“Nike & Wewe”

TOLA WEWE, NIKE OKUNDAYE AND THE EMERGENCE OF A THIRD ARTIST: “NIKE & WEWE”

Most of us share the prevalent image of the artist as that of an independent, stand-alone figure, expressing her singular creativity through the production of artworks. This stereotypical image is deeply entrenched in the way artists are presented in the media and in the way originality and authenticity are valued in the art markets. Looking at the extensive collection of works signed jointly by Nike & Wewe in the exhibition currently showing at the new Nike Gallery in Lekki some questions about this way of art production came to my mind. And the reason is that collaborative art changes our accepted view of the figure of the artist, transforming individual artistic identity into a new merged identity.

"Nike & Wewe"

Beyond the indisputable quality of the canvases on display, there are issues of authorship, identity and authenticity that can’t be put aside. As if to confirm my initial feeling, I heard somebody at the opening of the exhibition: OK, it is alright to sign the works jointly, but actually, who is the real author of this work? Nike Okundaye or Tola Wewe? I guess the answer should have been: the author of these works is neither Nike nor Wewe, but a “third artist”: “Nike & Wewe”

If the negotiations between the “conceptual” and the “factual” aspects of art creation, between the idea and its execution, are generally rich in possibilities, in this case, they are central to the interpretation and analysis of the works on display. But first, a few thoughts about collaboration in the arts.

"Nike & Wewe"

There are many human activities that require the input of several people whether simultaneously or consecutively. A building may start with a few ideas in the mind of an architect, but to move from conceptual sketches to a habitable physical structure there is need for the contribution of several other professionals. Some art forms are collaborative by nature: film or video art, dance, theatre, musical performance, architecture, performance art. They require the involvement of several individuals. They are essentially collaborative.

Both, in the West and in Nigeria, there is a long tradition of art workshops producing art objects through a collaborative effort. In the large studios of European artists of the past it was not only the “master” that left his input on the canvases. Other less known painters and assistants applied their skills to the work eventually assigned to a single artist. And this was not a way of “corporate deceit” but a way of producing art.Rembrandt or Raphael did not have any problem in appending their names to works that had been produced in their studios and on which more than one artist had worked. In these cases, the name, personality and artistic genius of the “master” was so great as to eclipse his assistants. There is no doubt that the final work was Rembrandt’s.

Nike

It is only in the past 40 years that collaboration in the visual arts has emerged as an “issue” and as an “ideological position”. For instance, Warhol and Basquiat painted several canvases together. Warhol would use a projector to outline symbols, text, adverts, logos on the canvas and Basquiat would complete the work adding his highly expressive, grafitti-like inscriptions around –sometimes, on top of- Warhols’ drawings. No need to be a “connoisseur” to distinguish Warhol’s input from that of Basquiat. In recent history there are quite a few examples of two artists linked by family ties and working as a single practice: Christo and Jean-Claude (she died a few days ago), Ed and Nancy Kienholz, Robert and Sonia Delauney, Mark Dunhill and Tamiko O’Brien, the Wilson sisters come to mind, but in most cases the reason for the collaboration comes from a different source than physical proximity and the sharing of the a working space. There are joint practices that have become such not as an acknowledgement of a reality but as a result of a deliberate decision to produce artworks by adding the inputs of two artists. …

Wewe

In the last few years the vanguards seem to have moved gradually from being centred on the art object to focusing the attention on context and then to being concerned about the art production process through forms of collaborative or community art: it is the artist (or frequently, the art group) as a socially engaged activist. This is not the case with Nike and Wewe. They do not aim at posing a critical challenge to authorship issues. They did not set out to confront accepted theories of art as self-expression or to engage the community. Unlike most collaborative art practices in Europe after the 1970’s, the artistic collaboration of Wewe and Nike is not intrinsic to their joint work. Their dual signature approach is not a strategy to advance a new understanding of artistic identity. They work within an established understanding of art practice. It is just that they “happen to work together” and divide their work because this makes things easier for both.

In the collaborative art practice of Tola Wewe and Nike Okundaye there is no much loss of personal identities. What has been called a “third artist” seems to have emerged, an artistic persona without reality beyond their jointly executed works. This third artist “Nike & Wewe” appears with identifiable characteristics and a separate artistic personality. The new artist (meta-artist) “appropriates” the working styles and mannerisms of both artists and produces works that are, in my opinion, greater than the addition of the two component elements. The canvasses of “Nike & Wewe” possess the particularity, differentiation and uniqueness proper to an individual artist. In many ways, these works are richer than those produced by Wewe or Nike separately. One of the reasons for the success of their collaborative practice is that each artist respects the boundaries of the other one.

