Farewell firebrand
and lyrical daredevil
whose campfire burned
Apartheid's homestead
Go well, insolent poet
and radical prisoner
who hurled words
at the world's insanity
Safe journey!
transcendent traveler
incandescent light
in heaven's conscience
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
On the Failed Christmay-day Terrorist
Until yesterday, Nigerians like me used to argue that despite my fellow compatriots' involvement in Advance Fee Fraud (aka 419) and Medicare Insurance Fraud, there was no reason to associate Nigeria with Al Qaeda-style terrorism. With the frightening news yesterday of a botched attempt by a Nigerian citizen to detonate an explosive device on a Detroit-bound Delta flight, my country and its citizens have now joined that inglorious list of terrorists' homelands.
While details of this incident are still fuzzy, information from Nigerian media, reveals a very disturbing reality. According to This Day, the father of the alleged failed bomber--a wealthy banker and former minister--had in fact contacted the "American authorities about his son's radical Islamism, and that "a source close to him said he was surprised that after his reports to the US authorities, the young man was allowed to travel to the United States."
While the authorities in Nigeria and the US try to unravel this Christmas-day bombing attempt, it sure bothers me that a young man whose father claims to have warned the American government about the activities of his son-- a fellow who had, according to news reports, moved to Egypt, and later Dubai from where he denounced his family (a sure sign of the extent of his radicalization)--was given a visa to travel to the US, when my 65-year old mother is denied visa to visit her grandchildren in the US, many respected Nigerian colleagues routinely refused entry to attend conferences. The pertinent question is why a character like Mr. Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab to enter the US, given what the authorities must have known about him; or is it because of the fact that he, unlike my mother and my fellow Nigerian scholars, are part of the Nigerian wealthy, political class?
I wonder if it now means that I have to go through routine secondary screening at the airport (or occasional ejection from the airport) like colleagues of mine who have the singular misfortune of holding passports issued by countries associated with terrorism. In any case I thank God that failed in his terrible mission.
While details of this incident are still fuzzy, information from Nigerian media, reveals a very disturbing reality. According to This Day, the father of the alleged failed bomber--a wealthy banker and former minister--had in fact contacted the "American authorities about his son's radical Islamism, and that "a source close to him said he was surprised that after his reports to the US authorities, the young man was allowed to travel to the United States."
While the authorities in Nigeria and the US try to unravel this Christmas-day bombing attempt, it sure bothers me that a young man whose father claims to have warned the American government about the activities of his son-- a fellow who had, according to news reports, moved to Egypt, and later Dubai from where he denounced his family (a sure sign of the extent of his radicalization)--was given a visa to travel to the US, when my 65-year old mother is denied visa to visit her grandchildren in the US, many respected Nigerian colleagues routinely refused entry to attend conferences. The pertinent question is why a character like Mr. Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab to enter the US, given what the authorities must have known about him; or is it because of the fact that he, unlike my mother and my fellow Nigerian scholars, are part of the Nigerian wealthy, political class?
I wonder if it now means that I have to go through routine secondary screening at the airport (or occasional ejection from the airport) like colleagues of mine who have the singular misfortune of holding passports issued by countries associated with terrorism. In any case I thank God that failed in his terrible mission.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Contemporary African Art Since 1980, in the web media
Our new book, Contemporary African Art Since 1980, has received some worthy mention in two influential web sites:
It has just been listed no. 2 in the Daily Beast's 20 "Best Art Books of 2009." See the entire list here
Also, Xena Jardin, a founding partner of and regular contributor to Boingboing.net, wrote a blog on the book. Click here
It has just been listed no. 2 in the Daily Beast's 20 "Best Art Books of 2009." See the entire list here
Also, Xena Jardin, a founding partner of and regular contributor to Boingboing.net, wrote a blog on the book. Click here
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Extra-Judicial killings in Enugu, Nigeria
If you follow news from Nigeria closely, you must by now be completely sated by stories of constant, imponderable acts of violence levied on the citizenry by the state police and security forces. Even more than during the years of military dictatorships, the scale of extra-judicial murders taking place in Nigeria today calls for international condemnation, since the Nigerian government appears unwilling to pay serious attention to this terrible phenomenon.
Earlier in the year, the Nigeria army was drafted in to quell the violent uprising by the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram in North Eastern Nigeria. How did it end? Well, the leader of the sect Mohammad Yusuf was arrested, paraded in front of the media and later handed over to the police. The next thing we saw was his dead body. The police initially said he was killed in a gun battle, until an army officer controverted the police account by asserting that Yusuf was handed over to the police alive and healthy (save for some minor injuries he sustained during the uprising). Photographs of him in hand cuffs in police custody surfaced. The police changed its story: he was killed while trying to escape from custody. When human rights groups complained the Minister of Information, sulkingly stated that the man's death will be thoroughly investigated. That was it. Yusuf's father-in-law, a so-called financier of the sect, was executed illegally by soldiers, in front of cameras. (Watch with caution!)
