Sunday 31 May 2015

A Strip of art appreciation's 'missing link'


By Tajudeen Sowole

Confinement of art appreciation within the elitist and conservative old space has been the 'strength' of art, despite efforts of different cultures to break the exclusivity. For example, Nigeria has not been short of several efforts at promoting art appreciation at the grassroots, which include competitive levels of value.


However, in the three art exhibitions at a newly opened Rele Gallery, Onikan, Lagos, there seem to be emerging a fresh approach in melting the conservative rock of art appreciation;  conscious efforts of the themes beam searchlight on a what could be the missing link. Currently showing till June 7, 2015 is Strip, the third of the three exhibitions since Rele opened in February this year.  

A Photography piece titled Emotions in Motions by Reza Bonna.


Specifically, Strip, a group art exhibition of seven artists - three painters and four photographers - may get critics more curious to expand the contents of appropriating art in keeping pace with contemporaneity.

Rele opened with My Street Economics on  March 8 - 22 and added Lagos Hustle & Hope on  March 28, which ran for 3 weeks. Inside the modest Rele space, works of painters Ayoola Gbolahan, Ibeabuchi Anababa and Isaac Emokpae as well as photographers Kelechi Amadi-Obi, Reza Bonna, Toyosi Faridah Kekere Ekun and Luqor Oluwamuyiwa Adeyemi are very daring, on female body exposures, this quiet morning, particularly, when the visitor has no one to share the viewing with. Few minutes later, the whole idea about new space, designed to open the art appreciation environment is better explained.  "We are bringing in themes that could open up the art space," says Adenrele Sonariwo, founder of Rele.  "I know that the market for art is broad, and in Nigeria, we are just scratching the surface." Sonariwo whose experience of Nigerian art is roughly six years old, after her studies in the U.S., is though short, but her view about inadequate explorting of the art market is faultless. However, her Rele space appears to have set out at a period of ascendancy in market value for African art, suggesting that she has to define a path rarely walked. For a young lady full of creative enterprise, Strip and the two previous shows are every inch speaking to young generation of art enthusiasts.  

Like some lone art pieces or body of work that dwell on nudity, Strip also attempts to draw a line between creative nude content and eroticism. Irrespective of one's level of tolerance for flesh exposure  on the canvas, the artists of Strip challenge perception by stressing the art contents at the gathering.  Don't mind the 'installation of a stark nude drawing with red bra dropped on the improvised-canvas room divider; I think the real art contents are on the walls at Rele.

Entering Rele through the main door is a graceful 'welcome' from a drawing titled Queen of the Night, on stained plexiglass, by Emokpae. For either of several reasons or all combined, the painting harasses attention: a stained glass technique with near sculptural texture, infectious drawing skills or composite incendiary style, are some of the attractions available to red-tag Queen of the Night.

It takes a follower of Gbolahan's blue lady themes to appreciate the eye-poping and graphic display of female nudity in the two paintings he is showing at Strip. In the last few years, the artist has been making spiritual statement in what he calls "Blue Woman". At Rele, his works titled What Do You Want of Me and Blue Star, supposedly, continue the spiritual encounter he had in a dream in 2007. But for Strip, the artist has additional explanation for her blue women on canvas. "I don't paint nudity, I paint confidence in her own skin."

Ananaba's mastery of lighting in painting suggests a cover from where the artist's skill exudes modest nude figures in watercolour paintings. Sometimes, the lighting brings uncommon masculine muscle onto the female body as suggest in  one of the four paintings, Morning Stretch. "My creative direction is largely driven by both exploration and exploitation of the human figure to deliver messages that, one way or the other, challenges one's thought or warms the other person's heart," Ananaba says in the catalogue of the exhibition.

 A painting titled Untainted by Ibe Ananaba.        
For reasons best known to the curators, Wana Udobang and Ayodeji Rotinwa, the photography works are separated from the paintings, suggesting division or a two-exhibitions event in one show. If the near separation via covert line takes anything away from the commonality shared by the artists, works of Reza Bonna, in digital techniques attempt to blur such line. In fact, the painterly technique in the works from the digital process links the photography 'section' and the paintings divide of the gathering. Works like Emotions in Motions as well as Humans Support System instill some sort of team spirit system via body and soul connection. Quite monochromatic, the works, among others at the gathering also faintly draw the line between art and nudity. Arguing that the human body "is the ultimate and purest fusion of art," Bonna stresses how art, naturally, "provoke thought, invoke emotions and revoke barriers."

