
The first national Ethiopian pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, housed in the elegant sixteenth-century Palazzo Bollani, may be challenging to find, but the effort is amply rewarded. In his solo exhibition Prejudice and Belonging, Ethiopian artist Tesfaye Urgessa presents figures that inhabit a broad and complex emotional spectrum where fragility and strength coexist. Ethiopian iconography and European modernist figurative painting converge, creating a striking visual dialect articulated throughout the ten large paintings and small portraits that fill the three interconnected rooms.

Urgessa’s figures call forth Picasso, Rivera, some Surrealists, some painters of the London school (a muted R.B. Kitaj perhaps), and Ethiopian church paintings. Tesfaye Urgessa also studied under Professor Volker Stelzmann at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany. Stelzmann, who was shaped by his East German background and drawing in part from the aesthetics of Socialist Realism, had a profound influence on Urgessa’s artistic development.

In Urgessa’s pictorial universe, veiled or fragmented figures inhabit domestic spaces thick with a palpable psychological tension where race and identity intertwine. The coexistence of disjointed yet familiar formal vocabularies invites the viewer to engage with multiple perspectives simultaneously. The figures, interwoven and intricate, suggest a labyrinthian landscape in earthy tones—an archaeological site of cultural excavation. The tension created by these disjointed fragments is inescapable, producing a friction that unsettles the viewer’s sense of coherence.

The work refuses resolution. Instead, it provokes a dialogue between the familiar and the disruptive. The fragments resist synthesis, inviting a more probing engagement. The viewer is urged to question, dig, and uncover—not to arrive at binary answers but to immerse in the invigorating, tension-filled quest. Urgessa does not preach. Nor is the work Pollyannaish. Within the vibrant domesticity, moments of brutality and violence intrude—reminders of a life lived.

Urgessa’s intricately layered characters extend a subtle invitation, urging us to contemplate a humanity that is fragmented, multifaceted, yet enduring. They resist easy understanding, but their essence persists, present in every fragment.

Tesfaye Urgessa: Prejudice and Belonging at La Biennale di Venezia. CURATED BY LEMN SISSAY at the 60th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. Through 24th November 2024
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