Aesthetics of Celebration, Tension and Memory: Nigeria Urban Art History

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

History Compass 6/5 (2008): 1211–1234, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00550.x

Aesthetics of Celebration, Tension and Memory: Nigeria Urban Art History

Adérónké Adésolá Adésànyà*University of Ìbàdàn

AbstractThis essay, among other things, addresses the question of origin of Nigerian Urbanart, a genre basically found in urban spaces. It highlights the various nomenclaturesby which the genre has been tagged to date and provides a robust debate on thepioneer and later urban artists in the country noting the characteristics andnuances of their art. Besides establishing the character of Nigerian urban art ascompelling and significant to understanding the aesthetic sensibilities and nuancesof the producer culture, issues of identity, training, authorship, patronage, socialmemory and social responsibility, morality and immorality and how they inform,shape and complicate the creative endeavors of urban artists are brought to thefore. In this insightful interrogation of history, people and spaces one finds theemergence of a new artistic order in which Nigerian urban artists establish andexpand their own idioms, unite politics with art, engage their own audiences,cultivate their own clientele, tell their own stories and that of the society, createand endorse new identities, and increasingly expand their socioeconomic space.Their creative formats essentially transform into markets where people, productsand services unite. They also serve as cultural lenses through which one gaininsights into class struggle in a postcolonial society and how a critical mass of theNigerian public interprets leadership, commerce, and culture.

Introduction

Nigeria, a culturally rich West African state boasts of exquisite art formsthat straddle the ancient and the modern periods. A great deal has cometo us in form of documentation on these ancient and modern art traditions,still, a critical gap remains in the art history of Nigeria. Urban art, hithertoa seemingly inconsequential genre, now a flourishing phenomenon in thetwenty-first-century Nigerian popular culture, has not been adequatelydocumented in existing literature. From inception urban art was not a highlyrated genre. By character it is loose, eclectic, and carefree. Some art criticsrefer to it as hybrid, somewhat uncontrolled and uncultured as opposedto international or intellectual and sophisticated art produced by formalart school graduates under aesthetic rules. The principal characteristic ofurban/popular art is that it is produced by informally trained artists and

1212 Aesthetics of Celebration, Tension and Memory

© 2008 The Author History Compass 6/5 (2008): 1211–1234, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00550.xJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

geared to purely commercial usage. This notion has changed as more artiststrained in the formal mode are increasingly embracing urban art culture.

These distinctions and categorization, which are treated in greater detailin ensuing paragraphs, arise from contentions in the art circle about goodand bad art, serious and quintessential art as opposed to commonplace,pedestrian, and popular art, aesthetic judgments which place urban art inthe latter group. The notion that urban art was tasteless and classless is subjectto critical rethinking in the face of changing appreciation and growingacceptance of the genre and also due to postmodern expansions of thecategory of art as well as dissolution of classical categories of high and lowart/cooperation of specific urban artists into the gallery and internationalexhibition system. Besides, what exactly is good art where taste and preferenceis largely determined by the enthusiastic audience and buyer? Every art hasits own audience that provides it endorsement, acceptance, credence, andpopularity. Still, the job of art historians is to evaluate comparative relation-ships and the location of genres in the overall history of visual culture in anycontext. They are therefore interested in where urban art fits into thisrelationship. Urban art may have been deemed commonplace and of noserious consequence to art history in the past, however, today, it remainsrelevant to understanding and profiling the very society that produces it.

The lukewarm response to urban art in its early stage of developmentnotwithstanding, a conscious study of the genre could engender immensepossibilities for the art historian in charting fresh discourses on the changingfaces and phases of the art history of the country. Examined through a criticaland an engaging prism, urban art presents templates for the understandingof the connections between art and social responsibility on the one hand,and irresponsibility on the other. In order words, through urban art one isable to understand how art, on the one hand, promotes social responsibilityand, on the other hand, underscore or endorse social irresponsibility. It alsoprovides insights into class struggle and how a critical mass of the Nigerianpublic interprets leadership, commerce, and culture. The popular arts whichare expressive acts provide the public the only channel of communicationand format to react to the excesses of political elites who, Barber rightly notes,consumes a vastly disproportionate share of the national wealth; controls anddenies the poor access to official media, makes the poor invisible1 andmiserable.

Urban art is a lively, ubiquitous, popular, twentieth-century artistic phenom-enon ‘made by artists who produce signs and other commercial images forsmall businesses such as restaurants, market record shops, or barber stands’.2

Although it has actively engaged the Nigerian public to the degree that acritical mass of the society has developed a particular taste for it, the samesociety has paid little attention to its historicity and centrality to the nation’ssocio-economic tensions and tempo. The character of Nigerian urban artis so compelling and the idioms so significant that to ignore it is to lose sightof the aesthetic sensibilities and nuances of the producer culture. How did


Aesthetics of Celebration, Tension and Memory 1213

urban art emerge on the contemporary Nigerian art scene? What gave thegenre permission and articulation? Who are the creators, what is their pedigreeand for what purpose is their creativity? Is it possible to subject their artto intellectual discourse? In what ways does this genre interface with issuesof politics, identity, ethnicity, and commerce? This article treats these andother questions in the context of Nigerian Urban Art History, a phenomenawhich one locates as starting in Sub-Saharan Africa from the 1940s to thepresent. Vogel notes that the genre first appeared on painted trucks traversingAfrican roads in the 1940s and 1950s.3 However, the literature on urban artin Africa is very recent;4 with discourses growing as from the 1970s to thepresent. Beier locates the earliest example in Onitsha and describes the artform as signwriters art.5 He identifies Middle Art as one of the foremosturban artists and the most versatile popular artist in Onitsha,6 who paintedsigns and pictures on lorries and on signboards, Middle Art paintings derivedinspirations from cinema posters and European commercial advertising, high-lighted emerging fashions and fancy hairstyles, and commented on the civilwar, social morality, and immorality – issues which require deep contempla-tion. Indeed, Adepegba aptly classifies Nigerian urban art as cultivated newarts.7 Two major arguments advanced come to the fore in this article: intel-lectual art which transcends mere decoration; requires introspection, generatesdebates, and discourses does not necessarily emanate from art schools italso evolves from outside the ivory towers.

Otherness Syndrome or Objective Polarization in Contemporary Nigerian Art?

The history of urban art in Nigeria is somewhat tied to the history of adver-tising practice, and the history of art schools in Nigeria. It is also connectedwith the cold, unspoken, and unwritten tensions generated between artistsfrom the formal and informal art schools in Nigeria and their responsesto the challenges that confronted their aesthetic vista. It is necessary to tracethese connections and intersections for clarity and important extrapolationson what I call the otherness syndrome which implies and encourages segregation,class struggle, and ‘separatist agenda’ among artists and fosters polarizationin the way those who package and promote Nigerian art respond to theworks which emanate from the two divides.

Let us attempt to unite current happenings in the Nigerian art scene withhistory. In the late 1920s several years before Nigeria’s independence whenadvertising agencies emerged in the country, not very many owners of privatebusinesses could afford the bills for creative concepts to advertise their productand services for obvious reasons. The very first agency to operate its servicesin Nigeria was incorporated in England as West Africa Publicity (UAC).8 Thisagency, which was renamed Lintas a year after its incorporation basicallydeveloped its creative concepts from England for want of local expertise.There were no formal art schools in the country at that time to provide theneeded creative expertise, thus, Lintas had to rely on visuals from England.



Developing concepts outside the country attracted extra cost and occasionedlimited patronage of the agencies. Many business owners had to turn toroadside artists, local designers/printers, and sign writers most of who hadnot seen the four walls of an art school, for their creative concerns.9 A classstructure was automatically created and it greatly influenced the clientele forthese emergent practices.

