20th Century Art: A Story from Nigeria
A Proposal

Copyright: C. Krydz Ikwuemesi

Introduction

Modern Nigerian art is, perhaps, the richest in Africa. With its plurality of ethnic nationalities (about 200), Nigeria is a marvel of a cultural bazaar. Since the early years of the last century, her rich cultural background has infused her modern art traditions making them some of the most promising and most resilient in Africa.

With several art training institutions and facilities spread across the country, Nigerian artists are among the most exciting and most dynamic in the international art space. The Nigerian terrain itself, ever agog with refreshing activities, is an example of a thriving modernist paradigm, in spite of the absence of sustained government and corporate support.

But in spite of the resourcefulness and resilience of Nigerian artists and some of the private galleries and institutions, Nigerian art remains a victim of poor documentation and historiography. Apart from some writing on certain aspects (including monographs [most of them written by so-called intimate outsiders], journal and newspaper articles), there has not been any major compendium on modern art in Nigeria. The exhibition being proposed here, with its enabling publications, is a first major step towards filling this gap.

Exhibition Scope and Strategy

The exhibition, in the pursuit of a truly historical perspective, comprises 3 parts. These parts do not necessarily describe styles, movements, techniques or ideologies, but are invoked as a kind of periodisation that will enable a historical approach to the evolution of modern art in Nigeria. The periods are not only generational, but are inevitably aligned to the political development of Nigeria. This should be expected, considering that art – visual culture as a whole – is always the product of the time and environment in which it flourishes.

The concern in this project is not to invent names for periods in Nigerian art or to distinguish and label ideologies where they exist. It is simply to provide an objective platform on which historiography of the modern in Nigerian art can be articulated and advanced.

The exhibition, in drawing a historical perspective, maps out three periods/generations. These periods will be categorised as (a) Colonial period (1900-1960), (b) Post-colonial Period (1970-1985), and (c) The Neo-colonial Period (1985-date). While artists in the Colonial Period are mainly of the first generation, those in the Post-colonial are of the second. The Neo-colonial Period includes art and artists of the hyper-military era, the children of corruption and violence from whose ruins contemporary Nigerian society has emerged.

There is no doubt that certain artists, to some extent, straddle the entire period, but for each artist there must be a moment of bloom, which enables his/her location in history. However, such artists serve in such a narrative as bridges between epochs, the vanguard of tradition and continuity.

The notion of transition and continuity is very important in presenting a historical visuality of Nigeria as of any other culture. Historical antecedents and landmarks have a way of over-lapping, and it would be dangerous to strictly compartmentalise them. Thus, in spite of the peculiarities that may define each designated period in this project, commonalities and connecting agents must be recognised and articulated in order to arrive at a logical narrative.

Beyond the broad periods mentioned above, a fourth segment will be created in the exhibition to highlight contemporary trends in the Nigerian art scene. To be titled Voices in the New Millennium, this segment will feature selected emergent young artists whose works can be used as data for a critical appraisal of the recent and current developments in modern Nigerian art.

This curatorial strategy certainly foregrounds the unity-in-diversity fallacy of hope which anchors the precarious Nigerian project. If this notion atomises Nigerian politics, it diversifies and enriches its visual culture. Of course, it eternally problematises the concept of “Nigerian art”, but also simultaneously projects it as a flexible, negotiable platform peopled with competing but congruent paradigms that draw from the common convoluted history of the Nigerian geography and politics.

It is hoped that the selection of works and texts for the exhibition and its catalogue will take these facts into consideration, not only to ensure an acceptable narrative, but also to provoke and incite some critical inquiry (which is very overdue) into the practices of art in Nigeria, as a classic exemplar of a highly successful “African” modernism – however the term is defined.

Selection and Presentation of Works:

A representative approach will be adopted in selecting and presenting the works. Care will be taken not to turn the exhibition into a pandemonium. If it must make sense historically and otherwise, the exhibition should be composed of relevant works which can demonstrate the paradigmatic and generational shifts that have fed the history of art in Nigeria.

Selection of these works presuppose extensive travel with a view to meeting artists in their studios to see things first hand and determine exhibitable works.

Preliminary selection will be done by the principal curator, and the final collection would emerge from a joint selection by the curators and a panel to be convened by the curator in consultation with Pendulum Centre for Culture and Development and the National Gallery of Art. About 60 artists will be selected for the epochal exhibition.