"Nike & Wewe"

In most instances collaborative painting has been done by two or more artists (or one artist and his/her apprentices) working as one and working at the same time. In the collaborative works of Tola Wewe and Nike the respective contributions are mainly sequential: Tola first, Nike second. I understand that the process consists of two discreet steps: first Tola conceives the compositional aspects of the painting, draws the main lines and base colours, fills some areas of the work and then Nike undertakes the infilling of the rest. Each one plays on his/her strengths. The meticulous, delicate ink pen work of Nike does very well on the habitual outlines and figures of Wewe. Surprisingly, the result is not a mishmash and their joint works are consistent with their previous individual productions.

Another interesting aspect is that the joint works are produced through a process that does not involve shared research or preliminary discussions on the work, regular interaction between the artists during the production of the work. Tola Wewe leaves freedom to Nike to add, cover or fill-in whatever area of the canvass she decides. More than collaboration it could be called shared production, because they collaborate but, generally, they do not work together. The collaboration benefits both: the compositional strengths of Wewe are enhanced with the detailed draftsmanship of Nike. It is fortunate that works produced jointly by the two artists are displayed in this exhibition along those produced by each of the artists separately. Things become clearer when a join work is shown between works done individually.

It is surprising that despite the fact that the first joint works of Wewe and Nike go back some years it is only now that an exhibition of the joint works is organized. This is a good development. I welcome the “third artist” in the exhibition: “Nike & Wewe”.

Kainebi, Bisi & Mufu

From October 12 to November 10, CCA, the Centre for Contemporay Art, Lagos hosted Kainaebi Osahenye’s exhibition titled Trash-ing. A few days after the opening Mufu Onifade wrote in The Guardian newspaper a not very positive review. Bisi Silva took a few weeks and finally commented on Mufu’s views. I copy below both articles in case you missed them. I think they are worth reading.

In modern times, creativity goes Trash-ing
By Mufu Onifade, The Guardian, September 29, 2009

CREATIVITY is an expensive enterprise. It is invaluable and priceless. It glorifies its producers and executors. It also elevates its patrons and collectors. But not so with certain products of modern times: modernism has embraced all sorts of trash-able materials so much that the potency of art and creativity has been thoroughly wrestled. It is one of the banes of today’s artist who seems caught between the creed of aesthetics and mundane off-handed triviality. The road to real creativity is often hard and rough.

These and more are some of the posers raised by the art community after the opening ceremony of Osahenye Kainebi’s installation/exhibition titled Trash-ing and held at Bisi Silva’s Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos.

The show came with a flurry of murmuring which even took the shine away from the show. Kainebi, a seasoned painter who works and lives in Lagos and still maintains a studio in Auchi, has been on the art scene for close to eighteen years, especially with his first solo exhibition titled Tears in Our Time held in 1991 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria Island, Lagos. He has since been very consistent with one solo exhibition after the other, without even ignoring continual appearances in group exhibitions. He is highly commended for using his creativity to contribute to aesthetic legacies that Nigeria can be proud of. Like every experimental artist, Kainebi grew through thick and thin of creativity and has now probably exhausted his purview.

At the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos where the opening ceremony of Trash-ing took place on Saturday, September 12, 2009, he transformed the cozy art centre into a depository of trash. More like a dust-bin, all objects (a collection of plastic bottles deliberately sliced into halves and some decorated in various tones of colour) were not arranged, but dumped to make a statement of trash. There were also dumped tubes of used pigments. The artist himself did not mince words in accentuating his thoughts and how he arrived at the dumping ground. He has run out of creative ideas, having painted all that was there to paint. He has exhausted his creativity in the purview of aesthetics and so, had to resort to something more degrading: the trash. In his explanation, the show was a kind of protest, a resonance of existing political and economic decay in Nigeria. In other words, he has used his art to chronicle the decay that Nigeria now parades among the comity of nations. Perhaps one should also add that Nigeria is stinking, although the stench was missing from the show.

If Kainebi and his promoter, Bisi Silva had thought their show was registered in the positive side of the viewers, they were mistaken. First and foremost, most people who came to see the show paid more attention to their inter-personal interactions rather than all objects of the show itself. Armed with plastic cups of assorted drinks and accompanying small chops, they hobnobbed, discussed in whispers and giggled aloud ireminiscent of a typical cocktail party. A few known artists in attendance would only turn the venue into an arena of convergence for like minds. They were all so subsumed by their subjects of conversation rather than being consumed by the objects of exhibition. They turned their backs on the works and faced their business of discussion as if everything depended on it. It is understandable. Nigeria is not used to these tenets of modern art, which, to a large extent, debases aesthetics and can be best described as an abuse of creativity.