Quite unlike Amadi-Obi, eight works in one exhibition without a single digital effect or any of the techniques his photography is known for. In the simplicity of the eight pieces - inside a room not shared by any of the exhibiting artists at Rele - comes the infectious locations chosen for the shoots as well as the capture of lighting on the flesh of the subjects. For example, Harmony, a high key lighting gives impression of a sculptural image. 

So it seems every artist at the show has to defend the obvious nudity theme of the gathering. Clothes, Amadi-Obi argues, are bordered by period, places and culture. But for striped body, "movements/poses are universally understood; you are speaking to humanity at once."

Inside the three walls room at Rele, covert nude styles by Kekere-Ekun and high key contrast light works by Adeyemi bring two kind of textures into Strip. While Kekere-Ekun adds more value to modeling photography beyond frontal and crude nudity, making silhouette more creative, Adeyemi's style confronts his subject head-on "Nudity is honest and humbling," she states, adding that it goes "back to the basics, connecting with one's true self as we ought to in our quiet moments."

For Adeyemi, the grainy texture of the lighting is perhaps what stands his works out, particularly as explained in Georgia, as the penetration of the lighting goes skin deep. 

For populating the walls of a new gallery with raw nudity, the curators have explanations too: "The body is the first thing we encounter, even before the human being." The curatorial statement goes back into centuries, noting how human body "has been a source of fantasy, obsession, liberation, struggle, oppression, voyeurism, politics, shame, commoditisation and of course a reference point to reality."

           A photography portrait titled Spirited Away by Toyosi Faridah Kekere-Ekun


Indeed, the renaissance and modern periods of classics in nude paintings and sculptures would not escape the articulation of the curators. "Artists have long preoccupied themselves with documenting this endless source of expression, a reflection of an enduring time where we as a people are equally obsessed." In fact they argue that celebrating the art of nude form, over the ages, some "discoveries," have been made that "ascertained self-worth." Such feats, the curators lament, have been confined "as personal journeys, to be spoken of in hushed tones."

Perhaps it take fresh names like Udobang and Rotinwa - in the art appropriation scene of Lagos - to bring the hushed tones alive into daring images."We showcase a collection of nudes in varying degrees by painters and photographers and we seek to amplify the body of conversation."  

Saturday 23 May 2015

Bonhams' $1.3m Sale Make New World Records For Modern African Art


Bonhams sale of Modern African Art – ‘Africa Now’ – made a total £827,000 (NGN256million or US$1.3million) in London, on Wednesday  May, 20 with a number of new world records achieved.

One of the top sales, Africa Dances by Ben Enwonwu
These new records, according to Bonhams, were from Erhabor Emokpae (Nigerian, 1934-1984) ‘Eda’, sold for £10,625; Ato Delaquis, (Ghanaian, born 1945) 'Flamboyants', sold for £9,375; Bernard Matemera (Zimbabwean, 1946-2006), ‘Elephant Spirit’ sold for £7,750; and for a wooden sculpture by El Anatsui (lots 64 and 65 sold for £62,500 or $100,000 each). The superstar Ghanaian artist recently received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia.

The top ten pictures in the sale were dominated by two names, Ben Enwonwu and Yusuf Grillo.

The most valuable item in the sale was by Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu, an elegant bronze figure ‘Anyanwu Simplified’ which bears many similarities to the sculpture commissioned for the National Museum of Lagos in 1958. It was the top lot in the sale at £74,500. His painting 'Africa Dances' 1973 depicting an energetic dance that serves as a metaphor for Africa’s identity sold for £68,500 was the second highest price.

Giles Peppiatt, Director of African Art at Bonhams said after the sale: “Once more records fell in our Africa Now sale. The strength of demand from buyers for this newly appreciated art is growing steadily. Sales and exhibitions and media coverage of this phenomenon is helping to drive interest which is fantastic news for a whole new generation of African artists.”

When art historians look back on the 20th Century, the voices and vision of a small group of trail-blazing artists whose lives bridged the gap between Africa and Europe will be seen and heard to be hugely significant.

The ‘Africa Now’ auctions at Bonhams showcase works by these African Masters, along with many others from across the continent; Mozambique, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo were all represented. These pioneers lead this giant continent of 54 countries in a visual language that is increasingly being seen and acknowledged around the world.

For centuries, African and European art had largely followed independent trajectories. However, by 1950 a handful of artists emerged who were interested in bridging the gap between the two cultures.

Pioneering modernists from Nigeria, Ben Enwonwu (1917-1994), Uzo Egonu (1931-1996) and Yusuf Grillo (born 1934), were instrumental in orchestrating this change that paved the way for the next generation who are truly international in their aesthetic and exhibit their work all over the world.

Degradation of Lagos coastline, according to Idu's The Other World


By Tajudeen Sowole
Environmental degredation of Lagos coastal areas takes the attention of painter, Chika Idu's palette, suggesting that domestic activities are as culpable as unregulated industrial factors as well as poor management of wastes.

Task by Chika Idu
 Idu's paintings on canvas, which capture polluted waters are on display as The Other World, a solo art exhibition showing from today and ending 30, May 2015, at Alexis Galleries, Victoria Island, Lagos. If Idu thought that Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola's 'Eko o Ni Baje' slogan of prosperous Lagos has, in eight years, imparted positively on the attitude of the people, the artist was wrong; an alternative transportation by ferry gave a different picture.

 From paintings that capture suspected unauthorised sand dreadgings, to defecating by rural dwellers on water along the coastal areas as well as polluted surface of waters with sea of non-biodegradeable plastic and nylon, Lagos coastal line apparently, is a huge contrast to Fashola's 'Eko O Ni Baje', at least from Idu's painterly perspective.

  Sponsored by Litho-Chrome, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Cool TV, Wa Zo Bia TV, Cool FM, Nig Info Lagos, Wa Zo Bia FM, Arra Wines The Avenue Suites, Nova Internet Solutions, Chocolate Royal, The Homestores Art Café and Alexis Galleries, Idu's The Other World also offers a window into the double edge sword of government policy, particularly how implementation and enforcement suffers in an electioneering periods. However, The Under World is not political or an affront in challenging government's policy, rather it complements it. "My work is more of an environmental awareness campaign," the painter who resides in Ikorodu, a satelite town off the coast of Lagos and Victoria Islands explains to select guests during a preview. "It shows different view of Lagos in the areas of sand digging from the water and pollution of the surface by used plastics and nylons."

 Some of the works include children and young adult themes rendered in impasto texture impressionism. Apart from using the exhibition to display his skill in underwater painting, some of the works stress the health hazards of a poorly managed environment. For example, Water Everywhere depicts children scooping 'cleaner water' from a dirty surface. "From the same water in which the people take bath, defecate and do all sorts of washings, they still get water for cooking and drinking," the artist alleges.

 The complexity of regulating or improving the living conditions of inhabitants across coastlines into the overall environment management policy of Lagos state is a recurring issue. Perhaps, it takes those who are close to the people who build their houses on stilts to understand the challenges of lack of understanding between government and the inhabitants. Idu, who once had his studio at Makoko, a popular coastline settlement for fishermen, sand diggers and plank workers, recalls the cultural factor that keeps the people perpetually living on the water.  "When I used to have my studio at Makoko, I found out that the people are naturally stuck to the place." He notes "the people's claims that living on the water is ancestral heritage."

 Co-curator at Alexis, Patty Chidiac says Idu has "a vibrant style" that is "not easy to copy" by other artists. He has been on the radar of the gllery since three years, she discloses.
  A member of Defactori studio Idu is currently teaching art at the French international School Lagos

  Some of Idu’s selected shows include The Light 1996 at Bishop Vinine  Lagos; Discovery   2002, Muson Centre Lagos; Fusion   2003 Nimbus Gallery Lagos;  Ndinnta  2003 Maison De France Lagos; solo such as Our Experience 2004 National Musium Lagos; Timeless  2014 at Tera Kulture Gallery  Lagos; and Intro,  Quintessence Gallery  Lagos.