From Fresh Ricotta to Lenin Woodcuts

Since I last wrote, I am one year older and two weeks wiser (perhaps). Over the last 13 years I’ve regularly moved to a new place for the start of the school year, and this often coincides with my birthday. Every time this happens I’ve had low expectations for marking the day, not wanting to assume that people I’ve only just met would be interested in celebrating. Yet every time I’ve been in this situation, I’ve had a great day – from Pollock Halls in Edinburgh, to the 'international student' gathering in Virginia, to that wonderful dinner in Cambridge, MA, to beers at the Nut House in Palo Alto back in 2009. This year in Addis was no exception and huge thanks go to more new friends - Sarah, Tom, Lindsey, Ian, Anthony, Gareth and Bindi - for a 31^st birthday that took several days to recover from!

 I spent the actual day seeing a couple of exhibitions. Firstly, the collection at the National Museum, with its smattering of C20th works and imperial era remnants, and then contemporary painter Tewodoros Hagos’ show at the Alliance Ethio-Francaise (the French cultural institute, whose library I have just joined). These rather wholesome pursuits were counterbalanced by an evening of pure indulgence with Sarah and Tom which began with a couple of bottles of St George at a little bar in Piassa, then progressed onto Castelli's (an Addis institution) and ended with late night brandies and great conversation. Castelli's, which has been open in Piassa since 1948, is quite the fine dining experience, complete with impeccably dressed waiters and crisp white tablecloths. Jimmy Carter has been here, as has Brad Pitt, and Bob ‘give us yer f***ing money’ Geldof says its his favorite restaurant in town. It did not disappoint.

Run by the same Italian family for 65 years, its menu ranges from extraordinary antipasto to homemade linguine with truffle and cream sauce. The former involves going to a buffet of delights, from grilled eggplant and zucchini to fresh ricotta and mozzarella, which is then liberally sprinkled with fine olive oil and seasoned. To this you can add a platter of prosciutto or other sliced, cured meats. For our feast, we washed this (and a couple of plates of pasta) down with some tasty Italian red, but sadly had no room for a slab of tiramisu. I will pace myself better next time. Demand for tables is high at Castelli's; I recommend that you don’t turn up five minutes late, as we did, unless you want to be scolded by the owner!

A couple of days after our Ethio-Italian gastronomic adventures, I had another (slightly less civilised) celebration that involved a small tour of Addis’s nocturnal offerings, several (later regretted) rounds of cheap tequila and some overly enthusiastic dancing to Nigerian super group, P-Square. Behold: P-Square Chop My Money

Anyway, besides turning 31, work is beginning to fall into place. My first forays into substantive research have primarily revolved around The Ale School of Fine Arts, which is part of Addis Ababa University. Based at the Arat Kilo campus (just down the road from the main campus at Sidist Kilo), the School’s history spans the past 70 years. Established in 1958 by Ale Feleg Selam, after whom it is now named, it has both educated and been run by many of Ethiopia’s leading artists of the modern era. These include the great Skunder Boghossian, who trained at the Slade in London and taught painting here in the 1950s/60s and - one of my personal favourites - Gebre Kristos Desta, who studied in Germany, was influenced by European expressionist painting and taught here up to the 1970s.

The revolutionary years – those about which my dissertation is concerned – witnessed considerable restructuring at the school. Curricula were soon shifted to reflect the aesthetic needs of the military government, with newfound emphasis, in particular, on graphic printmaking (for mass producible poster designs). The extent to which young artists at the School supported, resisted or even ignored the revolution is the subject of some debate, a debate with which I will be engaging considerably in the coming months.

            After a meeting with the current Director, the artist Berhanu Ashagarie Deribew, I was introduced to the school’s curator, an artist and educator called Makeda. Makeda took me to the painting storerooms of the school, in which several decades worth of graduation works are housed. The storerooms are overwhelming, bursting at the seams with canvases large and small, stacked haphazardly and often subject to considerable damage from the elements. In my first tentative exploration I found some of the earliest graduation works, including portraits of former Emperor Haile Selassie alongside large woodcuts from the era of so-called ‘Ethiopian Marxist Leninism.’ Makeda and I have made an appointment to spend next Saturday in these storerooms, to begin the job of going systematically through the enormous holdings that the school has.

Painting storage, Ale School of Fine Arts.

            The school also has an interesting library, which houses old exhibition catalogues as well as many art books, many of which are foreign donations. Its recent art writings include Chike Okeke and Okwui Enwezor’s volume on contemporary African art, alongside several shelves of ‘art theory’ texts (battered copies of Wofflin, in particular). Browsing the shelves amongst the older books you find multiple copies of certain books that gently infer the cultural Cold War agendas. Several Western art history tomes arrived courtesy of the United States Information Service, whilst it doesn’t take much speculation to imagine where “Militant Graphic Art of Rumania” and David Sisqueiros’ “Art and Revolution” came from.

Inside a book in the SFA library

            I discussed some of these things with the artist Eshetu Tiruneh over coffee last Friday. Famous for his provocative canvas, “Victims of the Famine” (1974), Eshetu is an artist, writer and teacher who lived through the revolutionary years, studied in the Soviet Union and latterly worked for the Ministry of Culture. We met last March when I came to visit and was introduced to him by Asni Gallery director, Konjit Seyoum. Picking up where we had left off last year, Eshetu and I chatted at length about my research and the revolutionary years. Since his collection of both art and writing is so large, we have scheduled a series of weekly meetings during which I can ask whatever I would like, and he will share his expertise and his memories. Such an opportunity is incredibly exciting, and I only hope that I will get to have similar extended conversations with several other key artists, from Taddesse Mesfin to Bekele Mekonnen.

I'll end by sharing my video of the moment that Ethiopia scored against Nigeria last Sunday in the World Cup Qualifier. The vuvuzelas had been blowing from the break of dawn, and face-painted crowds had began to gather at the football stadium the night before the event. On the day, over-packed cars careened through the streets bedecked in flags, horns blaring, and everywhere you looked there were crowds of proud, boisterous Ethiopian fans. It was, therefore, really sad that the Nigerian Super Eagles came from behind to defeat the home team, and (almost) distinguish any hopes of making it to Brazil. Nonetheless, the atmosphere in the bar up to the 90th minute was pretty wonderful; I'd take Ethiopian football fans over English ones any day.