Temporary Exhibitions
Mario Marino - Faces of Africa
18 December 2012 - 21 April 2013
A study of traditional African cultures took photographer Mario Marino to southern Ethiopia, where he photographed people from different ethnic groups. The end result is a series of stunning photographic portraits.
In 2011, photographer Mario Marino (Austria, 1967) travelled to the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia, near the borders with Kenya and Sudan. Encounters with locals in the streets and at the market have resulted in an impressive series of portraits of people from seven ethnic minorities: the Surma, Karo, Hamer, Borana Oromo, Tsimaw, Mursi and Erbore. Self-assured and proud of their cultural uniqueness, dozens of people posed for Marino. All Marino's subjects were pictured in their everyday outfits, which have over the years also come to include t-shirts. But the body paintings, jewellery and scarification show that the people from these ethnic groups still hold traditional views on beauty and identity.
Josiah Onodome Onemu - Images of a bridge builder
18 November 2012 - 3 November 2013
Pieces by the Nigerian-born sculptor and artist Josiah Onodome Onemu will be on display in the Afrika Museum from 18 December 2012 to 3 November 2013 inclusive. This solo exhibition is made up of work that was donated to the Afrika Museum and work from the artist's private collection, and gives a magnificent overview of his extensive oeuvre.
Fertility, the interplay of opposites, suffering and despair, hope and promises, change and departure - the work of Josiah Onemu, a sculptor with Nigerian roots, covers life's major themes, at times reducing them to their plain and simple essence, then depicting them as a narrative. Despite the great variations in his expression, the themes always relate to people and society, putting Onemu's work in keeping with the African tradition of closely combining art and life. “Josiah Onemu is a bridge builder. With his highly probing style, he links up old and new African cultures and creates a connection between these cultures and Western ones,” wrote Ineke Eisenburger, former Afrika Museum director, in 1999. The themes running through Onemu's work are closely entwined with everyday African life, with the continent's society, politics and religion.
