Wednesday 31 July 2013

Sculptor, Balogun returns from Sweden, keeps 'redirecting'

Sculptor, Adeola Balogun, has just returned from a two-month workshops and exhibitions Matter Redirected, in Uttersberg, Sweden.


Adeola Balogun with one of his metal works, in Sweden.


The artist who returned to Nigeria few weeks ago, explains to a gathering yesterday, in Lagos that he hopes to continue with his mission of 'redirecting' materials in Nigeria and abroad, specifically, with a planned show in the U.S. before the end of the year.

Ife Dynasty goes back to Europe


Amanda Thompson of Museum for African Art, New York, U.S {left}, the Director-General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments {NCMM}, Mallam Yusuf Abdallah Usman and Hon Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, High Chief Edem Duke,during the preview of another European tour of the exhibition, Ife Dynasty and Divinity, in Lagos, yesterday

After touring Spain, the U.K and U.S. cultural objects of Ife, Osun State, Soutwest Nigeria origin as Ife Dynasty and Divinity exhibition, the artefacts continue their journey in another collaboration, this time with National Museums of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden. 

Friday 26 July 2013

‘For technological advancement, children art is fundamental’

By Tajudeen Sowole
The solution to Nigeria’s lack of technological advancement may remain elusive unless creativity is built into the formal and informal upbringing of the young ones via art, a lecture forum of First National Children Art Exhibition has argued.
Organised by the National Gallery of Art {NGA} at Cyprien Ekwensi Centre for Art and Culture, Garki, FCT, Abuja the lecture segment of the exhibition had a perfect choice of guest speaker in artist and architect, Prince Demas Nwoko, for a topic that, basically, links technological growth to the importance of children art education, formal or informal. 
   
Nwoko, 78, is a renowned artist and architect whose works, particularly in architecture are highly revered. In fact, his career, which started evolving as a trained fine artist and later architect, indeed, underscores the argument that technology cannot be built on the vacuum of art. 
  
During his lecture, Nwoko stressed that technology as a discipline cannot exist “without the knowledge of art”. He explained that if children are taken through art education at the elementary and secondary schools, their “aesthetic judgment” when they become professionals on the field of technology or any science related areas “will be more exact”.
 
  1. D-G, Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Mrs Sally Mbanefo viewing works during the opening of the First National Children Art Exhibition in Abuja.
Ahead of Nwoko’s lecture, the Chairman Senate Committee on Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Senator Hammed Hassan Barata; the Minister, High Chief Edem Duke; Minister of Youth Development, Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir; and host, the Director-General of NGA, Abdullahi Muku had stressed the importance of creativity in children for the future growth of the country.
Among the special guests were the newly appointed Director-General of Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, Mrs Sally Mbanefo; former classmate of Nwoko at the Nigeria College of Art, Science and Technology {NCAST, now Ahmadu Bello University, ABU}, artist, Jimoh Akolo; and foremost Nigerian art historian, Prof Ola Olaoidi of University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
   
Noting that technological development “is dependent upon full engagement of the Arts”, Barata, who was the chairman of the event assured the gathering that the National Assembly will continue to give the NGA necessary support. “This would be better achieved through forums like this where the nation’s children are encouraged to discover their talents at young age”.
Duke also agreed that the future of Nigeria’s technological development lies in the creative contents of raising today’s children. “Today’s child art is the assurance of the virility of tomorrow’s creative industry”. He however acknowledged that “Nwoko’s vibrancy, both as a scholar and artist will aid” stronger understanding of raising creative children to become adults that will excel in whatever chosen field in the future.
Abdulkadir stated that the event was a “huge investment for the future of Nigeria”, capable of providing “a springboard for reawakening culture”.
For Muku, the art exhibition and lecture came as an icing on the cake of several children and youth related creative gatherings organised by NGA across the country, regularly. The  programmes, he said are aimed at promoting creativity and patriotism among children  He listed such programmes as Saturday Art Club, Annual National Children’s Day Art Competition/Exhibition series held  at 23 outstations of NGA across the country as well as National Visual Arts Competition for Children

On the theme of the lecture, Our Future Lies in Children Art, Muku argued that bringing a Nwoko, an artist whose career bridges art and technology to speak on the subject offers a broader perspective through the guest speaker’s experience. “His well of knowledge is deep” enough to offer the intellectualism “we are bound to benefit from”.
 

The guest lecturer, Prince Demas Nwoko.

