Artsdiscourse

Nine Year Old Bride, Peju Alatise, Mixed Media. Image credit: Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art.   Mathew Oyedele In recent time, there have been lots of questions around the role, aim and objective of museums; as some museums around the world are either filled with stolen, looted or illegally acquired objects. There have been calls and agitations for restitution, particularly of African objects by historians, critics and art enthusiasts to African countries who are the real owners of these objects. In 2018, Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr and French historian Benedicte Savoy released a study that calls for the restitution of Africa's looted assets and the study sparked debates among European and African art enthusiasts.   It was in this timely moment that the Museum of Black Civilizations opened in Dakar, Senegal with the aim of educating and exposing visitors to the role of art from Africa and its contribution to global civilization. In the same period, the Lagos artworld witne...

Mathew Oyedele Mural, painting and installation section of the exhibition space. Image credit: Tobi Animashaun. Despite the commercialisation and commodification of art in Lagos, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, continues to stage critical, experiential and experimental art to contribute to the development and professionalisation of artistic production in Nigeria. Founded by the late independent curator, Bisi Silva in 2007, the Centre prides itself in its library which houses huge collection of books, journals, manuscripts, catalogues and monographs for research as well as collaboration with African and international artists, curators and organisations.  The recent exhibition by Tobi Animashaun which employs the fusion of sound, mural, installation and painting in a critical and experiential presentation, explore Nigerian history through maps and street names. The show, themed "Akomona" and curated by Michael Enejison is the first exhibition of the Centre in 2021.  Tob...

  Chris Afuba remodelling 'Otiigba'. Source: Facebook. Chinezim Moghalu Chris Afuba is a post-war Nigerian artist from Nimo in Anambra state, who was born on June 3, 1947, in Ogidi, Anambra state. His father moved from the Onitsha city with him to Nimo when he was very young. Afuba indicates: "as far back as I could remember, when I was five, my mother's kitchen was being built with local materials, and being as we were preparing meshed mud, which they used in those days in building walls, instinctively as a child I went to where she was doing it, pounding it with her legs and making it malleable, and I was attracted to the material because it was soft and malleable. I scooped a handful of lump and began to model. The first figure l modelled was a police man- just a bust; small in size. I was excited and I had to admire it. In no distant time, because red-earth mud is not too plastic, it cracked and broke. I saw it breaking off and, instinctively I got a stick, remov...

 Mathew Oyedele Family and friends of Late Chief Bode Akindele pose for a picture before the statue . Photo credit: Djakou Kassi Nathalie. After a series of daily workings spanning a couple of months, the statue of Chief Bode Akindele was completed and mounted in May 2021 by a workforce that consists of Ato Arinze as the sculptor, Henry Unuigboje and David Kpanaki as studio associates, Djakou Kassi Nathalie as the photographer and Oladapo Oyekunle as the logistics supervisor. Fibre glass, mixed with marble and stone dust, and acrylic bronze as the surface finish was used to actualise the project which was commissioned by the Akindele family in Ibadan to celebrate and immortalise the legacy of Chief Bode Akindele, as a proud father, grandfather, great- grandfather, a successful business man, an industrialist and a philanthropist. Chief Bode Akindele was a man of many enterprises and international connections. He was the Chairman of Modandola Group, a holding company which covers...

Bob-Nosa, The Patriot, Acrylic on watercolour paper, 2020. Mathew Oyedele In a bid to curb and control the spread of coronavirus in 2020, the Nigerian government announced an indefinite lockdown that would reduce the transmission of the virus and protect the citizens. The lockdown restricted movements, halted business activities, and suspended all leisure, social and cultural activities. It did not leave out artists who usually work in isolation out of its wide-ranging impact. It came as a surprise to some of them. They could neither access their favourite materials nor replenish the exhausted ones. They were left with little or no income as galleries were closed; while exhibitions, auctions and art fairs were postponed. Artists had to rethink their approach to materials, subject matter and concepts in order to adapt to the changing environment. While the lockdown was gradually easing up, a youthful protest under the theme 'EndSARS' erupted on the streets of Nigeria to demand...

Abayomi Barber. Chinezim Moghalu Born 1928 in Ile Ife, Abayomi Adebayo Barber is a modern Nigerian artist and mentor of the Abayomi Barber School of Thought, an informal school of art founded in Lagos, in 1973. Barber happens to be one of Nigeria's most influential modern artists. The master artist is adept in naturalist painting, yet renown about realist, life-like, remarkably outstanding, detailed, and proportional sculpture. Abayomi is notorious for meticulous execution of sculpture. He does so with an underlying motive, zest and quest to achieve a perfectly rudimentarily proportional sculpture. His artistic practice is summed in keen attention to detail. Report has it that Barber could abandon a sculptural piece that is being undertaking by him, if such is not tilting to the artist's artistic sensibility of usually impeccable visualization. He could spend a great deal of time on a piece, in a bid to achieve the desire. Abayomi Barber's artistic and formal education was ...

  The Wait ( 2020), Mixed Media, Fredrick Idele. Mathew Oyedele On Saturday 20th of February 2021, Artpedia gallery opened to the public with an art exhibition that traces and examines the influence, significance and effect of time and happenings on artists' subconscious minds. The exhibition, titled, Persistence Of Time features six artists: Ikechukwu Ezeigwe, Fredrick Idele, Ada Godspower, Sejiro Avoseh, Elizabeth Ekpetorson and Habeeb Andu. One is welcomed into the exhibition hallway by the striking works of Habeeb Andu whose fusion of discarded materials with canvas expresses bold socio-political themes. I was glued to his mixed media work with the title, Arrival Quarters (2018) for minutes before I could even look at other works. The work brought back the anger and pity I felt when news broke out that Africans were being sold into slavery in Lybia some years ago. The composition of the work is carefully arranged to direct the eye to the silhouetted figures, hanging inver...

        Mathew Oyedele Shortly after the Nigerian independence celebration in October 2020, Nigerian youth took to the streets in different cities across the country to protest against police brutality under the slogan, 'EndSARS'. SARS (Special Anti Robbery Squad) is a unit of the Nigerian police that is widely known for unlawful arrests, extortion, profiling, kidnapping, torture and killing of Nigerians. I could not join the protest physically as I was still evaluating the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on my practice as well as plan for the year when it all began but I joined online by tweeting aggressively. I saw videos and images of louts and thugs attacking the peaceful protesters; of police attacking them with teargas and   water cannons, of police harassing and arresting the protesters, of a politician who came out of his vehicle with a gun and shot in the air with two persons reportedly dead on the spot and many others. I was actively participating on...