Ethiopian artists Selome Muleta and Merikokeb Berhanu are among the artists featured at the prestigious Art Basel Paris 2025, taking place at the Grand Palais Éphémère from October 22 to 26. Art Basel Paris, one of the five contemporary art fairs organized by the Art Basel company — alongside those in Basel, Miami Beach, Hong Kong, and, for the first time in February, in Qatar — brings together more than 200 galleries from 40 countries.
Selome Muleta (b. 1992, Ziway) is an emerging Ethiopian artist based in Addis Ababa. Featured in Ethiopia Observer (September 2022) as “one of the fresh voices on the Ethiopian contemporary art scene,” she continues to gain international recognition for her boundary-crossing work.
A selection of Selome Muleta’s works, presented alongside South African artist Helena Uambembe, is being exhibited at Art Basel Paris, curated by Jan Kaps, a Cologne-based private gallery. Selome’s contemplative Motion series portrays women in private domestic settings, where ethereal figures and flowing colors dissolve the boundaries between body and space. In one of the works on display, Lean On V, the gallery notes, Selome employs loose, gestural brushstrokes and a rich interplay of saturated reds, greens, and soft pastels to depict an intimate domestic scene. “The figure, caught in a contorted pose, merges with the surrounding space through translucent layers of color. With her face turned away, the composition shifts focus from individuality to the physicality of the human form itself,” the gallery wrote.
Another artist, Merikokeb Berhanu, whose work has been described as deftly balancing abstraction and recognizable form—with dense backgrounds intertwined with recurring organic elements—has also been showcased. This presentation follows Merikokeb’s debut solo exhibition at Esther Schipper, Berlin, in May 2025, in collaboration with Addis Fine Art, Esther Schipper, and James Cohan.
Rakeb Sile, co-founder and director of Addis Fine Art, who attended the show, shared: “A highlight of my Parisian week has been seeing Merikokeb’s and Selome’s work so well received at Art Basel. Thanks to everyone at Esther Schipper Gallery—it’s been a real pleasure working with you. Many congratulations to Jan Kaps for a stunning booth, named one of the best at the fair.”
Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu is among the high-profile artists exhibiting at Art Basel Paris. During the fair’s “Avant Première” on October 21, which offered an exclusive early preview for select guests, her work Charioteer (2007) sold for $11.5 million, alongside other notable pieces.
