28 Years Since My First Group Exhibition!

On April 14, 1997, I participated in a group exhibition at the British Council, Enugu. It was our first major art exhibition organized by our professors at the time, Obiora Udechukwu and Chika Okeke-Agulu. The exhibition opened on the 25th anniversary of the first painting students admitted into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The other four artists are doing art-related work and graphics. The exhibition came at a time when the Nigerian art scene was all about Lagos, although many amazing artists from other parts of the country were excelling internationally. I still can't accept why many predecessors in the art department in Nsukka were ignored. When I graduated, I kept going around the galleries in Lagos and speaking about Nsukka. I asked collectors to visit the art school. Things soon changed as some artists from Nsukka gained international acclaim. El Anatsui is an example. His international reputation forced art collectors, critics, and gallerists to start looking beyond Lagos to harness the diversity and talent in Nigeria.

The following essay about our group exhibition appeared in the Sunday 13, April 1997, Nigerian daily newspaper, Sunday Vanguard Newspapers, was shared with me by Sukanthy Visagaperumal Egharevba, Senior Art lecturer at the University of Cross Rivers State, Calabar, Nigeria.

'Six new Nsukka painters 1997'

"Six new Nsukka painters 1997" exhibition at the British Council, Enugu, April 14-18, 1997

Artists: Obinna Amoke, Tony Nsofor, Stanley Aneto, Okey Ogamanya, Onyema Ezugwu, Sukanthy Visagapperumal

When the art department of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was founded in 1961, one of its two pioneer teachers was Akinola Lasekan (1916-1974), an established painter who was perhaps better known as the nationalist cartoonist, Lash, whose cartoons appeared for some two decades in the West African Pilot (a newspaper publication). Why none of the first three sets of art graduates (1965, 1966, 1967) specialized in painting despite the presence of Lasekan, and later, in 1962/63, of the painters Emmanuel Okechukwu Odita and Oseloka Osadebe has not been investigated.

The first four painting majors graduated only in 1972, when Lasekan had left Nsukka, and relocated to the University of Ife, Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), because of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), Odita and Osadebe were still on study Ieave in the U.S.A., and Chike Aniakor and Uche Okeke had joined the staff and taught for lio years. Those first painting graduates lost three years because the University was closed during the War.

The present exhibition of the works of six painters who have just graduated from Nsukka coincides with and commemorates the 25th anniversary of the graduation of the first Nsukka painters.

Like their 1972 predecessors, the 1997 set lost school time, not because of a war, like the former, but due to the incessant closure of Nigerian universities. The economic downturn and the socio-political malaise in Nigeria, while adversely affecting the artists, like every other citizen, nevertheless pose operational and aesthetic challenges to the creative person. If artists could produce memorable works during the Nigerian Civil War, why not now?

Given the perceived interrelatedness of aesthetics and ethics, the role of the cultural producer in a time of crisis or social upheaval has always attracted debate. In the literary sphere, the literature spawned by the Nigerian Civil War, and the varied roles played by individual writers have continued to generate interest, and sometimes, controversy. For the 1972 painters, they were faced with choices constructed by events that happened before, during, and after the War. The problems that faced the 1997 painters during the protracted national strike by university teachers in 1996 were substantial. But for the creative person imbued with a historical sense, the path to be taken, in the face of a blatant assault on the high standard established over three decades at Nsukka, was certainly not in doubt.

In the 25 years since the first painting graduates. the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, has established a high national/international profile. The present exhibition will enable critics and the general public to appraise the works of the latest set in the light of those of the preceding generations."

Download the exhibition catalog here-