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Arnolfini - est 1961

About Elias Sime

Elias Sime (born 1968 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) has exhibited extensively around the world. His work has been shown internationally at the Dak’Art Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar, Senegal; the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, Austria; and in the United States at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and a survey exhibition that travelled from the Santa Monica Museum of Art, California, to the North Dakota Museum of Art.

In 2019 Sime received an African Art Award from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize 2020.

A colour photograph of Elias Sime’s Tightrope: Echo!? wall-based work that is made from reclaimed electrical wires and circuit board components in shades of orange and brown, with streaks of red, on a panel with two megaphones.
TIGHTROPE ECHO!, 2021. Courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery. Photo Christopher Burke Studios.

He presented Elias Sime: Tightrope his first major museum exhibition in the USA at The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, highlighting work from across the last decade, alongside a selection of early works critical to the artist’s development. The exhibition travelled to the Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada in Spring 2021, and was accompanied by his first monographic publication. In 2021 Sime held a solo exhibition Currents 118: Elias Sime at the Saint Louis Art Museum and in 2022 Sime was selected to participate in the 59th Venice Biennale exhibition The Milk of Dreams.

A colour photograph of Elias Sime’s Tightrope: Evolution (1). A wall based piece made from reclaimed electronic components and wire on a wood panel, that has an area of green and multicoloured circles made from woven wires, with two root like shapes of woven wire going across the middle in shades of beige.
Tightrope Evolution (1), 2017. Courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery. Photo Adam Reich.

Sime’s work is included in the permanent collection of museums and galleries across the US, Canada as well as Japan, South Africa and Israel.

a colour photograph, head and shoulders portrait, of artist Elias Sime. He is looking towards the camera and smiling. He wears a baseball cap and bright red fleece. Behind him are elements of the intricate cladding of Zoma Museum.
Elias Sime at Zoma Museum, July 2023. Image by Alice Hendy Photography for Arnolfini. All rights reserved.


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