The General Ineptitude To Creativity In Nigeria

By Prince (Engr) Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon
In presenting my comments on the general ineptitude to creativity in our country, I must start by thanking the entire members of the council of the Society of Nigerian Artists led by Uwah USEN for recognizing my fellow art connoisseurs and I, for our roles as collectors in the symbiotic sustenance and growth of Nigerian visual art. According to Abraham Maslow, this obviously serves not only as an important motivator but also puts us in the significant position of doing more. This is because recognition is an important desire in man's hierarchy of needs.

However, I would like to seize this opportunity to draw our attention to some disturbing cases of disregard and devaluation of the creative values in our national development and wealth. To start with, Tajudeen Sowole of The Guardian drew our attention since July 13^th, 2012 to the ongoing renovation of the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos where the works of some of our present and past heroes are being desecrated. These our artistic heroes include such living legends as Prof Yusuf Grillo and Bruce Onobrakpeya whose works gave commendable value and aesthetics to the airport but are being destroyed without any consultation with, involvement or information to the artists. Other artists, whose works are open to being desecrated at the renovation of the Murtala Mohammed Airport, are the works of late Professor Agbo Folarin, the late Isiaka Osunde and Demas Nwoko. This kind of disregard to creativity is heartbreaking and I am forced to ask in this circumstance; what the collective mission of the SNA is? What has the SNA done since this anomaly was brought to public attention by Tajudeen Sowole inThe Guardian?

It appears that Nigeria is made up of people, who live in a country where artists are sentenced to marginalization and at which, visual art is at best seen as a feature of mere fancy. In Nigeria, everything points to the fact that our leaders are generally ambivalent towards visual art. Our attitude to art is unfortunately part and parcel a product of our colonial mentality.

An important case of ineptitude demonstrated by us as a people is typified by our contribution and complacency to the recent insult at our intelligence by the British Museum. The British Museum in avoiding the consistent and increasing pressure for the return of our looted artworks have of recent past, strategically arranged some assisted, cheap and insulting trips to England for some low and middle level civil servants of the National Commission for Museum and Monuments to carry out some curatorial works for private and public collections in England in exchange for some payment of mere pittance to the Nigerians, when compared to what they would have paid if they had used their own citizens. Meanwhile, the Nigerian art works in the collection of the British Museum are mostly the looted works carted away from our country by imperialists from 1897 and during our period of colonisation. Our collective intelligence has of recent been insulted by a spokesman of the British Museum, when he was asked about what his country was doing about returning the looted works. In reply, he told us to rather concentrate more on the benefits accruing to us from the on-going human-capacity development programme of the British Museum by their assisted training program in England, of civil servants instead of calling for the return of the looted works. The reality is that, our civil servants are just unconsciously being made to serve as curatorial semi-slaves of the British Museum and as pawns by the British in their strategic positioning of retaining their looted Nigerian artworks.

One other recent noticeable insult at our intelligence, is that by the Museum of Art in Vienna through its funding of a widely publicised exhibition of lace textile materials in the Lagos Museum under the pretext of helping us to celebrate lace textiles, as part of our collective heritage. In reality, the whole essence of the funding of that exhibition by the Austrians is to reactivate their dying Austrian lace export trade to Nigeria. This being necessary because Austria has since lost its domineering market of lace cloth materials in Nigeria to China.

A painful disturbing experience of recent, is the behaviour of a Vice Chancellor of one of the first five universities in Nigeria. This Vice Chancellor had an “Anyanwu” (a bronze work of about ten feet) by Ben Enwowu uprooted from the living-room of his official residence. He also removed works of such great renowned master artists as Akinola Lashekan, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Ben Enwonwu from the walls of the Vice Chancellor’s official quarters as well as a door carved by the late Lamidi Fakeye. The Vice Chancellor has since sent all these great works to the storage section of the institution’s Museum of National History. This was done under his unenlightened presumption that artworks are demonic. He must have imagined how ghosts would haunt him as a result of the presence of these artworks in his official residence. All this is happening in this university that boasts of a solid department of fine arts, staffed with members of SNA without efforts being made to preserve the artworks by them.

