expose and demystify their internal dynamics, allowing for a new lyricism and energy to emerge. Elias Sime: Tightrope is organized by the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, and will travel to the Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City; and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada.