Special
thanks to:
Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi, Chris Krydz Ikwuemesi,
Alhaji Abdulaziz Chivuzo Udeh, Chief Ugochukwu Okeke, Ifeanyi Egwim,
Chibuzo , Iyke Onenibe,
Ejike Ekwenibe, Olisa Mokelu, Prof Jerry Buhari, Iyabo Aboaba
Problems of Art Development in Nigeria
Dr. Yemisi Shyllon
Preamble
Art
in Nigeria has come a long way. However we must unabashedly acknowledge that
our modern and contemporary art has mostly been driven by the private sector.
In so doing, the private sector is contributing to proving Lord Frederic John
Lugard (1926) wrong when he stated among others that:
“In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is
........ His mind is far nearer to
the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something
of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the state he has
reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized
religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the
religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often
to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural”.11
Starting
from the earliest times to the present, art and artists in Nigeria have moved
from one level of experience to another. As Nigerian politics and economy
develops, so has the art. Art does not exist in a vacuum. Since it is a product
of people and society, it reflects the yearnings and aspirations of its age and
clime. Such reflection can provide an index on which the development of art tradition
can be based. If by development, we mean the progressive improvement or
amelioration of a condition or situation, art development, then, would refer to
the dynamics of the sociology of art and how it is evidenced positively or
negatively on the art ecology. The development of a given art ecology naturally
depends on a number of factors. These factors include the consecrative agencies
such as galleries, museums, historiography, art criticism, and the
socio-psychology of the environment. In discussing the problems of art
development in Nigeria, one should therefore critically assess some of these
factors, the role of government and our public institutions.
Government, Public Institutions and Art
Development
The report on “Saving Africa’s Art” contained in the Time magazine of June 18, 2001 portrays
the problem of art development in Nigeria and the possible role of government
and public institutions. The magazine reports that in 1999, the Louvre Museum
in Paris purchased from a Belgian dealer a collection of 2,000-year-old Nok
terracotta sculptures for about $400,000.00. As Simon Robinson and Aisha Labi reported:
They are among the centrepieces of an exhibition that was inaugurated
by President Jacques Chirac over a year ago, and the reverence with which they
are displayed demonstrates the Western art establishment’s growing appreciation
of African art. But the exhibition, which came about through Chirac’s own
instruction that the Louvre devote gallery space to ethnic art, is clouded by
allegations surrounding the Nok’s acquisition. Nok terra-cottas are on the
International Council of Museums’ Red List of objects ‘banned from export,
(that) may under no circumstances be put on sales’ and Nigerian law prohibits
their export. President Chirac is reported to have personally sought approval
for the purchase of the Noks from Nigeria’s then military ruler, General
Abdulsalami Abubakar. The request was rebuffed on the advice of the N.C.M.M.,
which warned that the works had been ‘illegally exported from Nigeria and
therefore remained the legal cultural property of Nigeria.
According to Time, with the return to civilian rule in May of 1999,
the French government requested for approval again and Nigeria approved the transaction.
Then in February 2000 during Nigerian President’s state visit to France, just
two months before the Louvre display opened, the Nigerian Culture Minister and
Branley Museum Director signed a formal agreement authorizing the inclusion and
display of this collection of Nok sculptures. In the spirit of tokenism, as the
Time report concludes:
The French agreed to provide Nigerian museums with technical support –
including the exchange of publications, the organization of conferences and
researcher exchanges – and in return the Noks were symbolically handed over by
President (of Nigeria).
The above scenario gives us an insight into the Nigerian government’s
attitude to art and creativity. The fact that the approval sought by Jacques
Chirac was not given by the previous head of the administration of the Federal
government of Nigeria does not exonerate that regime from the perennial
anti-art attitude of successive governments in Nigeria. Nor does the latter
President’s granting of the request make his regime the worst in that respect.
The regime, as far as the patronage and promotion of Nigerian art is concerned,
only exploited an old pattern. But the logical question that must follow is, if
previous governments have brazenly neglected art and artists (of course, to the
detriment of society), must others follow the example? Must government continue
to nurture an exemplar of a bohemian society where art and artists are confined
to the fringe? One is a-times very sad to observe the attitude of different
government of Nigeria which tends to confirm the past prejudices expressed
about our people in times past by some philosophers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778) who stated that:
‘’ The black people are unable to think in any reflexive manner. Their
engagement in arts is, therefore, a thoughtless activity which is the
ant-thesis of the intellect’’.11
The problem of art development in Nigeria derives from the ineptitude in
the administration of art and indirectly from the ephemeral interest of
government. Since the culture sector is poorly funded, it is easy to lay all
the blame for the sorry state of affairs in the sector at the door of
government. But a critical look at the issue will also question the
effectiveness of those in art administration in terms of proffering and
execution of ideas in a way that can engender creative and imaginative system
of generation of funds. From the public museums and galleries down to art
councils, there is need for improvement. Most people do not even know where our public museums and
galleries are, their importance and what they represent. With a system of
education that does not effectively promote heritage studies, Nigerian museums,
including the newly-built ones, remain dead ends. They smell of neglect and
despair and give little or no courage to anyone to regard our past and heritage
with much enthusiasm. As (Aisha Labi) a Nigerian artist put it:
 |
| The discussant at the 2013 Peter Areh Lecture, Prof Jerry Buhari (right), Guest Lecturer Prince Yemisi Shyllon (centre) and Chairman of the occasion, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi. |
The fact that the museums in these parts do not encourage much
visitorship simultaneously underscores our society’s loss of its past and
logically its loss of its future. For in reality, there is only the past and the
future. The present is but a fleeting realm that can be claimed by no one. If
the Nigerian society continues to regard art and culture as luxurious
entertainment, we will remain an uprooted people, with neither memory nor
desire. If the culture sector in Nigeria is poorly funded, the onus lies on
those who accept to be appointed art-culture administrators to try to make the
best of a bad situation, while also exploring various possible means to make our
lethargic governments more responsive to the needs of art and its role as a
socializing agent. 1
The point being made is that there is need to improve the art ambience
with a view to attracting more visitors to our public museums and art galleries
and empower them to constructively reach out to the people as mediators of our
common heritage rather than arbiters of a dead and forgotten consciousness. I
join other commentators in decrying the situation where some of the museum spaces
in Nigeria are used for weddings and other non-culture events.2 Such “museum
abuse” does not translate to visitor increase in the real sense. It only
foregrounds our proclivity to the abnormal. It is doubtful if any museum in
Nigeria records up to 300,000 visitors in a given year. Yet a museum should thrive
on the number of annual visitors it receives.
This situation calls for serious concern, as it inscribes the museums
as a waste pipe, especially in a country where the appreciation of art and
heritage needs to be significantly improved. When well developed, positioned
and harnessed the museum can be an agency for cultural democracy, social
cohesion, and economic development as it is all over the developed world. This
can also be achieved with art in Nigeria.
Art and artists in this country are not adequately enabled to fulfil their
roles through the mediating institutions and agencies, (museums, galleries, art
councils, the public, among others). For as has been argued, “art is art, not
just for its own sake, but for the consecrative infusions it receives from the
relevant institutions, the society and humanity.”3 We have not
explored art enough to enable it to fully play its due role in the quest for
development. We can trace the bulk of this problem to the system of education, the
attitude of government and religious fundamentalism in Nigeria. It is to the
issue of education that I turn in the next section.
Education and Art Development
First we need to find out what education means. Education has been
defined by Jonathan Sacks [in his book, the Politics of Hope] “as the pursuit
and attainment of experience, excellence and mental, moral, and physical
development through informal, formal or organized processes or systems of
instruction, association and learning.”4 Put differently, people get educated to
enable them come to terms with the challenges of existence and to gain the
ability to adapt creatively to the demands of society. Education is not magic
but it helps to add meaning to existence. In this his book The Politics of Hope, Jonathan Sacks highlights the goals of
education as a social commitment:
…A civilisation is like an ancient but still magnificent building.
Different ages have added new wings here, an altered façade there, rooms have
been redecorated, old furniture restored. Over the generations paintings have
been acquired, some hanging, others – currently out of fashion – stored away.
We inherited the house from our parents, and we want to leave it in good order
to our children. We know that they will adopt it to their needs, indeed we want
them to. Nor can we say in advance how they will do so or what the house will
look like in the future. But as its temporary guardians, we know that we must
teach our children its history, why it was built and how it was changed. We
must do our best to ensure that, in time, they will come to love it as we do,
so that when they come to change it, as they will, they will do so
harmoniously, not destructively, according to their best understanding of what
it represents to them and those who came before them. That is the goal of
education as articulate autonomy.5
In other words, the goal of education should be
to encourage recipients to appreciate their history and heritage as well as
equip them mentally and otherwise for the preservation of that heritage. Peoples
and cultures survive when they attach the highest importance to schools and
teachers, and when they see the role of education to include the perpetuation
of the language of their heritage. It is not certain whether one can say this
about Nigeria’s education industry, especially since the 1980s. There may be
more schools today, but whether that fact translates to quality education is
another matter altogether. This situation, of course, derives from the simple
logic of the mould analogy, as advanced by anthropologist Peter Ezeh.6 A bad mould
cannot yield a good cast. If there has been general inversion married with a
dogged pursuit of ignorance, education as a central factor in society cannot
escape the resultant decadence.
The general decline in the quality of education in Nigeria is one of
the greatest misfortunes of post-independence Nigeria. It can be attributed to
many factors, including poor funding, poor quality teachers, bad attitude and
lack of commitment of some teachers, non-improvement in the educational
curriculum, misconceived educational policies and religious fundamentalism.
These factors have contributed to the degeneracy in the educational system, a
situation which has transformed education itself into “magic”, in the sense
that it is geared only towards the attainment of personal needs, especially
those bordering on bread and butter, as against the advancement of knowledge,
the improvement of the human condition and the perpetuation of mankind.7 In Collinwood’s [1938:57-77]
definition of the word, In relation to art, this situation has
contributed to the emergence of highly subsistence and unprofessional artists.
It has adversely affected the dissemination of art, which invariably includes
art training and historiography. And in this regard, art history and art
education appear to be worse-off. Although many art historians and art
educators have graduated from art institutions in Nigeria over the years, their
impact on the Nigerian art debate has been minimal and lack-lustre.
There are also curricula problems in the art departments of our
universities and polytechnics. Between the universities and the polytechnics,
the curricula oscillate between two extremes, producing highly academic artists
in some cases and glorified artisans in others. Some artists cannot verbalise
their activities. Others are lost in the morass of bamboozling theory. Most of
them in the institutions are under pressure by an ill-advised government policy
to acquire cosmetic PhDs before they can become professors. There is no doubt
that we have lost some of the otherwise finest artists to this policy. The art
industry suffers if a large number of artists have to spend several years focussing
on bagging irrelevant degrees that have little or no bearing on the making of good
art. It is even worse when the degrees cannot transform them into practising
art historians. I am afraid that in the next few years – unless something urgent
is done – the entire visual arts faculty in our universities and polytechnics
will become reluctant art historians, yet teaching one aspect of studio or the
other. The result, in terms of art practice and scholarship, will indeed be unthinkable.
For education in Nigeria to effectively conduce to art development, it
has to be positioned to recognise the peculiar needs of the industry so that it
can contribute to the amelioration of those needs. Such education must be
imbued with the capacity to enable social development in general and art
development in particular. It must be a system of education that is able to
broker understanding and dialogue between the artist and the society. In other
words, I do not advocate a system which insulates the artists from the rest in
the ecology of education. Yet this is actually what is in place, that is, an
education system that does not allow much conversation between disciplines for
the overall benefit of society. Since the Nigerian concept of development is
largely predicated on science and politics, art seems to be downgraded in the
nation’s educational system. From about the 1980s, it appears that art is no
longer given its pride of place in Nigeria, as it is not adequately taught in
many primary and post-primary schools. Although art is usually in the
curriculum, art teachers are either too few or they are often diverted to teach
other courses because our educational policy makers believe that art is not
very relevant to human and social development. This has not only succeeded in
destroying a vital aspect of education for our young people, but has also
truncated the creative ability, vision and aspiration of generations of
Nigerians who have passed through the Nigerian educational system in the past
thirty years without art as an effective part of their curriculum. The creative
instinct that art imbues at the formative stage of people goes a long way in
fertilising their developmental potentials in any field of human endeavour they
find themselves in later years.
In view of the above, how can we reposition art education in Nigeria
to transcend its overbearing concern with art pedagogy and assume a more
practical role in social development and economic reconstruction? Indeed, there
is need to invigorate art education curriculum to produce scholars and art
educators that can respond to the demands of their time and environment. Art
education should be empowered to help in relocating art to the centre, away
from the periphery, so that it can become a major instrument in our politics of
development, and thus be able to propel its own (art’s) development for the
benefit of the creative industry and our society. In doing this, we will be
proving wrong, some philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes [1588- 1679] in his
assertion that:
’Africa is a timeless place in which there are no art, letters or social
organisation”.11
The Problem of Historiography
Historiography is as important as the creative process. Along with art
criticism, it is a factor that links one art epoch to another through, the
instrumentality of the narrative. In any environment where art is engaged as a
real humanizing enterprise and as a driving force of culture and civilization,
the importance of art history to the rooting and perpetuation of the resulting heritage
cannot be denied. It has been described as one of the consecrative agencies in
the art ecology.8
From colonial times until very recently, Western anthropologists and art
historians bestrode Africa’s socio-cultural terrain, and told the story of the
continent’s history, culture and development as if the story belonged to them.
Even in the aftermath of colonialism and in the postcolonial mélange, the study
of African art is still unfortunately led by Western scholars and West-based
African scholars. Although many Africans have trained in various aspects of the
humanities and social sciences, not very many have carried out globally
insightful and meaningful research on aspects of African studies, including
art, its sociology and history. In Nigeria some of the major exhibitions and
publications on the evolution of art in the country have been undertaken by
so-called “intimate outsiders.” Where this is not the case, we have seen a
level of role-reversal with studio artists taking on added responsibilities as
theorists, critics and historians. Although this not an absurdity, it raises
some questions about the effectiveness of the art historian in Nigeria vis à vis the large number of people who
now hold degrees in that discipline in the country.
From 1960 to the present, most of the major exhibitions of modern
Nigerian art have been organized or curated by studio artists or galleries and
a few Euro-American scholars. For example, the 1960 independence exhibition was
organized by some of the Zaria Rebels, so also was the visual arts aspects of
FESTAC’77.9
(Nwoko, 2005). In
the 1980s and 1990s, most of the
major developments in the art scene were due to the exertions of studio
artists. In the south of Nigeria, for instance, five art groups were founded in
aid of art propagation; they include Aka circle of Exhibiting Artists, the Visual
Orchestra, Omenka Group of Artists, Ona and the Pan-Africa Circle of Artists
(PACA) whose membership spread is beyond Nigeria. All these were founded by
studio artists and their activities were also sustained by studio artists. Even
where the groups had art historians in their fold, as is the case of Ona, Aka or PACA, planning and strategy
still depended on the vision of visual artists.
Aka is a success in several respects, but its demise is sad. There are
many other groups which have waxed and waned in the last two or three decades.
The exploits of Otu Ewena, the Best of Ife, Aftershave Workshops, Harmattan and
OYASAF Workshops, and other similar art groupings and activities have not
rested squarely on the shoulders of critics and historians. Thus, the general
picture that can be painted is not one of a situation in which the art
historians have taken a lead. This is worrisome for an art ecology which counts
many arts historians in its folds. But, must the art historian or critic
initiate and lead art projects for him/her to be worth the name? Not exactly;
but he must be abreast with happenings and nurture the ability to tell the
(hi)story of art with all the vigour and commitment it deserves. Achebe (1987:124) reaffirms
the importance of the story as the survivor of action:
The sounding of the battle-drum is important, the waging of the war
itself is important; and the telling of the story afterwards…The same reason I
think that our people will give the name Nkolika
to their daughters – Recalling-Is-Greatest. Why? Because it is only the story that
can continue beyond the war and the warrior (sic). It is the story that
outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the
story…that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes
of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind…8
In other words, history and art perpetuate the memory of events and
peoples and thus mediate the conversation between generations. The role of
history and art, therefore, is to reconstruct the past and re-present it as data for appreciating the past, present and facing
up to the future. Thus, an art historian need not necessarily be a hydra-headed
animal. Where he/she is not able to raise proposals to initiate actions and
activities in the art scene, he/she can watch from the centre or the sides and
become an arbiter of taste, trends and paradigmatic shifts. By keeping a tab on
the happenings in the art field, the art historian inscribes the art historical
enterprise as the continuation of the creative process and reaffirms its role
as one of the important factors in the consecration of art. This has not been
the case with many of our art historians. Most are comfortable with teaching
positions in tertiary institutions and would do little or nothing outside their
routine. Others simply lack the will, imagination and intellectual stamina to
initiate actions. The overall effect on the art scene is obvious. Without
historians imbued with the gift of (hi)story-telling, the art tribe lacks the
necessary escort and runs the risk of blindness, to borrow from our late great Achebe.