After delivering their speeches to a packed -hall of adults and of selected students from primary and secondary schools in Abuja, Nwoko’s much-awaited presentation had to wait a little longer as Duke led guests out of the hall to the opening ceremony of the art exhibition. On display were works of young artists, which, according to Muku have been selected from across the country via the various children art events organised by NGA.
Although Nwoko’s lecture was eventually delivered to an estimated half of the audience that started the event – excluding Duke, Abdulkadir, Barata and Mbanefo - the argument about making children go through art at formative formal and informal education levels as a springboard for the future advancement of a nation was more explicit. Read by Helen Uhunmwagho as the author sat beside the podium, Nwoko’s paper asked a very salient question and suggested an answer. “How can we achieve technological development through art?
He started by defining technology as the process of making things “through the practice of craftsmanship to interpret design”. Nwoko noted that at the early age, children are “armed with the keen awareness of their immediate environment. He therefore noted that with the early formal education being given to a child in the contemporary world, “children art is the only viable avenue for developing the aesthetic senses and craftsmanship of the child fully”. He explained how the early formative stage of the child’s art inclination has a link to proper understanding of the environment. “The art is a means of measuring how developed the children have become in their understanding ability to the world around them and participate effectively in its development and management”.

And as creating art is about image and picture, Nwoko stressed that “drawings and colour codes are essential tools of science and technology”.
As an architect whose works are renowned for their native African contents, Nwoko warned that a people’s quest for science and technological self-reliance is incomplete without digging into their identity. He argued that the advanced countries have succeeded in creating enviable images that reflect their own identity and culture, from which they make “products that can compete in the global market place where you are required to present your own copyrighted products”.
And as Nwoko tasked the designer of Nigeria’s elementary education on the importance of art education he concluded his presentation by warning that “if the current state of art education continues, we are not going to reach the promised land of technological development by our projected year of 2020”. 
Indeed, art education at the elementary level must have been denigrated such that the “best” of art teachers do not think they should practise outside the tertiary institutions. This much, a member of the audience noted – during the interactive session of the lecture - and lamented that such system leaves children art in the hands of inexperienced teachers. Professors in art, he argued, should not exclude primary and secondary schools in their choice of places of work if truly, child art is fundamental to development of the larger society.
It is also of note that in the last one decade or more, a section of art teachers in the tertiary institutions across the country have expressed fear over the quality of students enrolling to study art as well as the declining numerical strength of enrolment. The issue was also revisited by by the chairman of the lecture, Dr ken Okoli of Department of Fine Art, ABU. “Enrolment in art schools is dropping” Okoli stated.

Osagie’s impressionism strokes into three decades on canvas




By Tajudeen Sowole

Getting close to his 30 years in post-training practice, Osazuwa Osagie represents a section of his generation of artists immersed in the studio, but hoping to strengthen their influence as pioneers in the full-time studio profession.

    It has been observed that some artists, among those who promoted full-time studio practice in the 1980s seemed to have, sub-consciously, withdrawn from the art exhibition circuits in the last one decade. Osagie, though is “fulfilled” in his nearly 30 years career, he apparently, is ready to engage the public stronger, more so that he intends to move into another stage of his art. And since last year when he had his solo art exhibition titled Views In Colours at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos – after a very long break – he would not want to go back into another studio recluse, again.
    Currently strengthening his studio practice and also freelancing as a cartoonist with a national daily, The Nation, Osazuwa stated that his “professional life” has been full of adventures with less breathing space such that a solo show had been in the plan for long, “but my busy practice made it impossible”. 

    Another solo is not exactly in view this year, but keeping in touch with the general public, he explained, is not all about exhibition, “but stepping into another phase of my art and updating the public”.  “I have had a very busy professional life in nearly 30 years of practice, but it has happened so fast”. He recalled how an unsuccessful attempt was made at having a solo show few years ago. His busy studio schedules, he disclosed “made it impossible”. The unrealised show, he said, was planned to “mark his 25 years of my professional career”.
    1. One Too Many by Osazuwa Osagie.

    Being a cartoonist, perhaps, has filled the gap of direct touch with the art loving public, but not exactly enough to express himself fully an in having exhibition. This much he got with his last show. Building towards the 30th anniversary, he hoped to remain constant in the minds of his followers.

    As an artist, particularly more engaged in portraiture and several other commissioned works, the experience in the past three decades, he said, remains invaluable. However, Osagie is looking forward to bringing all these to condense in his future art.

    This much, some of his works explain in what could be a new period of “creating argument with images”. Such works exude topical and social commentary, expressed in figural and spiced with refined rendition of “dialogue with art”.  And more importantly, the works stress the artist’s resolve to be more engaging with his strokes; clearly a characteristic that is synonymous with cartooning.
     
    And for every stroke, shades and light of Osazuwa’s on canvas, there is a spiritual connection one of the works from his new period titled In Thought explains this as much as the subject epitomizes a faint line between joy and depression.

    Clearly traditional form of painting, which Osagie is not likely to drop and join the growing converts of ‘cotemporary’ artists, has been facing some kind of systematic persecution in Nigeria, lately. But the strength of his themes, indeed, is in the commentary, so suggests works like Zulet a reclining posture captured during his undergraduate days at Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State; and In Thought, a mood, highlighting reflective or decision making moment.  

    Reflecting on his seemingly long absence on the exhibition circuit, he argued that it was not exactly a complete break out. “I have participated in group shows home and abroad, even a solo in Ghana”.
    Osazuwa Osagie

    He disagreed on constant exhibitions: “I think an artist should space exhibitions to create freshness”. But he admitted that, sometimes, “lined up of commissions” encroach into most artists’ planned exhibitions, hence the continue procrastinations.
    An artist, he noted, should maximize his creative licence by spreading across the diverse areas of art. For him, inspiration in this direction came from two of his older colleagues. “Kenny Adamson and Prof dele jegede inspired me”. Adamson is arguably one of the leading artists on the field of commissioned jobs in Lagos, particularly, of public art while jegede was once a household name in newspaper cartooning. “It’s better to be an artist than a painter; meaning that I can be engaged in other creative areas”.

    Osagie studied graduated at Auchi Polytechnic in 1984 and has since then been practicing in Lagos, except for a short break when he went to Ghana to experience the art scene of the former Gold Coast. He describes himself as “an Impressionist”

    Saturday 20 July 2013

    Policy somersault as ‘defective’ ARESUVA makes way for Abuja Biennale

    By Tajudeen Sowole
    With the announcement of a proposed Abuja Biennale, it appears that a similar event that had been existence, African Regional Summit on Visual Arts and Exhibition (ARESUVA) will finally be rested. This inconsistency would ostensibly send a wrong signal about Nigeria in international art circles. 
    The Abuja Biennale, according to a recent statement by National Gallery of Art (NGA), will hold towards end of year. With its debut in 2008, ARESUVA had its second and last edition in 2009. In 2010, the current Director-General of NGA, Abdullahi Muku – then acting after the erstwhile boss, Chief Joe Musa was suspended – announced that it would no longer hold as a yearly event, but “as biennale”, to commence the following year, 2011. In fact the odd year outing, it was stated then, would be good for ARESUVA, as it does not clash with the popular Dak’Art Biennale in Senegal. But between 2011 and now, ARESUVA has not held as a biennale nor has it reverted to its yearly design.



    The DG of NGA, Muku Abdulahi.


    In Lagos, Muku, who was the Special Guest of Honour, at a recent Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA)-organised Distinguished Lecture Series disclosed that NGA plans “to organise a new event to be known as Abuja Biennale”. He confirmed an earlier statement by his Personal Assistant, Mufu Onifade, who, on his behalf, during the British Council-led Nigeria’s preparation for Venice 2015, in Lagos, informed the gathering about the planned biennale. At each pronouncement, there was silence on the fate of ARESUVA.

    When NGA first presented ARESUVA in Lagos, the then D-G, Musa, had said the event was designed in line with New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) programme. As the two editions held back-to-back, ARESUVA gained short-lived but impressive attention from across Africa, based on the strength of its alignment with NEPAD.   
    However, what seemed a lack of solid foundation for ARESUVA started emerging soon after two editions, with another NGA event Art Expo Nigeria coming on stream. Inadequate preparations and lack of continuity, perhaps exposed the weak structure on which both events were conceptualised, and stunted befitting international art events for Nigeria. It should be recalled that with the emergence of the two events in 2008, hope was high that in the next few years, Nigeria would have taken its rightful place as a leading destination in international art gathering, particularly in Africa. 

    Across the world, art fairs, art expos and biennales have become part of the branding strategy in promoting creativity and enhancing the tourism potential of host countries. In fact in Africa, the Dak’Art Biennale, in Dakar, Senegal, has in the last two decades become one of the most visited international art events in Africa, playing host to artists within the continent and the Diaspora. Also, the Jo’burg Art Fair in South Africa has made a mark as a market for art of the continent and beyond.