Like the story of Ali Baba and the angel in the Oxford English book of yester years, the show attracted psychopathic comments as many were forced to disregard their innocence. Ali Baba told a gathering of grown-ups that there was an angel in a dark room. Anyone who sighted the angel was a good man. Whoever failed to see him was a bad one. Of course, everyone who entered the room claimed to have seen the angel. In truth, there was no angel at all, and that was an attestation to the gullibility of man. As for Kainebi’s Trash-ing, those who attended the show with smiles and positive comments were the one who understood and appreciated modern art. Those who think otherwise were backward and should go back to update themselves with happenings in the art of Europe. But this is Nigeria. A country that has produced classical artists who went through the training and had to battle with the seriousness embedded in formal art training and the primitivity of workshop or informal training. According to Oreoluwa Adedeji, a curator and consultant at the International Fine Art, Eagan, Minnesota, United States, “In the age of contemporary (modern) art, it seems as though the ideas of creating abstract and non-objective concepts, have given many artists an excuse to create works that are beautiful, but appear effortless and easily replicable. There is an anecdote about the ambivalence towards creativity and skill in contemporary art”.

Adedeji also told a story of relegation that has become the lot of modern art. Her words: “It is said that there was once an exclusive art auction in New York or London with many paintings auctioned to the highest bidders for hundreds of thousands of dollars. A time came for the last painting to be auctioned off. It was a colourful and simple abstract that mesmerized the ‘highly cultured’ audience. The painting was auctioned off for 1.2 million dollars. In the end, it was revealed that a monkey was the painter!”

That is the level of debasement to which world art has been dragged, but Nigeria, in spite of these modern trends, still maintains a respectable spot in the aspect of art and creativity. That probably accounts for the reason some Nigerian art collectors are more informed and knowledgeable than many artists. Those artists who are aware of these facts are also conscious of the quality of works they turn out.

Kainebi’s show was a combination of installation and exhibition. First, the works exhibited were quite unlike the Kainebi that we all knew. His illustrative prowess gave way to “non-objective concepts”, to borrow from the words of Adedeji. Although those colours applied to the sliced plastics are attractive due to their primary essence. They are applied raw and they stripped the objects of in-depth, analytical chromic infusion. As for the installation, it would be wrong for anyone to think that this aspect of art is alien to this part of the universe. In 1999, an installation workshop organized by the Goethe-Institut (German Cultural Centre), Lagos titled Swimming Calabashes was hosted by the Centre. Initiated by Emeka Udemba, a Nigerian artist based in Germany, the workshop attracted about 20 artists including Kunle Filani, Mike Omoighe, Toyin Alade, Deji Dania, Chuka Nnabuife, Mukaila Ayoade and others. At the workshop, Udemba made a mistake of referring to the workshop as the first in Nigeria. He was instantly corrected by participating artists.

In fact, Kunle Filani who migrated between the workshop and his work schedules at the Federal College of Education, Akoka, Lagos took the gathering of artists through a historical path to traditional African Art. In his argument, traditional Africa could boast of installation as part of its artistic and cultural history. Such objects that were used for ritual purposes could be found in shrines (like modern day galleries), crossroads (modern day outdoor erection) and many more. They served beyond aesthetic purposes and maintained a high level of spirituality for all partakers.

In summary, any form of art, whether in classical or modern term, must serve one of two functions: aesthetic or utilitarian. Any art that fails in any of these functions must be re-assessed. In the same vein, if installation is considered for any reason at all, the message must be graphically clear.

In defence of creativity, professionalism in arts writing
By Bisi Silva, The Guardian, October 20, 2009

ONE is compelled to react to Mufu Onifade’s article published in The Guardian of September 29, 2009 under the title In Modern Times, Creativity goes Trash-ing, considering the publicity that the show had generated.

In spite of Onifade’s comment, it is instructive to state that Trash-ing, a solo exhibition of mixed media work and painterly installations by acclaimed artist, Kainebi Osahenye had also highlighted some of the failings of Onifade’s arts writing.

However, it is believed that this rejoinder will further stimulate an informed discussion about painting specifically, exhibition presentation and ultimately the state of contemporary visual art practice in Nigeria.

While Onifade’s opinions of the exhibition are acceptable and valid within his own subjectivity, the irritating aspect of any review is when writers use art historical vocabulary with a total disregard for, or any minimal attempt at, contextualisation.

