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Art-culture journalism in Nigeria has been a
playground of fancies. Although one cannot discount the role
this kind of journalism can play in a developing art ecology,
the Nigerian experience remains largely underdeveloped due to
many exigent factors in the society and others traceable to the
practitioners themselves. The media is not exempt from the
laissez-faire attitude that attends life and scholarship in
Nigeria. Often the resort to sentiment, rumour, and the
bandwagon has ruined the work of otherwise admirable art
writers.
With the above at the back of my mind, I refer to two recent
articles by Chuka Nnabuife published on page 68 of The Guardian
of Tuesday July 12, and page 72 of The Guardian of July 25,
2006. They are characteristic of Nnabuife’s brand of art
reporting and his usual selective amnesia; or could this be a
calculated intent to doctor history most annoyingly? To say that
A Glimpse into Nigerian Art was organised by “C. Krydz Ikwuemesi
and his Enugu based The Art Republic” in the July 12 issue
betrays Nnabuife’s misinformation about a project on whose
ticket he went to Dakar in the first instance. I do not know his
relationship with the Dakar secretariat as far as Dak’Art 2006
was concerned. But I am aware that he applied to the National
Gallery of Art and that the former Director-General, Dr. Paul
Dike, approved his inclusion in our team, and the Gallery’s
sponsorship for him, as for the rest of us, included air ticket,
hotel and feeding.
But Nnabuife shunned the Nigerian team in Dakar, while
hobnobbing with the organisers of Dak’Art and the international
participants and visitors. Of course there was nothing wrong
with that. But he only gave attention to the Nigerian project
for about three hours and that was during the commemorative
symposium on May 7 at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar. After
that, we only met again on the homeward journey at the Leopold
Sedar-Senghor Airport in Dakar. If Nnabuife could not interview
anyone in our delegation, how could he write the facts
correctly? I would not say it is arm-chair journalism. It goes
much deeper, perhaps, considering that he had all the
opportunity to talk with the participants. If anything, he could
have done that at the airports in Lagos and Dakar or in the air.
My inclination to believe that there is a concerted intent to
distort facts is strengthened by the recent efforts by the
usually axial Lagos art cabal (including Nnabuife) to
commandeer, appropriate, and bestride the Nigerian chapter of
the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). I agree
they have the right to do whatever they like, but it should be
within the bounds of history and commonsense. But what relates
to the issue at hand which also looks strange is the flagrant
effort of those involved to exclude those who took the Nigerian
show to Dakar from the AICA congresses, when the central theme
for discussion revolved around what happened in Dakar. If
Nnabuife inscribes The Art Republic and Ikwuemesi rightly or
wrongly as the initiators of the Nigerian show in Dakar, why
were they not invited to the forum? If he claims he witnessed
the Nigerian show and could confidently talk about it, how much
of it did he see? How closely did he interact with the event and
the organisers?
I must hasten to remark here that I am neither desperate nor
bitter about not being invited to the AICA forum in Lagos, as
someone has suggested. The exclusionist tendencies of the
present initiators cannot change the history of AICA in Nigeria,
nor will it create a magic wand for transforming non-critics and
self-styled critics into professional art critics. As I have
told some of the protagonists and apologists privately,
philippics does not solve practical problems. Empty rhetoric
will not make Nigerian AICA work, nor will mere verbiage give
birth to a so-called “Nigerian biennale.”
Whatever happens, I am made more supremely confident by the fact
that history does not belong to us; we belong to it, and there
is an extent beyond which we cannot distort it. Bandits of
history may try to take away from her usually resilient
repository, but only those who lack the capacity for objective
judgement can try to devalue the import of our recent efforts at
organising a Nigerian pavilion at Dak’Art 2006, in spite of all
the shortcomings and alleged “unprofessional practices” that
attended the show. Of course, the blames for the “curatorial
lapses”, if any, belongs to me as the leader of the curatorial
team, but I should also mention that our effort never aimed at
absolutism. It is only a stepping stone and the arena is wide
open for our professional art historians and art critics to
improve on what we have done with the little resources at our
disposal.
