Nigerian Art Research Articles

Female genital mutilation and human rights

This article evaluates five different discourses on female genital mutilation for affinities with the language of international instruments codifying human rights: an activist physician's fieldwork journal; two novels, one a Lebanese-American's lyrical work largely indebted to a human rights perspective and, in contrast, a Kenyan publicist's fiction which mutes that approach; an American activist's auto-ethnography; paintings by Nigerian artists in an exhibition travelling in Germany; and a letter to the editor of an African American magazine. I read these varied lexica in light of recent literature on female genital surgery that tends to oppose academics, mainly anthropologists captive to their training, to activists impatient with post-modern wavering who claim that global instruments for women's human rights should be enforced to stop genital torture. Creative writing is instrumental in presenting a clear moral imperative confronted by the complexities of human lives.

The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent

In this text former Christian Science Monitor correspondent Robert Press tells his first-hand story of triumph and tragedy in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Featuring 90 photographs by Betty Press - whose work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, York Times, Time and Newsweek - the book offers a compelling account of the continent's emerging movements toward democracy. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Press also explores the causes of the extraordinary human tragedies of civil war in Somalia and genocide in Rwanda and offers explanations for the West's failure to curb them. While providing broad, in-depth coverage of sweeping social and cultural upheaval, The New also introduces readers to some of the many individual Africans struggling for greater personal freedom. We meet the Mercedes Benz women of West Africa who made small fortunes in the wholesale cloth business; Peter, once a homeless Kenyan, who took up tailoring lessons until he was stricken with the AIDS virus; and Nike Davis, a Nigerian artist who escaped polygamy and abuse to establish a tuition-free art school. Both general readers and students of African politics should finish The New better informed about the intricate diplomatic and political problems surrounding the struggle for human rights in Africa today, while bearing witness to vivid and moving portraits of individual Africans who, often in the face of danger, stand for greater freedom.

Transatlantic Dialogue: Contemporary Art in and out of Africa

Transatlantic Dialogue opens an exciting cultural dialogue at the crossroads where Western and African art traditions intersect. Despite diversity of media, technique, and form, these contemporary African and African American art works and the artists who created them are united by a rich network of connections, exchanges, and associations generated from both shores of the Middle Passage. Collected in this book are 24 color reproductions of the art of seven African artists: Skunder Boghossian, Sokari Douglas Camp, Rashid Diab, Amir Nour, Moyo Ogundipe, Moyo Okediji, and Ouattara - and seven African American artists: Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Biggers, Jeff Donaldson, Yvonne Edwards-Tucker, Winnie Owens-Hart, Charles Searles, and Al Smith. Paintings, mixed media, sculptures, and ceramics reflect issues of identity while expressing beauty, pulsating rhythms, and a sense of improvisation among bursts of colour and quieter, more contemplative moments. American artist and scholar Michael D. Harris and Nigerian artist and scholar Moyo Okediji construct a dialogue in companion essays that explore departures and arrivals, connections and distinctions between contemporary African and African American artists. Although the influence of African art on African American artists has received considerable attention, this book is among the first to discuss the influence of African American art on African artists, an exchange that continues to produce art that is both culturally unique and aesthetically rich. Michael D. Harris is assistant professor of African and African American art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Moyo Okediji is assistant professor of art at the University of Denver and assistant curator at the Denver Art Museum.

Finding a Place: Nigerian Artists in the Contemporary Art World

In the late 1980s a new generation of Nigerian artists began to register their presence in the art world, especially in the metropolises of the West. They include Sokari Douglas Camp and the late Rotimi Fani-Kayode, both of whom had immigrated from Nigeria to the United Kingdom. In the 1990s others have come to prominence, also. These include Osi Audu, Oladélé Bamgboyé, Mary Evans, Donald Odita, Chris Ofili, Folake Shoga, Yinka Shonibare, Iké Udé, and myself. Works by these artists have found their way into international biennials, group exhibitions, and other forums. Likewise, scholars, critics, and other writers in Africa, Europe, and the Americas have begun to write about the work of these artists with increasing frequency. Conversant with the techniques and discourses of new forms, and versatile in the requisite politics of the international mainstream, these artists envision themselves and their practice alongside their contemporaries from other parts of the world.