Onifade’s text is replete with confusions and sweeping generalisations. Besides, there is a plethora of inaccuracies. He talks about modernism without the briefest definition of what or which modernism he is referring to. Is he talking about European modernism? Is it early modernism of the mid 19th century that saw the rise of the avant – garde, when Eduoard Manet, with his painting, Le dejeuner sur l’herbe (1863), began to challenge the realistic representation of life in their work? Or is it the modernism that began with Picasso and the infamous Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) with its abstraction of the human figure and reference to African sculptural traditions? Or is it the modernism that saw the birth of the deconstruction of the art object with Marcel Duchamp’s readymade urinal, Fountain (1917)? Not only was Duchamp’s piece one of the most radical works of art of the early 20th century, it also changed the ways in which art was perceived and discussed as the precursor to conceptual art, and contemporary art.

Is Onifade conflating the ‘Modern’ with the ‘Contemporary’? And if so, to what end?

We can also consider Modernism on the homeground. Unlike what the canonisation of Euro-American modernism would want us to believe – that those outside of these ‘privileged’ geographical areas exist outside of history, out of time – the reverse is true. Africa and especially Nigeria was experiencing its own modernism.

A year before Picasso completed Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a pivotal work of 20th century European modernism ironically inspired by the African classical art, which he came across at the Trocadero Museum in Paris (now Le Musee de Quai Branly), Aina Onabolu completed a painting in oil of Lagos socialite, Mrs. Spencer Savage (1906). This, to date, remains the first oil painting apportioned not only to a Nigerian, but also to an African. In the late 40s and 50s, Nigeria’s own quintessential modern artist, Ben Enwonwu, moved away from the realistic portraiture eschewed by Onabolu towards combining African aesthetics and subject matter with European materials, a trend subsequently adopted and taken further in the 60s and 70s by the Zaria rebels such as Yusuf Grillo, Uche Okeke and Bruce Onobrakpeya. The stunning beauty of Enwonwu’s sculptural works, Anyanwu (1955) and Shango (1964) reflects this development.

These are a few examples of experimental, avant-garde practices, which continue today through the work of contemporary artists such as Osahenye and set the background to the rest of this text highlighting the writer’s ‘exhausted purview’.

It is also pertinent to clarify the programming policy of the hosting organisation. Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos has a curatorial and critical imperative that goes beyond hanging ‘things’ on a wall and putting red dots beside them. It aims at encouraging, supporting and providing a platform for the critical engagement with the changing dynamics of artistic practices outside an educational system that is relevant to 21st century realities. A system in which dead white men, of which Michaelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci sit unchallenged on the thrones, are repeatedly hailed – in Africa by Africans – as the hallmark by which all art must be judged. Unlike the ’stench’ which is said to be missing from the exhibition, I say that the real ’stench’ that exists is the stifling, putrid regurgitation of the same staid anachronistic paintings and sculptures that are churned out by the army of artisans in the name of art.

However, there are few areas in which the writer and I concur, especially as regards the extent of experimentation that has pushed Osahenye’s work to the forefront of contemporary artistic practice in Nigeria. That with each professional exhibition, his critical acknowledgement of the history of painting is manifest as well as the way his use of material has evolved, attests to his ability to leave behind his colleagues who take refuge in ‘churning out’ a repetitive signature style. His recent outing was a continuation of his experimentation with, and the use of, a myriad of objects and materials ranging from hair, paper, found objects and other ephemera to his current use of paper mache, bottles, cans, and oil paint tubes. What is interesting is that the more he changes, the more he stays the same, and the deeper his idea of painting becomes; yet the reviewer could not see that let alone engage with it. These were some of the characteristics that informed the curatorial decision to work on this project. It is rare for artists to create work that can be read on many levels – formal, aesthetic or contextual – revealing layers of stories, visuality and materiality. Oshayene’s Casualities 2009 installation is a case in point.

As I have written recently and I quote copiously: “Using appropriation as a tool, Osahenye’s most ambitious work to date is the ceiling to floor installation. On sighting the burnt cans near a garbage dump of a hotel in Auchi, Osahenye states that he ‘was instantly confronted with thoughts of war, cruelty, melancholy, pain, displacement, anguish and deformity and I started conceiving ways to install this large scale work to express the force and the power that I felt. Empty containers of bottled water, of Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Star beer, Malta Guinness, Heineken, Power Horse and other global brands of carbonated drinks representing the ‘detritus of urban existence’ are cut, coloured, sliced, squashed, squeezed, burnt has resulted in a large scale poetic installation. Osahenye employs this materiality to comment on the predatory nature of globalisation and the hegemony of consumerist behaviour at the expense of and to the detriment of the environment. In so doing, the result becomes a poetic tableau but also a scathing attack on the culture of Trash-ing.”

Apart from objecting to being called a ‘promoter’, a term more in keeping with a boxing event a la Don King, as a ‘real’ (many so called ‘curators’ abound) professional curator – one of the few with formal postgraduate training and qualification and local and international practice – I do take issue with his description of the presentation. Onifade’s statement reads: ‘like a dust-bin all objects (a collection of plastic bottles deliberately sliced into halves and some decorated in various tones of colour) were not arranged, but dumped to make a statement of trash.’