    Five years after Art Expo Nigeria and ARESUVA came into being, it is glaring that there is no definite direction towards a sustained international art event for Nigeria.  While ARESUVA, from its format and contents was not sustainable, the Art Expo seemed to have shown greater prospect.

    Successful international art events across the world are exhibitions-based with forum or conference as sub-events. For ARESUVA, it was in the opposite order, with emphasis on proffer academic solutions to the dearth of art as a factor in contributing to the development of Africa. As laudable as the concept of gathering Africans from across the continent to tinker the economics of art was, ARESUVA seemed like an extended or international version of the NGA’s yearly twin events: National Symposium on Nigerian Art as well as Distinguished Lecture Series, which holds at a chosen higher institution of learning. 
    If the proposed Abuja Biennale must be taken seriously, it is important for NGA to clearly define the current state or future of ARESUVA. Silence over an event that had hosted international artists and art scholars just because there is a new concept appears untidy. A week after the announcement of Abuja Biennale in Lagos, Muku eventually disclosed during a chat that ARESUVA could no longer hold. “It’s replaced by the Abuja Biennale,” he stressed. Reminded that he was the one who pronounced that ARESUVA would continue as biennale from 2011, a promised that was never fulfilled, Muku admitted to the announcement he made in 2010 about making ARESUVA a biennale, but explained that the event was not sustainable the way it was conceptualised “because we found out that it was not presented at the AU” as perceived.

    Muku’s allegation that ARESUVA had no AU backing – an apparent dismissal of the NEPAD perspective on which the event was said to have been built – raises both credibility and lack of continuity issues. While a section of the visual arts community keeps blaming the current administration of NGA for the death of ARESUVA and the drop of standards in the Lagos International Art Expo, the foundations for the two events do not seem strong enough for continuity.
    Former DG of NGA, Joe Musa, presenting the Art Expo Nigeria and First African Regional Summit and Exhibition on the Visual Arts (ARESUVA) 2008 Publications to the then First Lady, Hajia (Dr) Turai Umaru Yar’Adua.
     For example, the Art Expo, despite having had five editions, is characterised by inconsistent in the crucial areas of identity and branding. In 2008, it made its debut in what NGA called “a franchise from U.S.-based ArtExpos”. A year after, it was changed from ArtExpo Nigeria to Art Expo Nigeria. The erratic identity continued in 2010, when it became International Art Expo Nigeria. Between 2010 and last year, the name had changed again; it’s currently International Art Expo Lagos.
    What a journey! Reason: a source from NGA disclosed that “no franchise was ever gotten from the U.S.-based organisers of ArtExpo Las Vegas and ArtExpo New York”.   Clearly, there are several untidy international affiliations, in fact, too many in the NGA-organised ARESUVA and Art Expo events.
    Are these events victims of inadequate funding or lack of proper articulation? Art scholar and studio artist, Dr. Kunle Adeyemi might have provided answers to this question in his article titled Lagos International Art Expo 2012: A Deceit of the Public, in response to the glaring lackluster performance of the fifth edition of the event in Lagos. Adeyemi advised that “If the vision of the Art Expo is not clear to the present executors – NGA and Art Galleries Association of Nigeria (AGAN) – they have a choice of either to pull it down completely or to re-invent it with professionals who have the knowledge and experience”.

    While NGA’s pronouncement on repositioning of Art Expo is being awaited, Adeyemi’s call for a “re-invent” appears to have been heeded, so suggests the dismantling of ARESUVA to pave way for Abuja Biennale.
    Indeed, biennales across the world are government-organised, but the proposed Abuja Biennale under NGA, given the government agency’s antecedence of tying its operations to perennial delays in yearly budgets of the Federal Government, it might just end up as ‘business as usual’. Such sole dependence on government’s funding has over the years led to the drastic drop in the quality of the yearly Lagos International Art Expo, despite the event’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) with AGAN.
    Like the Art Expo, a biennale is also art galleries format exhibition. But for the proposed Abuja Biennale, NGA is not ready to experience another AGAN “failure” in the PPP venture. It has therefore chosen to partner with Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA), “As we partnered AGAN in Art Expo, we are collaborating with SNA for Abuja Biennale,” Muku stated.
    It’s quite disturbing that despite the laudable participations and contributions of Nigerian artists and curators to events organised in other countries, such human resources are not being tapped to enhance the development of its international art events at home.