The Relevance of Art Criticism
Art
criticism deals with the hermeneutics of art. It is not fault-finding. Rather,
it the creative and insightful appreciation of a work of art for the purposes
of analysis and interpretation. According to C. Krydz Ikwuemesi,
Criticism could be broadly divided into five parts: constructive
criticism, destructive criticism, detective criticism, sympathetic criticism,
and totalitarian criticism. These are not water-tight compartments, nor do they
encode hard and fast principles which the critic must adhere to. In practical
terms, criticism is merely an open market to which everyone can bring his/her
wares, but the wares and their prices ought to have a human face…10 art expo cat
In modern times, criticism has become as sophisticated and complicated
as art itself. Although its continuance depends on the existence of art, it
also relies on the availability of some extra-artistic determinants in its role
as art’s purveyor. In this regard, newspapers, magazines and journals are very
useful platforms for art criticism. In recent times, the internet has changed
the face and heart of the modern world and the critic faces more challenges as
he or she struggles for relevance in the hustle and bustle of the art world.
And the challenges are daunting, given the socio-economic reality in these
parts which have not allowed any real development to take place in most spheres
of human endeavour, excepting, perhaps, the economics of politics. In other
words, criticism of Nigerian art is either as developed or under-developed as
the country itself. it is another consecrative agency in the art world and is a
contributing factor to the situation of art in Nigeria today.
Criticism in turn depends on the prevailing realities for it to
succeed. It does not exist in a vacuum. It relates with other consecrating
agencies and institutions, such as museums, galleries, and cultural centres in
the pursuit of its goals. Purveyors of discourse such as the print and
electronic media, publishing houses with interest in art, and organised
discursive forums (e.g. conferences and symposia) where art could be critically
discussed should also be in place.
These are the factors on which trained and untrained critics in a given
art landscape would depend to be able to animate the fields of practice and
critical theory and thus lead the crucial debates that propel the history of
art. In Nigeria, all these
factors abound in varying degrees, but they seem to be lacking in
effectiveness. Relative to some
other African countries, the Nigerian art scene appears to be more vibrant, but
is the vibrancy adequately sustained? Studio practice in Nigeria may be well
developed, but we cannot say the same about art criticism and other aspects of
theorisation as they are yet to be fully explored.
Again we can trace this situation to the art training curricula in
most of our universities and polytechnics which tend to glorify studio art over
theory. Most of these schools offer specialization option in art history in
addition to the core studio areas in Fine and Applied Arts, but never art
criticism, except perhaps as a minor theory course at the undergraduate level.
However, Nigeria remains relatively fortunate in its tradition of art
criticism. There are some good number of artists in the history of Nigerian art
who have been able to combine practice with theorisation. Although the
visual-verbal tradition goes back to Aina Onabolu, Akinola Lashekan and Ben
Enwonwu, but it was with the emergence of the radicals of Zaria Art Society in
the 1950s that the artist-critic-historian tradition began to emerge in bold
relief. The phenomenon later crystallised with the activities and writings of
Uche Okeke and other artists beginning from the 1970s. Thus, the artist-writer
phenomenon is a common feature in the Nigerian art scene.10 Although the
artist-critic pattern is one that Nigerian artists continue to exploit, only
few artists actually make a success of such combination. But criticism of
Nigerian art, at best, remains a drop in the ocean when compared with the number
of activities in the field. What kind of condition do they operate in and what
other complimentary factors, including art journals and newspapers, have aided
their work?