The 101 rule of curatorial practice is presentation. The way in which exhibitions are installed forms the cornerstone of any curatorial undertaking. However, with no visible curatorial antecedents in the complexity of installing such an exhibition, I am drawn to conclude that such intricacies are above his ‘experiential’ radar.

The presentation of the exhibition was a carefully thought-out and planned undertaking, which resulted in several conversations, studio and gallery visits between myself, the artist and the co-ordinator of the exhibition, Jude Anogwih, over a prolonged period. The placing of the works was not gratuitous but calculated and subsequently immaculately implemented. Casualities in all its deceptive manifestation as the most ‘unarranged’ work is actually the most meticulously arranged with the artist refusing to abrogate that responsibility to anyone else. He alone knows the way in which the work has to be placed for it to be meaningful. To say that the trash was dumped is not only a figment of the writer’s imagination, but demonstrates a lack of imagination.

This is not an Art History nor an Art writing lesson as neither are within my capacity. However, it is an indication that writing without appropriate references, or doing basic research, leads to misinformation. Trash-ing happens to be one of the few contextualised shows currently taking place that veers from the (p)sycophantic babble exhibition catalogues are so known for in this locality. Sylvester Ogbechie, professor of Art History at University of California, Santa Barbara wrote an insightful essay that tracks and contextualises the development and evolution of the artist’s work not only in regards to local and international artistic references and practices, but also through his use of materials and his subject matter. Philosopher/Art Critic Frank Ugiomoh of University of Port Harcourt also did a critique of the themes and issues in Osahenye’s work. Onifade’s review highlights an inability or unwillingness to engage with the work – references to the actual works are scant and derogatory, neither informing nor highlighting a coherent argument. That he was unable to rise to the discursive and aesthetic challenges that Osahenye’s work proffers and the context within which it has been developed and presented, reflects less on the artist but is an indictment of the level and the quality of the text.

Osahenye’s current exhibition also presents a different way to explore painting. Is there anything written somewhere that says that painting must be oil, acrylic, watercolour or pastel? That it must be figurative and literal? That what you see is what you get, leaving little or nothing to the viewer’s imagination. Such rule sank with the Titanic over a century ago. It is obvious that Onifade barely grasps with the idea or the history of the ‘dematerialisation’ of the art object. It is important to note that attempts by powerful critics such as American Clement Greenberg to prescribe the boundaries of art engendered a revolt by artists. And the resolve thereafter was that the emphasis should be on the idea behind the object, not on the object. Critics of visual art exhibitions like Onifade should take note.

Indeed, Osahenye’s work is a complex exhibition that needs to be read on many levels. That an art work or an exhibition allows such multiple readings is rare and real criticism should be about information, about thinking and about creating a platform for learning and debate.

Rom Isichei

ROM ISICHEI, TWO YEARS LATER

Recently, I visited Rom Isichei’s studio in Ilupeju. He had invited me to prepare an introduction for the catalogue of his coming exhibition “Traces of being” and I wanted to see the works at close range. Around those days I came across a copy of a lecture given by Ernst H. Gombrich in Complutense University, Madrid in January 1992. It had the title of “On the interpretation of the work of art: the what, the why and the how”. In it he tried to apply his vast wisdom and erudition to consider to what extent art historians can answer these three questions and with what degree of objectivity they can do it.

This exhibition gives an opportunity to consider the content of his current works (the “what”, the descriptive approach), the context in which he places them (the “why”, the interpretative approach) and finally, the way they are produced: his technique (the “how”, the evaluative approach). Description is the easiest. Attentiveness, sensitiveness and a little bit of experience are enough for anybody to offer a descriptive statement. Interpretation is perhaps the most difficult of the three, but the one that interests me most: the enquiry about context and meaning, the search for the relation (or lack of it) between the artwork and the cultural, economic, ethical context that surrounds it. Evaluation (the critical judgment of artistic value) I would prefer to consider it only tangentially.

The works in the exhibition can be grouped roughly into two radically different categories: a) conventional works on canvas, b) assemblages. It is as if this were a two-man exhibition: one concerned about formal issues, the other one focused mainly on contextual ones. One set of works prominent for their “pictorial” qualities, the other one including works that primarily search to connect with values other than purely formal; works with internal references and works that try to engage in discourses external to them; artworks as aesthetic objects and artworks as cultural objects.