Also disturbing is our fast-declining heritage as a great sculptural nation. If you recall, our forebears were more celebrated and acclaimed as sculptors than painters. This is more with particular reference to the situation observable at the Yaba College of Technology, which happens to be the first creative art institution in Nigeria. In that school, the 2011/ 2012 graduation class has only one sculptor as potential graduate being trained by eight to 10 lecturers, while there are 18 painters being trained by the same number of lecturers. The situation in YABATECH is not particularly different from what is happening in other art institutions in Nigeria. What is the Society of Nigerian Artists doing to arrest this decline in sculptural art practice in Nigeria? The SNA needs to address this problem, which effect is evident at most galleries in Nigeria and even at exhibitions organised by the Art Galleries Association of Nigeria which all feature an overwhelming preponderance of paintings as against the near absence of sculptural artworks. What is the society of Nigerian artists doing with respect to addressing the problems affecting the growth and development of visual art in Nigeria? What is it doing to draw the attention of the government of Nigeria to some of these observations? There is a need to restructure the Society of Nigerian Artists to position it as a strong spokesman and vanguard of protecting the interest of Nigeria artists and the creative works of our great creative minds.

Making an impact when it comes to protecting the historical, cultural and artistic legacy of Nigeria’s heritage will only be successful if all of us commit ourselves to their protection. As artists, art lovers, collectors and Nigerians, it is our responsibility to communicate the importance of art resource to the general public in a way that would invoke pride and passion. It is our responsibility to create a Nigeria in which such acts of desecrating our artistic heritage would, in no way be tolerated. In the meantime, we must do everything to protect our collective artistic creativity which is currently under great threat.

If this fight is not led by the Society of Nigerian Artists, The National Gallery of Art , The Association Of Gallery Owners Of Nigeria and The Visual Art Society Of Nigeria, then who will lead it? If we do not take a stand now our future generations will only have us to blame.

This paper was delivered at the 2012 AGM of The Society of Nigerian Artists, held at The Meridien Hotel in UYO, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria on the 24th of August 2012 by Prince (Engr) Yemisi Shyllon

Prince (Engr) Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon is the Chairman/CEO Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation (OYASAF).

Talking Drum… Africa’s rhythmic export

Although it’s of West African origin, the Talking Drum - as OYASAF’s research shows - has found its way into other parts of the continent and overseas, exporting the magic of using a single musical instrument to communicate in pitches.

An artisan, making talking drums in, ketu, Lagos, Southwest, Nigeria

Talking drum is hourglass-shaped and two-faced, with a drum on each end. It is also known as 'waist-drum,' since the hourglass shape appears to give the drum a waist-like form. The drum is made from animal hide, and have leather chords, which run along its body attached to the animal hide at the other end. Talking drum varies in sizes; from the smallest called gangan to the largest known as dundun.

The talking drum is held under the left arm and squeezed as the drummer hits each surface with a bent stick. The act of squeezing the chord changes the pitch and gives various notes: the harder the drum is squeezed, the higher the note produced, giving the drum a type of rythym that can be used to communicate in various African languages.

The origin of talking drum can be traced to the ancient old Oyo Empire, from where its popularity spread to other West African cities prior to the Transatlantic slave trade. And with the slave trade, the drum was sub-consciously exported to Central, South America and the Caribbean as a result of the Transatlantic Trade in slaves. Quite interesting, the drum, according to sources, was banned when the slave masters found out that African slaves were using it to communicate.

Talking drum is called by different names across West Africa, some of which include gangan, dundun (Yoruba), Kalangu, Dan darbi (Hausa), dondo (Songhai), igba (Igbo) and donno, lunna (Dagbani Gurunsi).


A Yoruba talking drummer (note how he squeezes the drum's chord with his left hand).

The pitch of the drum can be regulated based on how the player strikes the surface of the drum to change its rhythm. The pitches of the drum can mirror people’s voice, hence the name ‘talking drums.’

Wider strength of the talking drum’s pitch and rhythms is the ability to communicate with the spiritual world, according to the faith of each African tribe. For example, the talking drum produces prayers and blessings for every new day in countless villages across West Africa. It’s one of the oldest instruments used by griots in West Africa, particularly in most part of Yoruba land, till date.

Croyle Ekong is OYASAF's 2012 intern on contemporary art

Strengthening its mission in capacity building for scholarly art disciplines, OYASAF has offered internship opportunity to a U.S-based scholar in contemporary art and curatorial studies.

 Amber Croyle Ekong, a Nigerian-American based in U.S, is currently the Contemporary Art and Curatorial Intern with OYASAF.  

Amber Croyle Ekong

Although she has diverse interest and a mixed education, she has decided to focus her academic and professional disciplines on Visual Arts.

 Ekong hopes to continue her work in the U.S. after the internship with OYASAF.

 Some of her briefs at OYASAF include program planning, documentation, curatorial, management and artists-relation.

Ekong has an eclectic academic background, having majored in Politics and minored in Spanish at Pomona College in Southern California while completing extensive coursework in Visual Arts and History.

After graduating in 2003, Ekong completed a yearlong appointment as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in Mexico City where she studied Latin American Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and launched an independent community education project.