While the street artists and designers, whether in Onitsha, Lagos, Ìbàdànor wherever they had diffused to, provided concepts at cheap labour for generalconsumption, Lintas maintained the portfolio of blue chip companies andpossibly a considerable percentage of the middle class who floated businessesthat relied on advertising services. Still, the pattern of operation in Lintasremained the same up to a point when the promulgation of indigenizationdecree otherwise known as the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree of1972 took effect. This occasioned a change of leadership, transformed theoperation of the company and saw the emergence of more agencies with localmanpower that doggedly pursued sophistication and professionalism in theadvertising trade.

Prior to the end of the decade that a change of leadership took place inthe foremost agency some interesting developments had also occurred. Formalart schools which were established in the late 1950s10 and others whichemerged in the post independence era turned out graduates who wereabsorbed into the growing advertising world. It was a mutually beneficialdevelopment for the advertising industry and the artists, fresh from art school.The local expertise needs of the agencies were realized and a refreshinglydifferent career charted for graduate artists who otherwise would have takento teaching or administrative positions in government establishments. However,while art school graduates found employment and provided the erstwhilelacking local expertise in the agency, some of them who did not get absorbedinto formal sectors of the economy turned to full time studio practicesince the tempo was already set and the climate ripe for it. Also, those whonurtured their creative talents individually without recourse to formal artschool became street artists. This essentially was the beginning of urban artor art peddled on the streets. The recourse of urban artists to take to thestreets set the stage for perennial class struggle11 between the two divides,and set the tone for rivalry and competition.

For the artists from the various formal art schools widespread in thecountry, museums shows, exhibitions in galleries, and listing in exhibitioncatalogues were major means of creating awareness for themselves andgenerating provenance for their oeuvres. Through these expositions manyof them indeed became famous. Exhibiting at private and public artvenues organized by foreign embassies, private gallery owners, and gov-ernment establishments, are sure ways by which such artists quickly roseto prominence. In contrast, the artists who took to the streets to publicizetheir art had to unite mass production with mass patronage in order todevelop a secure clientele.



The Art and the Creators

Urban art today is both public and active as opposed to its profile in thelate 1970s when it first emerged. This genre from the elite’s viewpoint wasnot initially considered as art per se. Art produced by artists who emanatedfrom formal art school was seen as real art, and thus began the subtle disdainand disregard for artistic productions which did not emanate from a structuredsystem such as the formal art institutions. Though urban art was also public,it remained basically commercial in content and focus. It has many descriptionssuch as popular art, commercial art, and street or roadside art. As a popularart it is accessible to the rank and file of the society. The nomenclatureurban art appears the most popular coinage and is derived from the factthat the genre is basically found in urban spaces. It is basically a loose artmeaning it is not governed by any rules of representation and presentation.The art is extremely extroversive in the sense that its variants can be amusing,ornamental, teasing, and engaging. Whichever form it takes urban art up tothe end of the twentieth century was primarily produced for commercialpurposes. The twenty-first century ushered in new forms and idioms. Moder-nity, the gods, the political class, and the generality of the people gave itpermission and articulation. Urban artists in Nigeria tend to typically plytheir trade in areas where commercial activities thrive. Nigerian major citiessuch as Lagos, Ìbàdàn, Port Harcourt, Aba, Onitsha, Enugu, and Abuja arethe hub centers where one can observe variety of urban art being producedin response to the exigencies of modernity and capitalism.

Urban art was not accorded any importance at least up till the middle ofthe twentieth century when scholars12 began to pay more than a scant attentionto this genre, which continues to defy straightforward categorization. Urbanart may not be altogether pleasing to the generality of the Nigerian populace(no art has ever appealed in the same degree to all observers. Besides, whosaid art had to be pleasing in a given sense or from the point of view of aparticular art critic?). Frankly, urban artists neither make art simply for aestheticpleasure nor create works that are pleasing to all (sometimes their art eveninfuriates the public), rather they are principally creators of art of themarketplace. It is a profit-oriented creativity which exists for mutual gainderivable by both the creator and the buyer.

