Mcphilips Nwachukwiu
14 September 2008
opinion
Lagos — THE one week mega art show, which came to an end in the nation's capital city of Abuja, yesterday, was, literally speaking, a hand over ceremony officiated by the National Gallery of Art, NGA, where the father figures and leading icons of African visual art in the areas of studio practice, art collection, art scholarship and art administration met under one roof to dialogue on the fate of visual art sub sector in the region.
It was, indeed, a joyous moment when one looked around the capacity filled International Conference Centre Abuja and saw ailing and wheel chair reduced Uche Okeke, himself a popularly acknowledged father figure of Contemporary African Art, whose innovative experimental drive resulted in the founding of Ulism, an aesthetically accepted revolutionary art tradition that has inaugurated a commendable artistic school in Africa, sitting along side Bruce Onobrakpeya, his contemporary at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where the spirit of aesthetic and conceptual revolution was nurtured in the 50s boisterously discussing the moment of togetherness.
Onobrakpeya, himself a notable print maker like his soul mate, Okeke, also explored vigorously the aesthetics and conceptual folk environment of his Urhobo people and culture and, from it, created a new artistic tradition, which, in the words of redoubtable art historian, Professor Ola Oloidi, gave 'Nigerian art its international and global acceptance.'
The glory of this moment will not be lost, when viewed from the fact that at the venue, the same Professor Ola Oloidi, a former student of Uche Okeke, mounted the podium to the admiration of the crowd to pour well deserving encomiums on his former teacher, whom he described as the 'father of contemporary African art and the man, who made me the professor that I am today.'
This beautiful environment of the meeting between fathers and children was further heightened with the presence of Professor Oloidi, who presented a scholarly paper titled: Awaiting Prospecting: Visual Arts and Economy in Africa and his own student, Professor Sylvester Ogbechie, who now lectures at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who also spoke on Monetizing Nigerian Arts and Cultural Production in the Global Economy.
Ogbechie, himself a notable international art critic and historian graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and was proudly described by his teacher, Oloidi as 'one of our students, a leading scholar in the field and a first class graduate of Nsukka.' Beside the fact that former teachers and students sat on the same table to discuss the fate of the visual art from scholarly point of views, it was more interesting when one walked round the exhibition halls to behold the works of the fathers competing space with works of the children and grand children.
It was an amazing sight to behold the tantalizing animal skin paintings of the Ethiopian artist, Lemma Guya, and his four children. Guya, the artist, according to his son, Dawit Lemma Guya, is a self taught artist and has, in the last fifty years, practiced animal skin painting, which has influenced a whole generation of artists in Ethiopia.
According to Dawit, Lemmaism has become an known art movement in the Ethiopian art tradition. Himself, a graduate of law and business administration, is among the four children of the Ethiopian art father figure, who have all taken to animal skin painting. The concept, animal skin painting, unlike the traditional oil on board or oil on canvass is innovated on the use of painting on scraped part of animal skin. It is an exciting style to behold.
There were also in the hall, sculptural works of El Anustsi and installational works his student, Uche Onyeishi. All these works share the same space with Uche Okeke's 1950 works including Fabled Truth, Obele's Lament, Ewu and Adam and Eve as well as Bruce Onabrokpeya's works.
In every estimation, the just ended regional visual feast will, for a very long time, remain one of the finest moment for African visual artists: At least, in a very long time, there has never been any such meeting where a huge array of the father figures of contemporary African art from the west of Africa to the north had come together to interact with their children and grand children from Zambia, Botswana, Senegal, Benin Republic, Ghana, Uganda and from the diaspora as seen in this show.
Who then will doubt that a new face of African art has been sculpted?
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