Hernandez, Jasmin. “The New Generation of Black, Women and Nonbinary Galleries.” Artsy, March 1, 2022.

“Black women are the present and future of contemporary art. It’s something I’ve said on Instagram and a fact that continues to prove itself over and over again. From Simone Leigh becoming the first Black woman artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale later this spring, to the recent high-profile appointments of Isolde Brielmaier as the New Museum’s deputy director and Crystal Williams becoming the Rhode Island School of Design’s first Black (and Black woman)president. Black women historically and relentlessly define, preserve, ideate art and move culture. And they’ve undoubtedly helped construct the past as well.”

[Source: Excerpt from article]. 

Sohier, Estelle. “Hybrid Images: From Photography to Church Painting: Iconographic Narratives at the Court of the Ethiopian King of Kings, Menelik II (1880s–1913)”. African Arts 49, n^o 1(2016): 26‑39. https://doi.org/10.1162/AFAR_a_00268.

Photographs of Haile Selassie (r. 1939-1974) can be seen today on the streets of Addis Ababa and in books, museums, and photo agencies around the world; they have gained as well as new life on the internet, partly through Rastafarianism activism. While the reign of this King of Kings has been widely depicted in photographic images, particularly in countless portraits (Hirsch and Perret 1995, Perret 1995), Haile Selassie was not the first Ethiopian ruler to exploit photography.

[Source: Excerpt from the article, p. 26].

Senghor, Léopold Sédar, and Brian Quinn. “Critical Standards of African Art”. African Arts 50, n^o 1 (2017): 10‑15. https://doi.org/10.1162/AFAR_a_00327.

President Senghor sees the critical standards of African art as originating from the nature of the black soul, and the black soul as originating from the environment that gave it life. These standards, long unknown to the white world and now exerting influence in contemporary art, will henceforth play a more integral role in the art world.

[Source: Article abstract, p. 10]

Rubinkowska-Anioł, Hanna. “The Paintings in St. George Church in Addis Ababa as a Method of Conveying Information About History and Power in 20th-Century Ethiopia”. Studies in African Languages and Cultures, n^o 49 (2015): 115-141.

In one of the most important churches in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), there is a panel containing several paintings. They are exact copies of photographs showing Emperor Haile Sellasie I during the war against Italy (1935-1941). The paintings were copied from frequently published, and thus well-known, photographs, which served imperial propaganda to show the emperor’s role infighting for Ethiopia’s independence. Using the paintings as source material, it is the aim of this article to discuss specific propagandistic methods applied in Ethiopia under Haile Sellasie to transmit a message about power and history, and to present the intended image of the emperor to his subjects.

[Source: Article abstract].

Marcel, Olivier. “Toward Data-Driven Art Studies: A Social Network Analysis of Contemporary African Art”. African Arts 50, n^o 4 (2017): 6‑11. ttps://doi.org/10.1162/AFAR_a_00369.

“There are several reasons the network of contemporary African art is a serious subject of inquiry in the studies of art and globalization. Firstly, there is an overwhelmingly spatial dimension in the discourses within the field. Not only is the curatorial category of contemporary African art actually a toponym, but the spatial reference is also reiterated in exhibition titles, descriptions, etc. […] Secondly, there is an empirical and theoretical incentive to look deeper into what is open uncritically called the “international” or “global” scale of events or actors: convenient labels for avoiding the intricate or maybe confined geography of globalizing cities.”

[Source: Excerpt from the article, p. 6].

Teklemichael, Makda. “Contemporary Women Artists in Ethiopia”. African Arts 42, n^o 1 (2009): 38‑45. https://doi.org/10.1162/afar.2009.42.1.38.

This research note explores the lives and work of six contemporary women artists in Ethiopia, both those who paint within the artistic traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and those who were educated in an academic, fine art tradition and whose work sells in art galleries in Addis Ababa and abroad. What these women share is the strength necessary to become artists and the challenges imposed by a competitive, male-dominated market. Their success in this market is affected by their educational and social backgrounds, both of which impact their ability to work and their access to materials and customers. In this note, I briefly examine the historical roles of women as patrons and as subjects of Ethiopian art before addressing the roles of cultural and traditional institutions in shaping the Ethiopian art market. I also examine the strategies female artists employ to make art that fulfills their creative vision while also providing a means of subsistence. Finally, I explore how they balance their aesthetic and economic concerns.

[Excerpt from the article, p.38]