As for journals, the greatest problem in the
history of journal publishing in Nigeria is the issue of longevity. Most
journals published in Nigeria have not lasted long enough to influence the art
criticism tradition. Poor funding, lack of professionalism, and bureaucracy (in
the case of public-institution-based journals) have been some of the greatest
misfortunes of art journals in Nigeria. The situation has contributed to the
usually short life span of most publications and the epileptic issuance of
others. Moreover, the dissemination of art, including publishing of art
literature, can be a very expensive and demanding enterprise. It is even more
difficult in these parts, considering that there are usually little or no funds
for such ventures. Thus some of our major journals may depend on Western
handouts for their existence. Those published by government institutions often
depend on epileptic government subventions and thus do not live up to
professional expectations. Lack of funding also quickly kills private
initiatives. Thus the publishing opportunity for Nigerian critics remains very
narrow.
But newspapers and news magazines have always
come to our rescue. Not only have they put their art pages at the disposal of
professional art critics, they have also published materials and critiques on
art written by their own reporters. These reporters are usually not trained in
the technicalities of critical theory. Some of them are visual artists who
happen to have the ability to write. In other cases, they are graduates of the
English language, theatre, or mass communication. Experience all over the world
shows that this class of critics, though not academic, should be taken
seriously, as they are able to reach a wider range of audience due to the
populist nature of their medium. However, media-based criticism can become a
cash-and-carry affair, as opinion can be easily influenced or sponsored. This
notwithstanding, the role played by media-based critics in the development of
art in Nigeria since the birth of modernism in Nigeria cannot be
overemphasised. We must acknowledge that from its very humble beginnings in the
time of colonization, art journalism in Nigeria has come a long way. The
importance of media-based critics in the art ecology cannot be over-emphasised.
In a well developed setting, they are the live wire of the art circuit, as they
mediate between the art community and the larger society. But in the main, what
are usually reported in the media are art exhibitions and the like. It is not
the fault of these media based critics that are greatly dependent on galleries
in Nigeria and which galleries on the other hand, are battling to survive,
mainly through the sale of art works. Even though this is the traditional role
played by galleries all over the world, this role should not be pushed beyond
reasonable bounds. Galleries
should rather also initiate and engage in projects which aid critical theory,
the professionalization of art as well as its dissemination. This will
certainly foster greater engagement of the galleries by journalists.
Art and art criticism complement each other. Art without a responsive
critical tradition is like a masquerade without followers. Nigerian art
tradition is very rich and eclectic. The critical tradition has evolved, but it
leaves much to be desired, not because there are not enough critics, but
because the enabling factors and conditions have not been too favourable. The
inability of practitioners in the art field to effectively network their
activities and fully complement one another is a major problem that needs to be
addressed.
Society as a Factor
The
perception of art in Nigeria is very poor, in spite of the progress made in art
appreciation in the last few years. We must acknowledge that there are many art
institutions in Nigeria today and that more galleries and art centres are
springing up. Also many more activities and festivals have become part of the
art calendar in Nigeria. But to a great extent, art and society in Nigeria are
still divorced from each other. If art and aesthetics have no place in the
general scheme of things, their appreciation will remain the exclusive preserve
of a few elite. This situation is in contradistinction to what obtained in pre-colonial
times when art belonged to almost every western educated elite. Today art is more
of a luxury and not necessarily the conscience of society. This is why
everything in these parts is so sterile. The sterility of the concept of
society and development in these parts is, in part, the child of the severance
of art from society. One could see the effects in our highly dehumanized roads,
in our austere homes, the highly-utilitarian public buildings, the recklessly
defaced public monuments, and the macabre politics that is common in Nigeria.
Not even science and technology are allowed to be complemented by art’s salve.
Of course, the problem is not entirely a Nigerian one. But if there is any
place where the separation of art from society has taken a great toll, that
place is Nigeria. Yet, there is art in
everything, including politics. When science and politics terrorise the
human psyche with their products of destruction, art can come to the rescue.
The Nigerian society, with its usual crop of bread-and-butter leaders, does not
appreciate this fact and as a result, art in Nigeria is trapped in the darkling
corridors of underdevelopment. Furthermore, with the prevalent triumph of
materialism and the suffocating religious revivalism that have encircled
Nigeria in recent years, much of the liberal spirit that art needs to propel
itself is largely absent. In a subtle way, there is a connection between this
problem and the problem of our education system.
Some people would readily point at hunger as the bane of our situation.
