Narrating the Nigerian Nation: Matters Arising

Frank Ugiomoh

Department of Fine Art and Design

University of Port Harcourt

Port Harcourt

A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form.

Earnest Renan , 1991, p19.  

Elizabeth Harney (2004: 236) in a recent work reviewed the influence of Leopold Sedar Senghor on the practice of visual arts in Dakar. She had course, within the frame, to extend her thoughts on the Dak’art festival. One comment that is enduring from her evaluation of the event as a biennale, and which is instructive on the nature of identity politics requires a recall. It is simply the need for such an event, coming from a non-European initiative to be appropriated for its potentials, as it is a means towards opening “opportunities for …participants to envision themselves as artists from Africa, not simply African artists”. Harney’s insightful and subtle delineation of ends and purposes of cultural extravaganzas, as means towards intra-cultural and inter-cultural negotiations of identity, remain instructive to Dak’art 2006. It governs the effort to provide a narrative of the Nigerian nation. Such an agenda finds rationale in Renan’s conception of the nation as a soul, a spiritual principle. The locus of such spiritual principle consists of a thread, where invention, convention/tradition and the reflective monitoring action on received tradition, while living it, precipitates new innovations.

The work of art, in all positions from idealist philosophy, constitutes the soul and spiritual principle to which Renan alludes. Senghor (1965:68) in the above regard quotes Hegel thus; “It is not what in nature determines the nation that gives it its character, but its national spirit”. Expatiating on the subject matter of form, the visible material in which cultural ideas are packaged Ben Shahn (1985:53) reconceived it as “rendering a content accessible to others, giving it permanence, willing it to the race”. The work of art remains a collective sign that fosters group identity.

Nigerian art in the contemporary is defined by traditions and influences whose source, form and depth in time can only be conjectured. These influences have largely often been glossed over in stories that attempt to trace its developments. In the present agenda to tell another story of Nigerian art a few limitations are to be acknowledged. Where such impairments are taken cognisance of understanding the present story line as packaged becomes easy to contain. Stories would always from perspectiveal view points. And they accommodate their varied slants. But the root to overcome biases will now be focused upon.

Such limitations impact directly on a given perspectiveal nature of the work of art as metaphor. It could be imagined how the artists selected for the story to be told here stand in relation to the Nigerian story. Within the above paradox comes the artistic licence of the curator as a narrative craftsman. By this a choice of relatively dispersed identities (without factors of coherence) core sites are possible from where narrative may emerge. Narratives emerge from sheer selections, which are strewn together to arrive at some views of reality that is coherent. From other consideration sequences of actions are expected to be tied to received traditions to gain currency. Thus in  selections where any narrative emerges a gradual continuum regarding space and time must be taken into consideration. The above is to infer as Charles Taylor (1997:27) observes “the search for the self within the culture of authenticity is misconceived if it is thought in terms of a monological enterprise.” By the above positions the works which aid the story of modern art in Nigeria are steeped in a variety of traditions as they are defined by a certain contemporariness that currently undergirds their value.

Dominant relations with Nigerian art, emerging from a given awareness at a time, accommodate flaws that impair access to it as knowledge. Two levels of such hindrances would suffice. The first emerges from the nature of cultural studies piloted by Western epistemologies. In it are contained two brands that devalue the object of art. In the first instance, the object of art is located in sublime planes. Access to the histories that shaped them is kept at bay by a certain invocation that celebrates them as fetish objects. Trapped within their material essences, and related to strictly as spontaneously sensual, the spirit of the age time and place they bear witness to is bound to remain obscure. Theodor W Adorno (2004:9), in the above flaw, calls to mind the need for art to be taken beyond the primary instincts that begets it. But beyond art’s primary instinct is a synthesis between material essences that is at once aesthetic as it is a purveyor of knowledge. For Adorno then, “Art is the social antithesis of society, not directly deducible from it. The constitution of art’s sphere corresponds to the constitution of an inward space of men as the space of their representation: A priori the constitution of this space participates in sublimation”

In another instance the work of art is taken as unworthy parodies of western ingenuities. African art is expected from such focal points to remain immobile its genuine quest to align with the soul of human expressions. The necessity of establishing difference may guide such wish, where as expressed thoughts, it requires some commentary. The making of culture is simply a quest for recognition as Pierre Bourdieu is often quoted. Its underlying principle is the need for renewal and fermentation of spirit among men. The quest for recognition at certain points in human interactions approach unusual heights with vast expansions in iconographies. It brings about a healthy overlapping of cultures, which while they are enmeshed in the very trade of identity swap come out unique still. The unique, as a given identity, continues its subjugation to further dialogues. A second point that relates to the flaw of remaining authentic is the logic of the application of available cultural means. It returns to the value of sensualism.  The work of art remains a response to given cultural conditions that require solutions. Must any response to such cultural conditions ignored where another has invented options that appear attractive?