I should say that same thing about PACA’s effort at organising a
biennale, some editions of which has been reported by Chuka
Nnabuife in the past but which he has now mischievously
christened “triennale” in his article on page 72 of The Guardian
of July 25, 2006. In fact, Nnabuife was one of the artists that
covered the PACA biennale in 2004 -- that is, the only one of
four exhibitions in that edition which was dedicated to Tayo
Adenaike’s 50th birthday and which was hosted by Pendulum Art
Gallery in Lekki. Strangely, when he published his review of the
show, it focused on Aka Circle of Exhibiting Artists rather than
on PACA.
Thus in asserting in one of his above mentioned articles that
PACA has been inactive for five years, it is either that
Nnabuife has forgotten history or he deliberately writes history
with spear and javelin. For Afrika Heritage has never been a
triennale. It has always been organised biennially on a smaller
scale compared to what we have seen elsewhere. But any objective
critic would give it a pass mark, at least within the bounds of
its operational budgets which have been very meagre. For if
nothing more, it has proved to some of us that something can be
done, especially in its (Afrika Heritage’s) ability to attract
some non-Nigerian participation in the past. It also bears out
my position that words alone are not enough, nor can we achieve
anything by constantly asking whether those making progress in
other countries “have two heads”. Heads do not matter for their
own sake, but their capacity for creative thought does. That is
why at times, ten heads may not be better than one.
And we must be reminded here that the Dakar Biennale did not
start on the present scale; it was built gradually. It was the
exertion of one man at the on set. But people around saw through
his vision; government gave support. It did not matter whether
he was Wollof or Jollof. The dream and idea were more important.
So here is Dak’Art today attracting all sorts of people and
funding from all over the world. And here we are – Nigerians -
running down to Dakar like Achebe’s “blundering beggars
wandering into the green laughter of the cactus fence”, so much
so that the only issue that have come up in the two AICA-Nigeria
meetings that I know of is how Nigeria can create a biennale
through the Dakar experience. A worthy issue for discussion,
isn’t it? But should that be the pre-occupation of AICA, or
should the body address itself to issues of intellectualism in
Nigerian art and the worrisome problem of the dearth of quality
criticism and sustainable professional writing on art in these
parts? The AICA executive should find out for itself where the
organisation’s role lies.
As for biennales, Nigeria as a nation can organise hers; but in
doing so, must we -- as is classically Nigerian -- devalue or
obliterate earlier attempts by individuals or organisations
based in Nigeria at organising biennial art festivals? The
validity of history does not depend on whether or not people
want to acknowledge it for whatever reasons. History is valid to
the extent of its reality and factuality. Whenever the history
of art in Nigeria – indeed Africa – is written, only assailants
of history would dismiss the PACA biennale, no matter how
insignificant it seems or how poorly it has been organised in
the past. In other words, it is a reality; its quality or
capacity to influence artistic trends and thoughts is a
different matter that ought to be the concern of critics. And
those of us in different parts of Nigeria who have contributed
to the sustenance of the PACA biennale are proud to be involved.
I would not blow our trumpet. But if indeed some of us packed up
now and went on to the higher form of existence (which we
ordinarily call death), only few in the art scene would say that
we have not tried.
One of the bitter truths about Nigeria is that its political
realities have badly infiltrated all spheres of existence.
Politics in Nigeria laughs at continuity and it thrives on
exclusionism and the philosophy of ambush. Not unnaturally, the
Nigerian art landscape is dangerously coloured with these
principles. To attain sustainable development in the art scene,
we must rise above the ugly reality and address issues from
purely professesional if objective perspectives.
C. Krydz Ikwuemesi,
Senior Lecturer, University of Nigeria, has been the Acting
International Secretary of The Pan African Circle of Artists. |