Finding a Place: Nigerian Artists in the Contemporary Art World

Finding a Place: Nigerian Artists in the Contemporary Art World

Style in modern Nigerian Art music: the pioneering works of Fela Sowande

The Nigerian musical landscape changed significantly following the advent of Christian missionary activity and British colonial administration in the later nineteenth century. New idioms of musical practice which have evolved as a result of this historical process include a new tradition of religious, Christian, music, urban syncretic popular styles, new operatic forms and European-derived art/ classical music. This article focuses on one of these emerging styles, Nigerian art music, as reflected in the life and works of its most notable pioneer, Fela Sowande. After a brief historical background, the article discusses the circumstances of Sowande's life and the beliefs which shaped his composing career and his compositional style. In discussing elements of style in Sowande's works, it examines the nature of the interaction between African and European elements, a stylistic feature which constantly recurs in his works. The article ends by discussing the need to consolidate the growth of this new idiom by putting in place institutional structures within which it can develop.

Nigerian Artists: A Who's Who and Bibliography

Nigerian Artists: A Who's Who and Bibliography

Contemporary art music in Nigeria: an introductory note on the works of Ayo Bankole (1935–76)

The introduction of Christian missionary activity and the British colonial administration of Nigeria in the middle of the nineteenth century led to some of the most significant musical changes in the country. Perhaps the most far reaching was the emergence of modern Nigerian art music, a genre which is conceptually similar to European classical music. This study focuses on Ayo Bankole, one of the pioneer composers of Nigerian art music.As an introductory study of Ayo Bankole, the article briefly discusses the musico-historical factors responsible for the growth of Nigerian art music as well as the nature of Bankole's musical training and experience. This provides an appropriate context for understanding and appreciating the stylistic features of Bankole's works. Drawing on examples from his works, the article establishes the eclectic nature of Bankole's style, in which European and African musical elements interact.

Nigerian Artists: A Who's Who and Bibliography

Nigerian Artists: A Who's Who and Bibliography

Nigerian artists: a who's who & bibliography

Nigerian artists: a who's who & bibliography

A Note on a Lost Woodcarving Tradition from the Benin Kingdom

One of the things I remember most about Arnold is his sometimes impassioned, sometimes wry iconoclasm. From the time we were graduate students together at Indiana University, he consistently challenged the accepted truths in Africanist art history. His critique of the Fagg-Dark-Willett interpretation of Nigerian art history is well known (Rubin 1970). Arnold used to tease me about my interest in Benin, calling it “metropolitan myopia.” I think he would have enjoyed finding something outside the expected in the Benin corpus, and it is in this vein that I write this brief note on a hitherto unrecognized woodcarving tradition from the Benin kingdom.

Ovia Idah and Eture Egbede: Traditional Nigerian Artists

Ovia Idah and Eture Egbede: Traditional Nigerian Artists

Two Thousand Years of Nigerian Art

Bete Mask 14 H. Ivory Coast opment of other competing economic entities like Benin and Ijebu. Shaw firmly rejects the Ife-Benin relationship and supports the art historical arguments of Fraser and Rubin. He quotes Rubin's eminently quotable conclusion that the relationship is a working hypothesis which has evolved over time and become more or less ossified into 'fact' by virtue of constant repetition (review of Frank Willett, Ife in the History of West African Sculpture, inArt Bulletin 52 [1970], pp. 348-54.) On Benin, Shaw conveys an optimism about future work based on analysis of the metal components of the substantial corpus of figures (estimated to number 4,000-7,000 pieces) but is pessimistic about the possibilities of future archaeological work in light of the lost opportunities for fieldwork during the extensive building program of state capital buildings in the past twenty years. On archaeology in the north, Shaw is tantalizingly brief, though his own work there, since his retirement from Ibadan, and that of the dynamic group of Ahmadu Bello archaeologists at Zaria, suggest that he will have to add a new chapter to subsequent editions of his book, particularly if new work on early Hausa sites demonstrates the link with Ife that Shaw suspects is important in the development of trade (p. 163). This is an impressive work. Its plates and figures are original and get away from the hackneyed illustrations of the countless picture books on African art, which over the years have added so little real knowledge to our understanding of Nigerian art. Nigeria is easy to read, enlightening, stimulating and at times provocative. Merrick Posnansky University of California, Los Angeles