While gaining professional experience in admissions, international marketing, program development, and administration, Ekong studied Apparel Design at Seattle Central Community College in 2007 followed by doing contract fashion design and customised hand embroidery work.

Reflecting the diversity of her commitments, she joined in founding the Umojafest Peace Center in 2008 (a space for community engagement and activism), where she was Campaign Manager for candidate Wyking Garrett in the Seattle mayor’s race and Chair of the Ecojustice and Sustainability Committee.

Throughout her sojourn, Ekong has been a supporter of and participant in the arts: she worked as an Art Specialist and Site Manager at the City of Seattle Bath House Gallery and Event Center as well as a committed volunteer to organizations such as the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas.

OYASAF, Lagos university empower artists at 2nd Art Entrepreneurship Workshop

Again, Omoba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation (OYASAF) supports one of Nigeria’s leading universities in empowering artists via workshops.

It’s the Creative Arts Department, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos' workshop tagged Unilag Art Entrepreneurship Workshop.

At the closing ceremony, awards were given to some outstanding participants. 

 Sessions for the workshop included jewelry (chain mail/wire knitting /sheet metal work/ bead stringing) as well as watercolour painting and an open session in ceramics.
  A resource person and African-American artist Brett Cook,  joined others such as Sam Ovraiti, Ibe Ananaba, Ato Arinze, and Ariyo Oguntimehin to facilitate the workshop.

Prince Yemisi Shyllon (left), giving one of the participants a certificate during the closing ceremony.

PHOTO BY: OYASAF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER, OGUNTIMEHIN ARIYO

   The founder of OYASAF, Prince Yemisi Shyllon disclosed that master printmaker, Dr. Bruce Onobrakpeya’s “revelation to me that Uli Beier’s art workshop, Mbari Mbayo changed his art, inspired and encouraged me to get involved in this workshop”. Shyllon argued that Nigeria should emulate Japan, the far-east country that has no mineral resources, but is the third largest economy in the world, “based on creativity and production.”

  Onobrakpeya, who was a special guest at the event, said he was glad that Dr. Peju Layiwola and Shyllon organised the workshop. He stated that “am not surprised because for 12 years, Layiwola participated in the annual Harmattan Workshop at Agbaro-Otor, Delta State.” According to the great artist, Shyllon “has set the pace in promoting art, as the workshop has brought the town and gown together.”

  Awardees of the second Unilag Entrepreneurship Workshop and chosen for being the best in each of the sessions included Uche Ezebiro, for wireworks; Uhorha Splendour, watercolour; Temilola Marindoti, beads; Ojetunde Sherriff, ceramics.

 

Art community deepens OYASAF scholars' missions

Ahead of the conclusion of researches by two Omoba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Foundation (OYASAF) fellowship grantees, Amanda Hellman of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S and Erin Rice from University of Bern, Switzerland, the Lagos art community had an interactive session with the visitors.

Amanda Hellman, Yemisi Shyllon and Erin Rice

PHOTO BY: OYASAF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER, OGUNTIMEHIN ARIYO

 While Hellman and Rice gave separate reports of their works, responses from the audience offered the visiting scholars more info into the dynamics of the country’s art, particularly in areas that may help enrich the researches.

Amanda is working on what she themes The Intersection between Museum Development and Modern Art in Nigeria as well as researches one of the two pioneers of Nigerian modern art, Akinola Lasekan. Rice focuses The Architecture of Identity: Textiles and Impermanence in the Construction of Art and Space in Nigeria and Ghana.

  Inside the OYASAF Conference, on Wednesday, June 13, 2012, participants at the interactive section included artists such as Kolade Oshinowo, Olu Amoda, Dr Peju Layiwola, Kunle Adeyemi, Oliver Enwonwu, Ato Arinze as well as art connoisseurs and enthusiasts.

  Art writers and journalists such as Ozolua Uhakheme, Tajudeen Sowole, Chuka Nnabuife, Okechukwu Uwazuoke, Melinda Akinlami, Chioma Okpara, among others also participated.

Hellman, Chief Mrs Funmilayo Shyllon, Yemisi Shyllon, Rice and artists, art journalists, art enthusiasts, shortly after the interactive session.

PHOTO BY: OYASAF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER, OGUNTIMEHIN ARIYO

  In contributions from the participants which touched areas such as the background of the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos, attitude of Nigerians' museum going culture, role of Akinola Lasekan in Nigerian contemporary art and new use of textile by artists, Amanda and Erin, hoped to expand their research to cover as many areas as suggested.