Catalogue

A befitting catalogue will be conceived for the exhibition. In the main, it will contain excellent reproductions of the exhibits as well as some solicited text. To be edited by C. Krydz Ikwuemesi, it shall contain the following essays:

1. Foreword - Dr. P.C. Dike, Director-General, National Gallery of Art, Abuja

2. Introduction – C. Krydz Ikwuemesi

3. A Critical-Generational Survey of Modern Art in Nigeria– by Prof. Ola Oloidi

4. Between “Post” and “Neo”: Interrogating Nigerian Art and Culture Since Independence- by Prof. Dele Jegede

5. Rhetoric vs Hermeneutics: Problems of Interpretation in History of Modern Nigerian Art – Prof Chike Aniakor

6. Transitions and Continuities: Stylistic and Paradigmatic Shifts in Modern Nigerian Art- by Dr. Frank Ugiomoh

7. A Socio-anthropological Survey of Nigerian Modernism- by Dr. Peter Ezeh

8. The Nigerian Artist and the Politics of Social Development – Jacob Jari

9. From Art to Visual Culture: the Post-modern in Nigerian Art- by Prof. Olu Oguibe

10. The Nigerian Classics: Paradigms of Ancient and Pre-colonial Arts- by Prof. Osa Egonwa

11. “Schools” and “Cooperatives” as Catalysts of Art Development in Nigeria- by Dr. Kunle Filani

12. Journals and Magazines in the Development of Art in Nigeria - by Ozioma Onuzulike and Kingsley Ene-Orji

13. Galleries and Museums in the Development of Modern Art in Nigeria – by Simon Ikpakronyi

14. Rich Art, Poor History: Problems of Documentation and Historiography in Modern Nigerian Art- by Dr. Freeborn Odiboh

15. Art Curricula in Nigerian Institutions and their Influence on Art Practice and Theory – Abel Diakparomre

16. Interrogating the Verbal-Visual Metaphor: Nigerian Artists and the Allure of Poetry – Okey Nwafor

17. “Louder than the Bereaved”: Outsider Contribution to Art Propagation in Nigeria – Ayo Adewunmi and Ugochukwu Nzewi

18. “The Harvest is Plenty But the Labourers Are Few”: Art and Art Criticism in Nigeria (II) - C. Krydz Ikwuemesi

Documentary:

The exhibition will be commemorated with a one-hour documentary on modern Nigerian art to be titled Modern Nigerian Art in the 20^th Century.

As an audio-visual accompaniment to the exhibition catalogue, the documentary, to be produced in CD form, will provide a concise perspective on the development of modern art in Nigeria, using the graphic production of artists as its principal tool.

Besides presenting artists at work in their studios, exhibition halls or elsewhere, the documentary shall feature brief interviews with artists, critics, and other cultural actors.

In researching and producing the documentary, care will be taken not only to ensure professionalism, but also to ensure that the final material become very useful resource for scholars and students of Nigerian and African visuality.

Both the book-catalogue and documentary will, certainly be the first composite publications on Nigerian art since the first modern portraits were painted by Aina Onabolu in Lagos in the first decade of the 20^th century. It will thus excite and incite further research and writing on the history of modern Nigerian art and the contribution of the artists to nation-building and social development.

Aim of the Project

The aim of the exhibition is to provide, for the first time, a composite representation of modern art in Nigeria. By establishing major landmarks, important relationships between art schools, groups, and individuals that have shaped the Nigerian art landscape, the exhibition shall provide a road-map to the largely unrehearsed, unwritten history of Nigerian art. Furthermore, the exhibition promises to give scholars and the public some insight into the evolution of modernism in Nigeria and help to upset some of the misguided conceptions in the Occidentalist, hegemonic art circles about visual culture in Africa. Above all, it shall provide, through its ambitious but incisive catalogue, a basis for articulating the first ever comprehensive  publication on modern art in Nigeria. To achieve these goals, the exhibition will be held in Lagos and Dakar.

Venues

It is planned that the exhibition will be held in Lagos and Dakar. The Lagos show will hold at Aina Onabolu Building (National Gallery of Art), Iganmu – Lagos and  Pendulum Centre for Culture and Development, Lekki – Lagos,  while the Senegal phase will be organised as part of the 2006 edition of Dak’Art (the Dakar Biennale).

The exhibition and its documentation will also be hosted on an ad hoc site, www.art-in-nigeria.com. It is expected that this website will transform into a virtual resource centre for modern Nigerian art to be managed by selected Nigerian artists and art organisations.

Activity Schedule:

August 2005

Commencement of research for both the catalogue and the documentary.

September - December 2005

1. Filming/Recording/editing of documentary

2. Solicitation/compilation/editing of text for the catalogue

3. Solicitation of works from artists and galleries in Nigeria

4. Publicity campaign in the media begins

February 2006

1. Production of catalogue commences

2. Publicity campaign in the media intensifies

3. Printing of posters and commemorative postcards

4. Printing and publishing of exhibition catalogue and documentary

5. Luncheon for culture journalists in Lagos with a view to further publicising the project.

May 2006

The exhibition goes to Dakar, Senegal, as part of Dak’Art 2006.

