Art of Nsukka: Energy, Imagery //WP
Imeh Akpan
Art of Nsukka: Energy, Imagery
By Hank Burchard
Friday, January 23, 1998; Page N53
A POWERFUL SHOCK is in store for visitors to the National Museum of African Art.
It's the shock of recognition, which actually can be seen on the faces of many
patrons as they enter the museum's new permanent gallery of contemporary art and
don't see the sorts of animistic totems we're used to. The inaugural show is
devoted to the work of seven talented Nigerians, and the unstated theme is the
universality of art.
At first glance there seems to be nothing particularly African about most of the
64 paintings, drawings, prints, wood sculptures and mixed-media works. A number
of them could have come from Arctic Inuits, Australian Aborigines, Native
Americans, Europeans, or from just about any other ethnic group in the global
village. These works are so accessible they seem instantly familiar.
Part of the explanation is that all the artists are associated with the art
department of the British-style University of Nigeria at Nsukka in southeastern
Nigeria. Another part is that the African diaspora has spread the continent's
aesthetic influence worldwide, and European artists have long borrowed so
heavily from African imagery that it no longer seems exotic to Western eyes. But
mainly this art connects so quickly because these are works of such energy and
vivid directness that they work their magic on any human eye.
It soon becomes apparent to a visitor that all of the artists -- Tayo Adenaike,
El Anatsui, Chike Aniakor, Olu Oguibe, Uche Okeke, Obiora Udechukwu and Ada
Udechukwu -- are in fact working within strong Nigerian idioms, especially an
archaic set of abstract forms known as "uli." Employment of these spare motifs,
once widely used -- by women only -- in wall decoration and body ornamentation,
is the signature of what curator Simon Ottenberg calls "the Nsukka group," most
of whose members are men.
Another bond is that most of the artists are ethnic Ibos who were on the losing
side in the brutal Biafran civil war (1967-70); political protest and social
commentary figure largely in the work. But while these artists literally and
figuratively form a school, it's one whose members pursue their own courses.
Tayo Adenaike, 43, is ethnic Yoruban, but he is among the most enthusiastic
employers of Ibo uli design elements. His highly stylized and appealing
watercolor "Cow at Rest" (1994) is one of the few animal images in the show.
El Anatsui, 53, originally from Ghana, uses axes, chain saws and blowtorches to
achieve rich and subtle effects in wood carvings. In some of them, parallel
boards echo traditional narrow-strip weavings. In others, such as "Erosion"
(1992), the show's towering centerpiece, he uses deeply carved and intricately
figured wood to express his angst, in this case over the worldwide erosion of
indigenous cultures.
Chike Aniakor, 58, is an art historian whose pen is equally adept at writing and
drawing. Much of his work addresses the plight of his countrymen, who are
laboring under the triple woes of poverty, ethnic strife and government
corruption. In "Exodus I (The Refugees)" (1977), a mass of bundle-burdened
refugees staggers along like hollow-eyed zombies.
Olu Oguibe, 33, now teaching at the University of South Florida in Tampa, was
himself a refugee from the Biafran War. Separated from the homeland materials he
preferred, he took up watercolors and acrylics while earning a doctorate at the
University of London and gradually abandoned ancestral motifs -- although now
he's exploring the traditional arts of other Third World people. Oguibe is a
poet; his painting "Martyr" (1993) has the acerbic quality of blank verse.
Uche Okeke, whose mother was a traditional Nsukka artist, is the grand old man
of the Nsukka Group. The 64-year-old Okeke founded the university's art program
in 1970 (he's now retired). Okeke's wonderfully antic "Ana Mmuo" was painted in
1961 but seems fresh today and probably still will seem so in 2061.
Obiora Udechukwu, 51, now the leader of the group and a staunch social activist,
uses his precise pen to delineate the downtrodden lives of the majority of his
100 million compatriots. "Road to Abuja" (1983) is a lyrical swirl of fine lines
tracing fouled lives.
Ada Udechukwu (no relation), 37, is the odd woman out in the Nsukka Group,
tensioned between the cultures of her Ibo father and American mother. She
considers herself primarily a poet, but her way with words is no match for her
mastery of the visual line. Her work is as strong as it is subtle; "These
Burdens I Bear" (1990) is eloquent minimalist testimony to the plight of a
feminist in an almost medievally male-dominated milieu. But she's so good she
might well wind up leading this band.
THE POETICS OF LINE: Seven Artists of the Nsukka Group -- Through April 26 at
the National Museum of African Art, 950 Independence Ave. SW (Metro:
Smithsonian). 202/357-2700 (TDD: 202/357-1729).