This is interesting. Rom is not just settled on his successful practice, happy to continue producing high quality aesthetic objects for the enjoyment of his patrons. I look this time at his paintings and I start thinking of what Art was for the ancients: skill. Art and skill were equivalent words. The Greeks called it techne and the Romans translated it as ars, from where we got the word in modern English. In Rom Isichei’s canvases the skill, the firm technique (techne) is obviously there. Back to Gombrich we can say that in these works, Rom is particularly successful in HOW they are executed (the rich materiality of the “impasto” strokes and the luminosity of the raw oil pigments), even if the WHAT or the WHY become nearly irrelevant. We could criticize these works as “decontextualized”, but we can’t say they are not competently done.

I posed this question to Rom. I asked him whether painting now a bouquet of flowers was not a kind of escapist aestheticism. His answer was clear, direct and spontaneous: “if you are a painter, what matters is nor WHAT you paint about, what really matters is HOW you paint it. How good, how innovative, how expressive, how skillful you are in painting it“. Behind these words there is a whole theory of art… Without saying so, Rom was defending an understanding of Art with a well established pedigree. Because, despite some of the excesses of the last decades there is still nowadays a strong influence of the formalism already proposed by artists and philosophers long ago (Maurice Denis wrote in 1890 “a painting is essentially a flat surface covered in colours arranged in a certain order”). That formalism was vigorously defended by Clive Bell in his book Art (1914), given new impetus by Clement Greenberg in the 1940’s and it still has supporters. Looking at Rom’s canvasses, one might be entitled to think that he is one of them.

But, then, when we look at the assemblages we notice an undeniable attempt at articulating his work within a global discourse… We know that to produce a good assemblage artwork in 2009, in Nigeria, there is need for more than collecting a few discarded items, putting them together, with greater or lesser dexterity, and appending a discursive narrative on recycling and the environment. Formal qualities matter; there is also need for skill (the old Techne of the Greeks). El Anatsui is an excellent example… By now, there are a good number of imitators, collaborators, ex-students and apprentices that have learned the “trade”, but who are unable to match the rich aesthetic qualities of El’s works. If we were to give a pile of tin cans, “pure water” sachets and bottle tops to one hundred different artists and ask them to work with them, we can be sure only a few would be able to produce art works of acceptable quality. The challenge is how to sift the “wheat” from the never-ending supply of “intellectual chaff” offered to us.

Rom did his first assemblage with corrugated iron sheets in 2001. Since then he has produced only nine of these pieces. In this exhibition he presents four and they are strikingly similar to his earlier ones. They cannot be approached exclusively from a formal –should I say, aesthetic- point of view. They are inserted into a narrative, into a discourse about issues, into a social and cultural context. They are “about something”. Their “aboutness” -to use Arthur Danto’s neologism- is central to the works and to our attempt at interpreting and evaluating them. Rom uses discarded materials, but it looks as if he were afraid to go “all the way”. His ubiquitous human faces are still there, even if in these works they are re-presented not by oil paint and canvas, but through metal sheets and other common materials.

It is remarkable how consistent Rom Isichei has been since 1997 when he abandoned his professional career in advertising and decided to become a full time artist. In these years he has had five solo exhibitions. One every two years, and all of them in Lagos: 1999 “Portraits of life”, 2001 “Noble thoughts, vain shadows”, 2003 “Colours and creed”, 2005 “Eyes of the beholder”, 2007 “Chronicles”.

There has been consistency and continuity but there has also been evolution and development. This exhibition is another step forward, and with it, it becomes clearer that in order to evaluate his artistic production so far we should look above all at the HOW, at his excellent skill in the use of colours and pigments. Few can match him at that and we are glad that he is exhibiting again.

Nigerian abstract painting now

Some time ago Oliver Enwonwu asked whether I could put together an exhibtion at the Omenka Gallery of the Ben Enwonwu Foundation. After some work and a few nice surprises the exhibition (titled “Beyond figuration“) will open on July 10. This is the introduction prepared for it:

Nigerian artists have not been very much inclined to pure abstraction. The older generations -Onabolu, Enwonwu, Wangboje, Okeke, Onobrakpeya, Grillo, Barber, the Oshogbo artists- moved comfortably within the broad confines of representation, even when passing it through highly personal filters. After then, isolated attempts have not created schools, styles or groupings capable of producing on a regular basis quality abstract works. Unfortunately, the of Gani Odutokun 15 years ago stopped a truly promising experiment in free abstraction.

Gbolahan AYOOLA, Untitled 12

It is within this context that this exhibition is conceived. It attempts to present a few examples of non-figurative art –mainly painting- created by young artists. It casts a look at what is being done now: a snapshot of the present to help us understand in which direction abstraction is moving in Nigeria. The scope and size of the exhibition is not broad and I hope a more ambitious one is put together showing the works of established artists who produce non-figurative painting: Uwatse, Kainebi, Buhari… Abstract photography is another field left unexplored.