  The founder of OYASAF, Prince Yemisi Shyllon stated that the grantees' visit to Nigeria stresses the organisation’s commitment to expand the knowledge-base of of the world about Nigerian art. He also disclosed that Hellman and Rice would proceed to visit art resource centres such as Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, and various art studios and traditional sites in Osogbo, Osun State.

Switzerland-based scholar focuses textiles in African art space

As more African artists, home and the Diaspora are using textile to enhance concept and theme, one of the two first set of OYASAF fellowship scholars in 2012, Erin Rice rsearches what she calls The Architecture of Identity: Textiles and Impermanence in the Construction of Art and Space in Nigeria and Ghana.

Erin Rice pictured inside OYASAF garden, in Lagos. PHOTO BY: OYASAF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER, OGUNTIMEHIN ARIYO

She notes that though the technique of using textile is not new, but it's a recent experience for most artists just as the interest is growing. And between style and technique - within modernity and contemporaneity context - Rice argues that "contemporary reflects the time, modern reflects the technique."

Rice is from the doctoral program at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Before coming to Nigeria on May 31, 2012, her project focused on the works of El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare and Sokari Douglas Camp, all of whom use or reference textiles in their sculptural work, using themes such as Ghanaian native textile, kente, Dutch Wax Print otherwise known as ankara in Nigeria, and injiri respectively. She examined the relevance of these textiles in the works within the context of the Western art world.

By taking her research to Lagos, she hopes to gain an understanding of how textiles function in everyday life and in contemporary art on a local level, which will add a new, critical dimension to her work.

Her thesis addresses several key questions relevant to Nigeria:

§  What role(s) do textiles play in contemporary Nigerian society?

§  How do textiles symbolize the identity of Nigerian artists when exhibiting abroad?

§  How are artists within Nigeria using textiles? How is their use different from those in Europe and the US?

§  How have textiles shaped the construction of space in the post-Independence era?

§  How can traditional forms of impermanent architecture shed light on newer forms of building?

§  Within the construction of these spaces, how is the identity of the community being addressed or symbolized?

American scholar researches Nigerian pioneer cartoonist, Lasekan

Promoting educational research and scholarship on Nigerian art, the Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation (OYASAF) Fellowship program, has admitted another scholar, Amanda Hellman of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Every year, scholars from reputable universities across the world are given the OYASAF Fellowship Grant to research a particular area of Nigerian art.

Amanda is an art historian and curator, whose interest is in the study of the works of Akinola Lasekan, one of Nigeria’s art pioneer artists. An important objective of her stay with OYASAF is to research into traditional African art and museum development in Nigeria.

Amanda Hellman of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

On arrival, Hellman told OYASAF team that negative and disheartening stories about Nigeria were not enough to discourage her from coming. She noted that there are very positive aspects of Nigeria, which attracted her, based on information gathered from friends in U.S. and England. This, she said made it easier to  accept the OYASAF Fellowship Grant. Though visiting Nigeria for the first time, she stated that she has so far found Nigeria to be very interesting and unlike every other place she has visited across the world.

  

Since her arrival at OYASAF, she has met other visiting scholars such as Professor Kazunobu Ikeya, from the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan and a lecturer of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Osun State, Southwest Nigeria, Mr. Steve Folaranmi.

Hellman also partook in the arrangement of art works at the Metropolitan Club in Victoria Island, Lagos. She has visited places of interests in Lagos such as Quintessence Gallery, Falomo, Jazzhole, Ikoyi, Nike Art Gallery, Lekki, Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Yaba, Jankara and Balogun markets.

  She revealed that having seen the diversified collection of OYASAF, it goes to multiply her inspiration and love for traditional African art. She expressed her high esteem and appreciation for the aesthetic value in traditional African art.

Amanda is a strong follower of Lasekan’s work, and has been introduced to some number of the artist’s works in the OYASAF collection. The works she has seen confirms the high value, style, technique and method of approach in Lasekan’s paintings coupled with the philosophy behind the artist’s work. She has extensively read articles written by Lasekan and looks forward to working with museums in Nigeria, especially the Lagos museum. 

  She intends to meet her counterparts in the Lagos, Ibadan, and Ife art circles as well as visiting artists' studios in Lagos as part OYASAF's programming for her.

  Amanda has also been studying traditional African art in Nigeria’s colonial era and therefore looks forward to her research work in OYASAF.

  She is highly impressed with the diversity and quality of the collection of OYASAF that she has so far encountered. She has experienced viewing at close range, a large number of the OYASAF collection, even though she is yet to cover much of these works which cut across all aspects of modern, traditional and contemporary painting, sculpture and photograph.

 Hellman hopes that after her research work at OYASAF, she will share the refreshing experience of traditional African art and Lasekan’s work with her academic counterparts in the U.S.