    Return of Isiuwe-couple for the sake of Human and Equestrian Life


    By Tajudeen Sowole
     About ten years after their last art exhibition together, couple artists Emmanuel and Angela Isiuwe are back on the Lagos art turf with a joint effort titled Our World, Human and Equestrian Life, holding at Didi Museum, Victorian Island, Lagos from tomorrow Saturday, ending Monday, July 27, 2013.  
     
    Central to the title of the exhibition is Emmanuel’s long time passion for horses. For Angela, it’s also a continuation of her interpretive lines, dragging viewers of her work into a higher intellectuality of art appreciation.
    With the Durbar and other equestrian themes that have been stressed on the Lagos art exhibition circuits, what else could be new or of interest painting horses? Horses, Emmanuel seems to be saying should be appreciated beyond using them for festivals or other common usage   “it’s about the relationship of man with horses,” Emmanuel explains. He argues that “nearly all the inventions of man are inspired by horse”. Noting that, it’s not coincidence, for example that some machines are decimated or classified, based on strength, in ‘horsepower.  
    In the Nigerian art scene that is gradually taking ‘contemporary ‘ contents more seriously, specialization or focus on being a master in specific areas, is often labeled as ‘repetitive themes’. Emmanuel is perhaps, one of the artists who disagree with the notion of repetitive themes. The longer, the masterly, so suggest some of his works. In fact, he boasts that he has “been paining horses since 1993”.
    In Our World, Human and Equestrian Life, one of the works titled Ghost Mode explains the attachment some people have to their horses. Emmanuel goes into the spiritual realm to bring a horse owner’s agony of losing his much cherished animal to the jaws of death.  The myth of ghost, he argues, is not just in humans, but across animals in general. 
    Viewed in soft copies, Emmanuel’s rendition of horses on canvas affords an opportunity to take another look at how nature creates diverse species of animals in one breed. Spotted among other horses in Guardian Angel, for example, is a white horse, supposedly of the stallion family. But there is more to it, Emmanuel explains, recalling that the capture is a reenactment of loose horses moving in Lagos, and may be “guarded by an angel horse”. Extra terrestrial support, he insists, is the only explanation he could arrive at seeing such “a distinct white horse among the stray and un-kept horses in Lagos”. 
    Quite of documentation value is Emmanuel’s Guardian Angel: loose horses were common site in Lagos and Victoria Islands until the Lagos State Government’s new laws on stray animals enacted last year, which empowers authority to prosecutes owners. What is however an alteration, which could be deceptive about Guardian Angel is the forest in the background – not exactly representative of a highly urban Lagos. 
         
    Angela’s strokes of brushes, largely in outlines forms are not exactly unfamiliar. She had shown in Biola Akinsola-led all women exhibition Naija Woman, the Creative Touch and several other group exhibitions.
     Between then and now, Angela has been “more elaborate”. The main difference, she discloses is the incursion from her fashion design background. This much she expresses in quite a number of fashion-related pieces, particularly, a monochrome piece titled Head Form, in subtle representation of the Niger Delta identity of western bowler hat, baggy shirt and native wrapper.  
    Of nostalgic, for Angela, is the walking stick, which she argues, “completes the symbol of authority, seeing my father in the attire, for example”. But Head Form could have been mistaken for just another depiction from the west; Niger Delta borrowed western hat alone is too foreign to stand on its own without the other native paraphernalia.  
    About ten years after their last show together, there has been indeed a long break. And that quite a lot of changes have taken place on the Lagos art scene, during this period, do not shut the Isiuwe couple’s art out of relevance, Angela assures. “Having taken a break for so long has its advantage; a bit of hunger brings more patronage”.
    While so much of experimentation is now common among artists to join the contemporary train as fast as possible, Emanuel insists that there are still so much yet untapped areas of the canvas. “Nigerian artists have yet to explore the canvas enough”.
    Part of Emmanuel’s bio reads: his works have made impressions locally and internationally. He has a style which has endeared him to many lovers of works of art worldwide. Emmanuel’s work has featured in many exhibitions in Nigeria, Benin Republic and the U.S.      

    For Angela Lagos and Abuja as well as several cities in Africa, Europe and  the U.S. have her paintings adorn Hotels, Offices and Homes. Angela renders her paintings in evocative swift lines. She is married with five children.