Now both the BBC and some national newspapers are reporting the recent mass burial of more than 70 bodies lodged at the mortuary of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital in Enugu, the former capital of Eastern Nigeria. Bodies apparently deposited by the police since the past 6 months. The police has once again come up with its usual mantra: these bodies, we are told, were casualties from gunfire exchange between police and armed robbers. But media reports indicate that 6 of the bodies are of young men the police had paraded in public alive recently as a gang of kidnappers. They were never prosecuted. But their bodies turned up in the mortuary. In another instance the police claims that one of the dead bodies belonged to a teenager SUSPECTED of armed robbery.
These stories leave me cold. It makes me wonder what bloody nation--I know it is a leap to think of Nigeria as a "nation"--thinks so little of the lives of its citizens. Someone has to account for these wasted lives. Someone must be responsible for the apparent brutality of these so-called security agents.
What rankles me is that the Nigerian Ministry of Information is busy buying image launderers to help "Re-brand" Nigeria. The least the Ministry can do for my fellow citizens is investigate and let the world know how those piles of bodies at the UNTH mortuary came about. The families of some of the "disappeared" men are pleading for help, and if it is indeed true that the human rights of these Nigerians have been so violently violated, no amount of re-branding will help the image of our country.
Earlier in the year, the Nigeria army was drafted in to quell the violent uprising by the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram in North Eastern Nigeria. How did it end? Well, the leader of the sect Mohammad Yusuf was arrested, paraded in front of the media and later handed over to the police. The next thing we saw was his dead body. The police initially said he was killed in a gun battle, until an army officer controverted the police account by asserting that Yusuf was handed over to the police alive and healthy (save for some minor injuries he sustained during the uprising). Photographs of him in hand cuffs in police custody surfaced. The police changed its story: he was killed while trying to escape from custody. When human rights groups complained the Minister of Information, sulkingly stated that the man's death will be thoroughly investigated. That was it. Yusuf's father-in-law, a so-called financier of the sect, was executed illegally by soldiers, in front of cameras. (Watch with caution!)
Now both the BBC and some national newspapers are reporting the recent mass burial of more than 70 bodies lodged at the mortuary of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital in Enugu, the former capital of Eastern Nigeria. Bodies apparently deposited by the police since the past 6 months. The police has once again come up with its usual mantra: these bodies, we are told, were casualties from gunfire exchange between police and armed robbers. But media reports indicate that 6 of the bodies are of young men the police had paraded in public alive recently as a gang of kidnappers. They were never prosecuted. But their bodies turned up in the mortuary. In another instance the police claims that one of the dead bodies belonged to a teenager SUSPECTED of armed robbery.
These stories leave me cold. It makes me wonder what bloody nation--I know it is a leap to think of Nigeria as a "nation"--thinks so little of the lives of its citizens. Someone has to account for these wasted lives. Someone must be responsible for the apparent brutality of these so-called security agents.
What rankles me is that the Nigerian Ministry of Information is busy buying image launderers to help "Re-brand" Nigeria. The least the Ministry can do for my fellow citizens is investigate and let the world know how those piles of bodies at the UNTH mortuary came about. The families of some of the "disappeared" men are pleading for help, and if it is indeed true that the human rights of these Nigerians have been so violently violated, no amount of re-branding will help the image of our country.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Life Objects, etc on Princeton's Webpage
The Princeton University website has just published a featured story on Life Objects: Art and Life Cycle in Africa, the exhibition I organized for the Princeton University Art Museum. Read more here.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Trouble with Art Restoration in Nigeria
This past weekend, in The Guardian on Sunday’s “Artsville” column by my friend Toyin Akinosho—without doubt the most important arts and culture columnist in the history of Nigerian print media—I read with profound sadness about another incident of “restoration” of a legendary Nigerian artist’s work. Months ago, in “Art/World”, my erstwhile column in NEXT newspaper, I had called attention to the troubling decision by the owners of the National Theatre, Lagos to “rehabilitate” Erhabor Emokpae’s sculptural frieze on the Theatre building. This present case is no less distressing. According to Artsville, Engineer Yemisi Shyllon—an art patron whose collection of modern and contemporary Nigerian art is among the most impressive anywhere—had seen a “deteriorating” 1952 painting by Ben Enwonwu in an office at the University of Ibadan. According to him: “I went ahead to commission one of the very best of Nigeria’s restorers, Mr. Oyerinde Olotu, to restore the work at a whooping cost of N1million… After three weeks of arduous restoration and conservation work, the painting is now fully transformed…”
In a different age and on a different subject I would be the first to send a note of appreciation to the art patron, for doing something in country where no one cares about the maintenance of everything from human lives, to basic infrastructure and, yes, art. Yes, Engineer Shyllon has done a tremendous lot to support art and artists. But on this matter I feel differently. Because it is inexcusable for people to assume and perhaps believe that all it takes to restore works of art worth anything is to have another good artist touch them up with paint. The business of restoring and conserving works of art is not quite the job of just competent artists. The model of art restoration and conservation in today’s Nigeria, as the National Theatre and now Enwonwu cases make one terribly aware, is reminiscent of the age when Popes, Cardinals and collectors routinely hired artists to take care of deteriorating or “immodest” works, and we know what that did to, say, Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The question is why Nigerians have to make the same mistakes all over again.
