Yared Olivelli’s Way in, Way out Stays Open for Contemporary Art Day

Light rail line, Addis Ababa, February 3, 2019 (Pegel05 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]

The Italian Cultural Institute in Addis Ababa is marking Contemporary Art Day 2026 with the painting exhibition “Way in, Way out” by Yared Olivelli.

The institute’s event page says Contemporary Art Day runs at its Addis Ababa venue from October 5 to October 30. The wider Contemporary Day programme takes place worldwide from October 5 to 10 in its 22nd edition. The institute says the initiative is curated by AMACI, the Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums, with support from Italian cultural and foreign affairs offices. The Addis Ababa institute says it is joining that programme with Olivelli’s show, which stays open to the public until October 30. Admission is free.

The institute names Olivelli as a professor of fine arts at the Alé School of Fine Arts and Design at Addis Ababa University. Its exhibition page says the exhibition explores the idea of home. In that description, home is not a house. It is a spiritual and emotional space that belongs to each person. The works place pairs of opposites next to each other, including light and darkness, fear and faith, and noise and silence.

An Addis Today listing for the June opening described Olivelli as an Ethio-Italian painter and long-time lecturer at the Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design. That listing said his oil paintings look at recent urban change in Addis Ababa, including shifts in architecture and the shared memories of people who live in a fast-changing capital.

The Embassy of Italy in Addis Ababa is listed as a partner on the institute’s exhibition page. Addis Today placed the opening on June 23, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. It located the institute on Belay Zelleke Street near the Semien Hotel in Arada and said the compound has on-site parking. That listing said weekday hours ran from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, through September 2. The institute’s newer Contemporary Art Day notice extends public viewing to October 30. It does not repeat the daily hours.

Golla Art Gallery’s biography of Olivelli says he was born in 1985. It says he graduated in Graphics Art from the Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design in 2010 and has taught there since that year. The same page says his paintings have appeared in solo and group exhibitions in Addis Ababa and other countries.

In October 2024, The Reporter covered an earlier Olivelli exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute titled “So Close, Yet So Far.” That article said he was born in Dessie and worked as a lecturer at the School of Fine Arts. The 2026 show is a separate exhibition, according to the institute’s current pages.

The institute sits on Belay Zelleke Street in Addis Ababa. Through Contemporary Art Day, “Way in, Way out” remains on the public calendar until October 30.