Elias Sime
Eregata

HASTINGS, UK - MARCH 16 - SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

Congratulations to Elias Sime on the opening of Eregata, the second leg of his first European solo exhibition, at Hastings Contemporary, on view from March 16 through September 8, 2024. The exhibition originated at Arnolfini, UK, and will travel to Kunstpalast Düsseldorf in Spring 2025.

Eregataprimarily focuses on work from the past twenty years, including Sime’s monumental Venice Biennale commission Veiled Whispers, 2022, alongside intricately woven abstract topographies from the landmark series Tightrope, 2009 to present, key works from his early stitch, yarn and button series, and the tactile fragility of Bareness, a large-scale ceramic installation from 2014.

The exhibition’s title, Eregata, emerges from the artist’s language, Amharic, translated by Sime into as closest in meaning to the calmness and tranquility of the English word serene. Yet, for all its suggestions of calm to a western ear, for Sime eregata reflects a recognition that our minds are never truly still or silent: “we struggle to stop and sleep because our brains are constantly stimulated by technology – we are constantly moving faster not slower.”

LEARN MORE

Upcoming Exhibition

Elias Sime: Dichotomy jerba
Collateral Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia

SPAZIO TANA, CASTELLO, VENICE, ITALY | APRIL 20 - NOVEMBER 24, 2024

James Cohan is pleased to announce Elias Sime: Dichotomy jerba, a solo exhibition dedicated to the Addis Ababa-based artist. On view from April 17 through November 24, 2024, this exhibition is an official Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Addressing the impact of globalization and technology on the human psyche, Elias Sime: Dichotomy jerba will feature 11 new artworks by the artist, including nine new wall works, a stone sculpture, and a site-specific installation. Using materials that form the backbone of all digital communication, Sime crafts dimensional meditations that encourage sustained contemplation.

Co-curated by the artist’s longtime collaborator Meskerem Assegued and Felicity Korn, curator at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Dichotomy jerba illuminates the tenuousness in humanity’s private and public dualities. Selected works will later be included in a comprehensive retrospective of Elias Sime’s at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, the exhibition’s organizing institution, from March to June 2025.

LEARN MORE