I can understand the dilemma of someone who cares about art, and who is passionate about doing something about the sorry condition of works by important Nigerian artists. But the place to begin is not by simply having artists do the so-called restoration and conservation work, without I am sure the kind of exacting examination of the condition of the original canvas, sizing, paint, varnish, etc, before appropriate conservation and restoration can be done by trained hands. The truth is that the kind of intervention visited on the Enwonwu painting has more than likely caused more long-term damage to the original work that all the dust and humidity in that Ibadan office.
It seems to me that the Nigerian modern and contemporary art industry has grown sufficiently big for there to exist somewhere in the country a conservation and restoration laboratory. This very important work cannot simply be left in the hands of amateurs, which is what studio artists, no matter how talented, are. I would go so far as to suggest that invaluable works by an artist of Enwonwu’s stature must never be subjected to the so-called restoration, even by their current “owners.” We just cannot afford to let those who will come after us to wonder how come we were so damn ignorant, or uncaring about the long-term effects of our actions on works of art.
In a different age and on a different subject I would be the first to send a note of appreciation to the art patron, for doing something in country where no one cares about the maintenance of everything from human lives, to basic infrastructure and, yes, art. Yes, Engineer Shyllon has done a tremendous lot to support art and artists. But on this matter I feel differently. Because it is inexcusable for people to assume and perhaps believe that all it takes to restore works of art worth anything is to have another good artist touch them up with paint. The business of restoring and conserving works of art is not quite the job of just competent artists. The model of art restoration and conservation in today’s Nigeria, as the National Theatre and now Enwonwu cases make one terribly aware, is reminiscent of the age when Popes, Cardinals and collectors routinely hired artists to take care of deteriorating or “immodest” works, and we know what that did to, say, Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The question is why Nigerians have to make the same mistakes all over again.
I can understand the dilemma of someone who cares about art, and who is passionate about doing something about the sorry condition of works by important Nigerian artists. But the place to begin is not by simply having artists do the so-called restoration and conservation work, without I am sure the kind of exacting examination of the condition of the original canvas, sizing, paint, varnish, etc, before appropriate conservation and restoration can be done by trained hands. The truth is that the kind of intervention visited on the Enwonwu painting has more than likely caused more long-term damage to the original work that all the dust and humidity in that Ibadan office.
It seems to me that the Nigerian modern and contemporary art industry has grown sufficiently big for there to exist somewhere in the country a conservation and restoration laboratory. This very important work cannot simply be left in the hands of amateurs, which is what studio artists, no matter how talented, are. I would go so far as to suggest that invaluable works by an artist of Enwonwu’s stature must never be subjected to the so-called restoration, even by their current “owners.” We just cannot afford to let those who will come after us to wonder how come we were so damn ignorant, or uncaring about the long-term effects of our actions on works of art.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Conference update...Ugiomoh made it!
Dr. Ugiomoh spent six days in Lagos (hundreds of miles away from his home in Port Harcourt), and was finally given the visa by 3:00PM on Friday. Which meant that he left for the airport from the Embassy. So, the conference organizers were relieved to see him Saturday morning. This afternoon he gave his paper "African art history after Hegel," which raised many questions about writing African art history. Dr. Gerhard Wolf of the Art History Institute in Florence gave a fitting bi-lingual lecture on "Art Histories or Art History?" to end the deliberations, which if anything showed once more--as did James Elkins's book Is Art History Global?--the multitudinous nature of this discipline today. The fact that these conversations are taking place at all says so much about the extent to which things have changed inside art history. Pfisterer and his team at LMU ought to be proud to have joined the leading front of the discussion.
Dr. Frank Ugiomoh taking a question from the audience after his presentation (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)
Dr. Gerhard Wolf giving his presentation (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)
Dr. Frank Ugiomoh taking a question from the audience after his presentation (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)
Dr. Gerhard Wolf giving his presentation (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)
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