This exhibition started with a desire to look for young artists that do away with representation of external reality and attempt to create self-referential works, moving from re-presenting the world to presenting small new worlds. Of course, artists can’t work ex-nihilo (from nothing), they always carry their cultural, historical, formal baggage. They come from Auchi or from Yaba, Nsukka, Ife or somewhere else and these different backgrounds show in their works.

In my search –cursory, incomplete, limited to emerging artists- I have come across various approaches to abstraction, works that could fit easily under different labels: “abstract expressionism”, “lyrical abstraction”, “colour-field painting”, “post-painterly abstraction”, “neo-expressionism”, “minimalism” or any of the currents of non-figurative, non-representational art created since the first attempts by Kandinsky more than a century ago. The works selected for the exhibition gravitate generally towards those that emphasize immaterial (spiritual) aspects in painting. This does not mean that there is a lack of works full of a rich materiality.

Uchay Joel CHIMA, Open invitation

The three works that Uchay Joel Chima shows in the exhibition excel in this respect: his exploration of texture over line and colour is a success. The rich, painterly quality of Gbolahan Ayoola’s canvases, with thick, well textured surfaces is also of great interest.

Wale Alimi’s works, so close to Rothko, are unusual in the Nigeria art scene. Their coolness and sobriety contrast strongly with the overworked and overdone so prevalent in shows, galleries and collections…

Wale ALIMI, Less is more II

Busayo Lawal’s approach is also novel. His recent works start from computer generated prints of his initial design and this allows him a freedom he did not have with his previous works. It is still early to know how far he can go with his experimentation, but he is already obtaining good results.

This exhibition includes only three works by Tony Nsofor. I wish more could have been displayed. In these non-figurative works Nsofor takes an improvisational, additive approach to painting that is full of spontaneity. He allows room for the al and they look as if no preconceived design guided the process of painting. This spontaneity adds great freshness to them.

Tony NSOFOR, Today is red, red, red

George Edozie and Bob-nosa Uwagboe take a much more planned approach; under the strong brushstrokes and collage materials pasted on the surface there are deeper layers of drafting structuring their works.

Benedict Olorunnisomo and Uche Igwe are highly independent artists. They rarely exhibit, they do not form part of any group, do not follow any defined style, their works are not particularly “marketable” as a commodity but they have an intense quality. There are artists that first look around and then paint what they see, there are others that also look around, but then they paint what they feel, not what they see. There are still others that simply “decorate” a surface, without any look outside or inside. Finally, there are those that do not look outside, they create from the inside. Benedict and Uche are among them.

Tayo Olayode and Norbert Okpu works generally show a loose figuration but for in this exhibition they present abstract works.

Benedict OLORUNNISOMO, Vibrations

The exhibition is mainly about non-figurative painting, but the two-dimensionality of the panels showed by Gerald Chukwuma (wooden panels) and Mukaila Ayoade (panels made for newsprint) fits well in it. Both of them present an abstraction that goes beyond formalism and is rich in references and meaning.

Joseph Eze continues experimenting with discarded materials, but this time formal considerations seem to take precedence over the discursive ones.

Well aware of how easy it is for abstract art to remain on the surface, with a shallow formalism that might be pleasing to the eye, but has little to say to the mind, the exhibition tries as much as possible to stay away from purely “decorative” products. All in all, this is not small achievement.
The Ben Enwonwu Foundation deserves praise for an exhibition that attempts to go beyond the conventional.

Joseph EZE: Assemblage Art Made in Nigeria

At the beginning of last century Picasso and the cubists started applying paper collages on their canvases and creating sculptural forms made of found objects (“objets trouvés”) and discarded materials. Incorporating materials traditionally not used for art into an artwork was at that time a defiant action but it opened many formal possibilities to artists.

There was a gradual change, but for many decades the shift was within the boundaries of predominantly formal (aesthetic) considerations. Artists used collage mainly as a way of adding texture and meaning to their works. Little by little artists moved from the flat (two dimensional) “paper collages” of the beginning of the 20th century. What started with the use of old news papers, cards or magazines eventually embraced all sorts of materials and objects. From painters applying non-traditional materials on the surfaces of their works there was a move towards three dimensional assemblages created by sculptors. By the 1950s assemblages were produced regularly through Europe and North America.

Joseph EZE -- Filthy rivers intersecting on a dying field

Almost 50 years ago (in 1962) the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized an exhibition titled “The Art of Assemblage”. Many of the old great names were present: Braque, Picasso, Man Ray, Rauschenberg and, of course, Dubuffet, the French artist that coined the term in the early 1950s to refer to his “collage type” works. “Assemblage art” had come of age.