The Contemporary Nigerian Artist : His Patrons, His Audience and His Critics

The Contemporary Nigerian Artist : His Patrons, His Audience and His Critics

Exhibition at the London Africa Centre

ineteen African artists, all working or studying in England, joined together earlier this year to organize an exhibition of their work at London's Africa Centre. It was the second such exhibition to be held there by Africans in England. The first, held in 1968, was described, together with the Centre itself, in African Arts/Arts d'Afrique (Volume III, Number 3). Visitors to the recent exhibition, held at the Centre's rooms near Covent Garden in July and August, 1970, may have been surprised that there were so many African artists in their midst. These visitors, had they been familiar with the Africa Centre's rooms, would already have been familiar with the work of some of the exhibiting artists; paintings by Theresa Luck-Akinwale and Emmanuel Jegede have previously been displayed on the walls of the Centre. Of these two Nigerian artists, Theresa Luck exhibited paintings on this occasion, but Emmanuel Jegede chose to show some of the wooden sculptures, of a deep individual subtlety, which he had been carving and exhibiting in England for some years. He is a poet as well as a painter and sculptor, and he gave a recital during the exhibition; so also did two other poets, John Okai from Ghana and the South African emigre Dennis Brutus. Emmanuel Jegede and Theresa Luck, like many others who exhibited on this occasion, are graduates of British art colleges. One of the other woman exhibitors, Iglal Hafez of Egypt, was at the Slade in London. The Nigerian graphic artist Lewis Paul, who has now returned to Lagos and started free-lancing, showed several examples of his work. His art is well-known because for several years he has been the designer of most of the Africa Centre's posters. The two exhibitors of fine ceramic work-Mohammed Abdulla and Siddig Elnigoumi, both Sudanese-teach at British art colleges. Not all of the others have jobs connected with their art. I. Choonara, the South Africa-born painter whose pictures (of trees, waterlilies, and a cock) were among my favorite exhibits, is also a writer, and for his living a teacher of chemistry. Margaret Busby, who was born in Ghana and showed two pen-and-ink drawings on this occasion, has helped to start a publishing house in London. Mrs. Una Hunwick, an Eastern Nigerian married to a British university don, has two major strings to her bow: the visual arts (she showed paintings-landscapes and portraits-and a carving at this exhibition) and the stage, for which she trained at the Bristol Old Vic. Mrs. Hunwick was able to go to a moder institution for art te ching in her own country, and the careers of some of the other exhibitors show that there are a number of such institutions in Africa now-which was news to me. Most of the exhibitors, however, studied in Great Britain, and some were still studying there: the lithographer Jatinder Cheema from Kenya, Akwila Simpasa from Zambia (who showed four of his drawings) and Geoffrey Obianyido of Nigeria, who exhibited a painting and the only silkscreen prints shown at this exhibition.

Five Nigerian Artists

Nigeria has traditionally been rich in art. In the contemporary world it retains a position of pre-eminence. In literature, writers such as Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe are well known abroad. No less impressive is the visual art now being achieved, but this is less well recognized because of the greater difficulties faced by the painter and sculptor in getting their work presented internationally. In previous articles we have featured the Oshogbo festival, described by Jean Kennedy, the contemporary London exhibition, analyzed by Dennis Duerden, and the wood carving of Felix Idubor. The present essay describes the work of several contemporary Nigerian artists with whom Miss Highet had a series of interviews during her lengthy stay in Nigeria. The painters are largely linked to Lagos where they most commonly work, yet they form no clique or school. Their backgrounds and attitudes are too varied, too eclectic for any simple generalization of identity to be made. They are a number of talented artists worki...

Thorn Carvings by Native Nigerian Artist

Thorn Carvings by Native Nigerian Artist