Tariku Shiferaw

Tariku Shiferaw (b. 1983, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is a New York-based artist whose practice explores the physical, social, and political dimensions of art and society. He was born in Addis Ababa, raised in Los Angeles, and currently lives and works in New York City. Shiferaw is known for his practice of mark-making, investigating the metaphysical ideas of painting and societal structures. His formal language of geometric abstraction is executed through densely layered “marks,” gestures that interrogate space-making and reference hierarchies of systems.

 

He often incorporates ready-made objects and colored Mylar in his installations, subverting their utilitarian functions to create psychologically charged and visually immersive environments. His ongoing series One of These Black Boys references musical genres originating in Black communities Hip-hop, R&B, Reggae, Afrobeats, Blues, and Jazz imbuing the works with musical references, identities, and cultural histories. Across painting and installation, Shiferaw merges midcentury abstraction with critical observations from popular culture, questioning perception, space, and societal structures.

Shiferaw has exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Drawing Center, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, California African American Museum, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Museum of the African Diaspora , and Smack Mellon. His recent exhibitions include Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2024, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, Baltimore Museum of Art in 2023, You’d Think By Now, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY 2022, Geometries, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York, NY 2022, Men of Change, California African American Museum 2021, Unbound, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA 2020, What’s Love Got to Do with It?, The Drawing Center, NY 2019, A Poethical Wager*, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, OH 2017–18 and the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Shiferaw has participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Open Sessions at The Drawing Center, and has been an artist-in-residence at the LES Studio Program, Silver Art Projects at the World Trade Center , ARCAthens, Experimental Print Residency at Lafayette College, Vermont College of Fine Arts, and Hermitage Artist Fellowship.