A second dominant attitude emerges from the position of the cultural insider. A few evaluations under anti-colonial and post-colonial studies by African scholars call for worry. James D. Herbert’s (1998: 219) observations on the nature of rhetoric in postcolonial is pertinent here.  Postcolonial initiatives in Africa should be seen to occupy a space within the ‘post’ and not outside it as the word ‘post’ in other instances appears to be.  It should occupy the centre stage within Africanist rhetoric, “serving as a relay between players, assessing their motives and trajectories, facilitating without controlling the development of the contest, all the while remaining part of the game” Because of this seeming location outside the space it contests while drawing inspiration from it, its judgements are bound to be resulting in some ironic turn. This is because postcolonialism from an Africanist perspective occurs inside the ideological space of the colonial yet it seeks to distance itself from it. In the above light, Hassan (1998: 60) has defined the postcolonial project as ‘turbid’. The above position that characterize critical positions on African art remain as inimical to its understanding as western positions on the subject

The beginning of the story of modern Nigerian art infrequently is usually associated with anti-colonial sentiments. The story is often told of how Aina Onabolu’s acquired competence in realism was designed by some act of faith as a counter statement to western hegemony. Onabolu’s works then, as valid metaphors that defy whatever was their origin, encapsulate the spirit of the new entity – a nation - known as Nigeria. In his works Onabolu took into consideration the taste and expectations of his clients, his social status, and means of livelihood, the value of the new formal social consciousness, etc. The above considerations and more constitute the monads or micro histories that relate the artist to his works and to society; where the artwork is the space for a society’s inward representation. What is required is indeed an approach that engages analysis and evaluation beyond the anti-colonial rhetoric. Onabolu’s works and their positional situation in time and space remain bound to Nigeria’s contemporary modernity and the visual art practise that follow from his works.

Art’s value as knowledge should guide all relationships with it. Art is an empirical material presence of value to humanity. The work of art is a vessel with a content that is willed to a race, and a people. The value content of the artwork is reinforced again by Adorno thusly; “The insistence on the unintentional in art….points up art’s unconscious self-consciousness in its participation in what is contrary to it; this self consciousness motivated art’s culture-critical turn that cast off the illusion of its purely spiritual being” (ibid). As works of art increasingly find accommodation in public arenas there is the need to plead for a new spirit in encountering them as unique objects of culture. The work of art transcends its origin in material form. As the property of a race it harbours great insights even into times yet to come for those it was never made for. Relating with the work of art from diverse perspectives and within each individual’s unique position in time allows for shedding sublime baggage previous encounters may have imposed on them. Such a rehabilitating disposition to the artwork is urgently required among Africanists of all shades. The over all value to be gained would be that proper identities are bound to be structured within what Harney called attention to regarding the a distinction between being an artist from Africa and being an African artist, or an artist from Nigeria or Senegal or Ghana. With such unique identities cultural blocks are better informed on the values of cultural trading and exchanges which lie at root various embodiments of cultural dialogues.

Works Cited

	Adorno, W. Theodor Aesthetic Theory.  Trans and Ed. with Intro. Robert Hullot- Kentor, London and New York: Continnum
	Harney, Elizabeth  In Senghor’s Shadow:Art, Politics, and the Avant Garde in Senegal. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.
	Hassan, I. “Counterpoints: Nationalism Colonialism, Multiculturalism etc, In Personal Perspectives” Third Text (Winter 1997 – 98) pp 3-14.
	Hassan, I. “Queries for Postcolonial Studies”, in the Third Text Reader on ArtCulture and Theory, Eds, Rasheed Araeen, Sean Cubit and Ziauddin Sardar London and New York: Continuum Press 2002, pp232 -243
	Herbert, D. James “Passing Between Art History and Postcolonial Theory” The subjects of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perceptive Eds. Mark Cheetam, Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey Cambridge: University Press 1998.
	Renan, Earnest ”What is a nation?” In Nation and Narration, Ed Homi Bhabha, London and New York: Routledge, 1991.
	Senghor S. Leopold  Prose and Poetry. Selected and translated by John Reed and Clive Wake. Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1965.
	Shahn, Ben  The Shape of Content. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1985.
	Taylor, Charles et al. Multiculturalism, Examining the Politics of Recognition. Edited and introduced by Amy Gutman. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994.