The evolution of assemblage art has continued during the last decades. For some years, there has been a move lead by non-formal considerations. For instance, it is not by chance that a show last year at the Art Museum of an American university that featured young artists using discarded materials was presented as an “eco-friendly exhibition” or that the Australian artist John Dahlen –well known for his use of found objects from Sydney beaches- calls himself an “environmental artist”. Environmental issues have appeared regularly at international exhibitions and increasingly at continental, national and local ones. The last Dakar had a large number of such works. A few of the most forward-looking exhibitions in the Nigeria last year featured assembled art and it is possible to find it even in the mainstream commercial galleries in Lagos.

Joseph EZE -- Desert encroaching on garden

I write all this because a few weeks ago Joseph Eze, a young painter I have known for a few years showed me some of his recent works. Used to his previous productions -well drafted paintings with paper collages and striking resemblance with those of his contemporary at Nsukka, Uche Edochie-, I was surprised by what I saw. These were unusual works. Several of them consisted of used plastic slippers (flip flops) pasted (“assembled”) whole or in pieces on the board. The first thing that called my attention was the significant similarities between them and those of the great assemblage artist Louise Nevelson (1899-1988). Like her, Eze had covered the discarded objects (in his case plastic slippers, in her case junk collected in her early morning raids in New York) with a monochrome layer of paint. What a coincidence, I thought; I had just read in an article in the New York Times Style Magazine how El Anatsui saw some of her works in his first visit to the US with occasion of a sculpture exhibition in the 1970s. I knew that El Anatsui taught Joseph Eze in first and second year at Nsukka. This could not be coincidence, but the continuity of tradition…

Joseph EZE -- What Johnny Mitchel said

Louise Nevelson had written half a century ago: ”When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created.” Joseph had learnt that lesson. But he is not alone in that discovery. Despite its relative isolation from contemporary currents, Nigeria has had more than a few good examples of artworks in which the artist has used discarded or found materials. He is not just one-off in his attempt to transform these banal materials into artworks of sculptural strength and content.

After more than a century of artists using discarded materials Eze’s works can’t be called totally innovative, but there is quality in them. The restrained and sober way in which he arranges the slippers on the background board is formally suggestive and even poetic. But this is not empty formalism, there is also a clear social commentary. This is not a small achievement in the current Lagos artworld. For those of us tired of seeing young –and not so young- artists wearing their so-called “africanness” on their sleeves this approach and this exploration is most welcome. In his words:

“Beyond the mere fascination which I must admit I have for working with tactile and found objects, going as far back as 1999, I considered these recent works to be beyond a certain formalism. I have been asked if I used these found materials (flip flops, pure water sachets etc) for the mere fact that they are banal and plentiful and cheap. At the risk of sounding shallow I could say yes. Of coursed that could be a reason. Couldn’t it? But I decided to use these media because they are banal, plentiful, cheap and – they are destroying the environment including a little garden behind my apartment.”

I can identify two major focal points of recent assemblage art in Nigeria: the one in Nsukka under the leadership of El Anatsui and the one in Yaba under the influence of Olu Amoda. Though they share a concern for the materiality of the artworks, there is a substantial difference of approach to its realization. While El Anatsui works by repetition Amoda by aggregation. The heavy, clunky metal sculptures of Olu Amoda before he moved to the US use a great variety of scrap and discarded metal pieces assembled in extraordinary ways. There are a good number of YabaTech students that continue producing metal sculptures using scrap materials.

Joseph EZE -- A dark footpath through a garden

From what I know, the group of students that have passed through Nsukka and learned from El Anatsui his concern and attraction for everyday materials and objects represent one of the most promising lines of development in contemporary Nigerian art. Obviously, there are also talented artists from Auchi, Zaria, Ife, IMT and the others, but generally their artistic discourses look stale compared with the freshness of the best disciples of El Anatsui.

Joseph Eze studied at Nsukka. When I asked him what he learnt there from El Anatsui, he summarized it succinctly: “He taught me that art goes beyond colour”. This is not a bad lesson, and it continues being learnt by others. Independently of the diverse levels of quality and talent of artists influenced by El Anatsui at Nsukka I am interested by what they have in common. Many of them work with discarded materials and they seem to have taken of collective direction. Few people can remember specific names of members of the “California Assemblage Movement” in the 1960s, but as group they occupy an important position in the art of the 20th century. They were not successful financially, but their contribution is undeniable. Perhaps, the same may occur to Eze and others working in the same line, or perhaps they some will achieve the recognition of El Anatsui. At least, I hope they are first recognized locally and perhaps one day somebody “out there” “discovers” them. I hope there are many others who-like me- believe that their works are more than “trash”, even if they use old plastic slippers to make them. Good luck, and keep it up, Joseph!!