The exhibition will be open  tentatively also on the Internet at www.art-in-nigeria.com (the full exhibition will be uploaded in October 2006)

August 2006

Another  luncheon for culture journalists in Lagos

October 2006

The exhibition runs in Lagos for 2 weeks at three centres: a. Aina Onabolu Building, National Gallery of Art, Iganmu, Lagos,  b. Pendulum Centre for Culture and Development, Lekki, Lagos,  c. Goethe Institut, Victoria Island, Lagos. 

Project Director

C. Krydz Ikwuemesi

Curators

Dr. Frank Ugiomoh

Simon Ikpakronyi

C. Krydz Ikwuemesi

Associate Curators

Barthosa Nkurumeh

Jerry Buhari

Emeka Agbayi

Ndidi Dike

Ozioma Onuzulike

Project Co-ordinators

Peter Areh

Renate Scherpen (Amsterdam)

Alite Thijsen (Amsterdam)

Chinwe Roy (United Kingdom)

Dr. Dorotha Grace Lemeh (USA)

Secretary to the Organising Committee

Okey Nwafor

Project Assistant

Chika Modum-Udok

Nnaemezie Asogwa

Organisers

National Gallery of Art, Pendulum Centre for Culture and Development, Lagos

C. Krydz Ikwuemesi

Interns

Kollinz Njoku

Promise Onwunali

The following are the artists proposed for the exhibition (the final list of participating artists will be published soon):

General List

1.   Aina Onabolu

2.   Ben Enwonwu

3.   C.C. Ibeto

4.   Uche Okeke

5.  Yusuf Grillo

6.   Bruce Onobrakpeya

7.   Demas Nwoko

8.   Obiora Udechukwu

9.   Chris Afuba

10. Chike Aniakor

11. Tayo Adenaike

12. Dele Jegede

13. Twins Seven Seven

14. Jimoh Buraimoh

15. Erhabor Emokpae

16. Ben Osawe

17. Jerry Buhari

18. Tony Okpe

19. Jimoh Akolo

20. Lamidi Fakeye

21. Kunle Filani

22. Nike Davies-Okundaye

23. Abiodun Olaku

24. David Dale

25. Ndidi Dike

26. Lara Ige-Jacks

27. Ben Ekanem

28. Solomon Wangboje

29. Mike Omoighe

30. Helen Uhunmwuagho

31. Moyo Okediji

32. Barthosa Nkurumeh

33. Uzo Egonu

34. Kunle Adeyemi

35. Nsikkak Essien

36. Okay Ikenegbu

37. Bridget Egbeji

38. Stella Idiong

39. Tola Wewe

40. Olu Ajayi

41. Sam Ovraiti

42. Duke Asidere

43. Eldrag Okwoju

44. Ada Udechukwu

45. Ozioma Onuzulike

46. Ayo Adewunmi

47. Chijioke Onuora

48. Kolade Oshinowo

49. Gani Odutokun

50. Felix Idubor

51. Paul Igboanugo

52. Shina Yusuf

53. Clara Ugbodagha-Ngu

54. Theresa Luck-Akinwale

55.  Akinola Lasekan

56.  El Anatsui

57.  Susanne Wenger

58.  Rom Isichei

59.  Ben Osaghae

60.  Olu Amoda

61.  Emma Mbanefo

62.  KaEgo Uche-Okeke

63.  Ola Balogun

64.  Olisa Nwadiogbu

65.  Kelechi Amadi-Obi

66.  Uche Iroha

67.  Nnaemeka Egwuibe

68.  Chika Okeke

69.  Olu Oguibe

70.  Marcia Kure

71.  Richard Taye

72.  Yinka Shonibare

73.  Tayo Ojom

74.  Chinwe Uwatse

75.  Peju Alatise

76.  Edosa Oguigo

77.  Sly Ogbechie

78.  Donald Odita

79.  Veronica Ekpei

80.  Angela Udeani

81.  Ayo Aina

82.  Danjuma Kefas

83.  Sani Mu’azu

84.  Lasisi Lamidi

85.  George Odoh

86.  Chike Obeagu

87.  Chizoba Nwaozuzu

89.  Susan Omagu

90.  Emily Nelson

91.  Dwina Kate

92.  Theodora Ifudu

93.  Cassandra Okotie

94.  Juliet Ezenwa

95.  Chris Echeta

96.  Tony Umunna

97.  Okpan Oyeoku

98.  Ato Arinze

99.  Dilumprizulike

100. Zinno Orara

101. Eva Obodo

102. Boniface Okafor

103. Chuka Amaefuna 

List of Artists for Segment 4

1.         Blaise Gbaden

2.         Nneka Odoh

3.         Erasmus Onyishi

4.         Ike Francis

5.         Nkechi Nwosu-Igbo

6.         Kainebi Osahenye

7.         Wole Lagunju

8.         Tony Nsofor

9.         Nyemike Onwuka

10.       Chika Modum

11.       Ugochukwu Nzewi

12.       Amarachi Okafor

13.       Uche Edochie

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