Hunger may be part of it. But what of the ineptitude of the leadership of the
culture sector? What of the anti-art attitude of government? For too long,
government and society’s conception of art and culture is circumscribed by
raffia-wearing dancers and pedestrian local crafts. There are very few credible
sustainable art festival organized by government; no national art exhibit where
the state of art in our country can be measured, enjoyed, visited, and
celebrated. There are very few institutions or systems through which excellence
in the arts can be duly rewarded. Public art institutions and organizations are
caught in the web of bureaucracy. The Nigerian artist thus becomes an
endangered species of sorts, with little or no encouragement from a society
whose understanding of art remains strait-jacketed and interpreted from the
myopic lens of imported religions. When the problem of nescience is added to
the situation, we are faced with a state of anomie which impacts most
negatively on art. A good number
of our artists have been lost to religious fanaticism and art as a whole is
being impeded by much fanaticism in terms of the dwindling perspicacity of its
vision and subject matters. As we know, overbearing religiousness presupposes
orthodoxy, which is one of the greatest enemies of art. One is therefore pained
to see how religion is being used to destroy the psyche of Nigerians to art. In
this wise, I am left with no other option than to display here, some few slides
of the interplays and cohabitation between religion and art from times long in
some widely acknowledged religious spaces of the more developed world.
***************************************************
In
the height of the afore displayed slides, I join others in condemning the unwarranted
mutilation of the master piece mural by Demas Nwoko titled “The gift of
talents (1962)” in Teddar hall, University of Ibadan by
misinformed religious jingoists. Indeed this exhibition of religious
overzealousness by fundamentalists is not an isolated case in Nigeria and
therefore we must cry loud against those perpetuating their ignorance in this sense.
Conclusion
All told, the problem with art in Nigeria is not an isolated case. It
has been the same in much of Africa. It is only a by-product of the prevailing
social situation where in the African continent development is defined along
the lines of politics and science…
Notes and References
1. Simon Robinson and Aisha
Labi, “Saving Africa’s Art.”Time, June 18, 2001.
2. Ibid.
3. C.Krydz Ikwuemesi, “Soliloquies.” in C.Krydz
Ikwuemesi (ed.),
Overcoming Maps 3 Report. (Enugu: Citadel Publishing, 2004) pp.23 -27
4. Jonathan Sacks, The Politics of Hope (London: Vintage,2000) p. 184.
5. For a discussion on the connotative essence of
magic in relation to art, see R.G.
Collingwood, The principles of Art. (London: Oxford University Press), pp. 57-
69
6. Art does not exist in isolation but in relation to
para-artistic forces, such as art
history, which contribute to its essence.
7. Demas Nwoko, Creativty and Self Reliance (Enugu: The Pan-African Circle of
Artists, 2005)
8 Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (London: Heinemann, 1987), p.124.
9. See Okey Nwafor, “The Search for Visual-Verbal
Metaphor,” in C. Krydz
10. Ikwuemesi (ed.) The Triumph of a Vision. (Lagos:
Pendulum Art Gallery), pp.
155-174.
11.
Sophie, B. Oluwole (ed.), 2011. Katanfuru, who are (they/ we) Africans?
Some memorable quotes.
Sources
Crossing Boundaries and Frontiers. Enugu: The Pan-African Circle of Artists.
Ezeh,
Peter 2004. “Art, Africa Progress: An Anthropological Viewpoint.” C. Krydz
Ikwuemesi (ed.) op cit, pp. 116 – 118
Ikwuemesi,
C. Krydz 2004. “Soliloquies.” In C. Krydz Ikwuemesi (ed.), Overcoming Maps 3 Report. Enugu: Citadel Publishing, pp23 -27
….…………………,
2003. A Critical Travelogue. Enugu:
Citadel Publishing in association with the Art Republic.
Kawaguchi,
Yukiya and Yoshida, Kenji (eds.), 2005. Senri
Ethnological Reports, no 54 (journal of the National Museum of Ethnology,
Osaka)
Sacks, Jonathan 2000. The Politics of Hope, London:
Vintage, pp.150 and 262.
Spiesse,
Emmanuelle (ed.), 2001. Echoes, Cities
and Artists in Nigeria. Ibadan: Museum of the Institute of African Studies,
University of Ibadan.
