The North Dakota Museum of Art is once again going international. Elias Sime will travel from Ethiopia with curator/anthropologist Mesekrem Assegued to open his solo exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art on Tuesday, March 27, 6-8 pm. Sime will speak about his work through a translator. A second reception will follow later in the evening in conjunction with the UND Writers Conference. Both are open to the general public.

The exhibition “Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart” was co-curated by Assegued and Peter Sellars, the visionary theater, opera, and multidisciplinary arts impresario.

In the exhibition, which continues through May 31, 2012, Simé addresses the dignity, wisdom, and depth of the ancient indigenous cultures that are rapidly disappearing from Ethiopia.

This large retrospective survey covers twenty-years of one of Ethiopia’s most original and prolific artists. Included are over 100 works made from such things as yarn stitches, tattered fabric, buttons, stuffed goat skins, and bottle tops with materials collected from the streets and sprawling markets of Addis Ababa. Sime transforms them into collages and stitched canvases, into floor and wall sculpture, and into installations.

The floor of the galleries will be strewn with small sculptures made of mud and straw called  selachas (stuffed goatskin), each encased in the full skin of a single goat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has accepted two selecha's into its permanent collection.

It was Elsa Llonghauser, Director of the Santa Monica Museum of Art, who first showed  “Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart” in the United States. The North Dakota Museum of Art is the second venue to host Simé’s solo show in the United States. In 2006, Elias constructed Gotas (traditional mud and straw silos from Ethiopia) in front of a live audience in his exhibition “Green Flame.” The show was curated by Assegued for Sellar's New Crowned Hope Festival, a celebration of Mozart’s 250th anniversary in Vienna, Austria. In 2009 and 2010, a selection of Elias' thrones and masks was used as stage set for Sellar's Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex Opera at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

The exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts; by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the City of Grand Forks through the North Valley Arts Council.

The North Dakota Museum of Art is located on Centennial Drive in Grand Forks. The Museum hours are weekdays from 9 am – 5 pm and weekends from 1 pm – 5 pm. The Museum Shop is open during these hours. There is no general admission; however, there is a suggested donation of $5 from adults and change from children. In addition, the Museum Café is open for lunch, weekdays from 11 am – 3 pm. Parking is available in front of the Museum in the metered parking lot or a block east of the Museum on Centennial Drive in the Visitors Parking. For more information, please call 701-777-4195 or visit www.ndmoa.com.