Renowned Ethiopian artist Elias Sime subject of major contemporary art exhibition at the ROM

Exclusive Canadian debut of Elias Sime: Tightrope features 24 stunning visual compositions

TORONTO, January 28, 2021 – This spring, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) invites visitors to be immersed in the visual poetry of contemporary Ethiopian artist Elias Sime. Marking the first major museum exhibition of his work in Canada, Sime’s large-scale artworks raise important questions about human connection, ecological sustainability, and the tension between nature and technology. Elias Sime: Tightrope will be on display from April 3 to July 4, 2021.  

“Elias Sime’s expansive, lyrical work has captured the attention of audiences around the globe,” says Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. “To encounter Sime’s art is to come face to face with the sublime beauty and intensity of our fragile connection with the natural world. As we navigate the vast changes brought on by unbridled technological growth, his work invites us to contemplate the very idea of what it means to be human in a digital age. The ROM is delighted to be able to share the first major survey of this influential and critically-acclaimed artist’s work.” 

Representing an ongoing series that Sime has been producing over the last decade, Tightrope features 24 works of art of varying scales that use found materials – such as thread, buttons or electrical detritus – to illuminate the uneasy balance between technological innovation and environmental destruction. The exhibition includes Tightrope in Boxes (2017) from the ROM’s permanent collection, acquired in 2018.   

“It is really exciting to be able to show Elias Sime’s work in Toronto. The experience of being with the work is so important to appreciate the genius of Tightrope. I love the fact that you cannot really “get” his work, unless you see it in person and spend time looking carefully at the compositions,” said Silvia Forni, the ROM’s Senior Curator of Global Africa and curator of the Toronto presentation of Tightrope. “From afar, his compositions read as large-scale paintings, but when you come close, they tell a more complex story. Sime plays masterfully with the brilliant greens of the motherboards and the hues of telephone wires, but the components of his pictures are not just colours. The objects and electronic parts he selects as his materials had functions and uses in daily life. They were owned and touched by people. They are traces of human ingenuity and desires. They suggest layers of meaning that invite us to read the work from different angles and perspectives.” 

Sime’s visual references and influences are wide-ranging. From the brushwork of the Impressionist painters to the Twitter logo, from topographic photography to botany, all sources are fair game and ripe for interpretation. Informed by such divergent themes, Sime invents new tableaus that access a rich vocabulary and history of both natural and created forms. These include a selection of early, stitched canvases incorporating bottle caps, buttons, and other found objects, critical to the artist’s development.

“All the elements I use contain stories and each material is like a novel. What moves me are the stories it tells. In our fast-developing technological world, the wires are our veins, our blood vessels. They are what connect us, even if they look disconnected from humanity," says Elias Sime.

As co-founder of the ZOMA Museum, the only contemporary art museum in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, and winner of the 2019 African Art Award at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Sime is a leading figure in the international art world. He has earned global recognition for visual compositions that question our relationships with one another and the natural environment. In addition to recent commissions for the Smithsonian and Facebook’s Frank Gehry-designed Menlo Park headquarters, Sime’s work can also be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Detroit Institute of Arts among other institutional and private collections.  

Elias Sime: Tightrope is organised by the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York.

On display on Level 4, Roloff Beny Gallery, Tightrope is included with ROM general admission. ROM Members receive free general admission and exclusive opportunities to experience exhibitions and programs. For details, visit www.rom.on.ca. 

In accordance with the Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health, the ROM is temporarily closed to the public. The health and safety of our staff, volunteers and visitors remains our top priority. We will continue to follow the recommendations of our public health officials and look forward to opening our doors again once it is safe to do so. 

Image caption: Elias Sime, Tightrope 8, 2009–14. Reclaimed electronic components on panel, 44 1/16 x 70 13/16 in. (112 x 180 cm). Private collection, New York. © Elias Sime. Photograph by Adam Reich Photography. 

For further information, contact: 
Anne Vranic
avranic@rom.on.ca
 
ROM Social Media 
Instagram: @romtoronto 
Facebook: @royalontariomuseum 
Twitter: @ROMToronto   
#ROMtightrope

ABOUT THE ROM   

Opened in 1914, the Royal Ontario Museum showcases art, culture and nature from around the world and across the ages. Among the top 10 cultural institutions in North America, Canada’s largest and most comprehensive museum is home to a world-class collection of 13 million art objects and natural history specimens, featured in 40 gallery and exhibition spaces. As the country’s preeminent field research institute and an international leader in new and original findings, the ROM plays a vital role in advancing our understanding of the artistic, cultural and natural world. Combining its original heritage architecture with the contemporary Daniel Libeskind-designed Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the ROM serves as a national landmark, and a dynamic cultural destination in the heart of Toronto for all to enjoy.