Changing Profile of Urban Art and Artists

The creators of urban art are usually people who did not acquire any formalart school training although there are a few exceptions to this norm. Onehas witnessed, in recent times, an increasing number of graduates from poly-technics and colleges of education joining the stream of urban artists who plytheir creative enterprise on the streets. This development is traceable to therise in unemployment. The initial clientele was of the proletariat class withlittle influence on the politics of the socio-economic spaces. Today, urban



art engages postmodern politics, unmasks and engages new economies, andredefines gender and religious spaces. It is alive, ubiquitous, and theidioms oscillate between the preposterous and serious. This crisscrossingdefines categorization and is at best taken in their compelling and fleetingpresentation.

The major clientele of urban artists include owners of salons, barber’s shops,local eateries, other small-scale business enterprises, urban workers, and Euro-peans (the last two are fascinated by their paintings). The artists make itemssuch as quick and affordable art: neon signs, badges, plate numbers of cars,sign boards/sign posts, banners for their clients. They also have pen namessuch as Middle Art, Motif (Fig. 1), Logic Art, by which their products areidentified. In its early beginnings, urban art was basically simple. It was artproduced to satisfy commercial needs and productions often included signwriting, screen printing, and occasional paintings which were characteristi-cally mass produced for mass appeal and patronage. Urban artists do not

Fig. 1. An urban artist whose self-styled and business name is Motif Art.



always have a cultivated and or sophisticated clientele so there is evidentlyno need for them to make exclusive art or create limited editions of theirart works, rather, this is peculiar to formal art school graduates. Graduallypaintings featuring different themes such as village scenes and figures wereintroduced into their repertoire. The paintings of urban artists are verymuch at variance with the paintings of art school graduates in the sense thatthey make no pretences about observing western formalism13 and basic rulesguiding artistic representations and presentations in formal art schools. Fromthe outset, their art was carefree, highly repetitive, their use of media unre-strained and their colors sometimes somewhat crude, basic characteristicsarising from their lack of training in Western aesthetic conventions. Sculptureshave also been introduced into their repertoire (Fig. 2). Some of them spe-cialize in particular creativity as in the example of Alhaji Lasisi (Fig. 3), anAbéòkúta-based urban artist, who has been producing stamps (Figs. 4, 5,and 614), among other items, for over forty years. Figures in their pictorialcompositions were initially rendered in near sticklike forms very similar tothe bushman rock paintings and as they became more sophisticated their arttook on greater detail. Today, urban artists even make murals commentingon bible anecdotes for various churches especially those in southwesternNigeria that employ such images for doctrinal purposes.

The language of their art also began to take on new idioms. Forms wereredefined in consonance with the urban artists’ growing conversations with

Fig. 2. Frontage of Logic Arts studio in Abéòkúta.



modernity and its attendant influences, interaction with urban spaces, andtheir contemplations of new aesthetic possibilities and sophisticated audiences.In fact, the artists have since graduated from dealing with simple everydaylife subjects and ideas to articulating complex ideologies which generatedebates and data for those interested in popular culture and their impli-cations for contemporary scholarship. Urban artists now have included intheir expanding portfolio portraiture, and compositions that contemplateevents in, and comment on politics and commerce. Of great relevance tothe current discourse are the revolutionary portrait paintings of politicalpersonalities15 and compositions which urban artists make on myriad formatsincluding street walls, on natural objects such as stones and trees, and manmade formats such as canvases, cloth, metal sheets, body of automobiles, andpaper, among others.

Fig. 3. Alhaji Lasisi, an Abéòkúta-based urban artist who specialises in making commemorativepostage stamps and genre paintings.



When portraiture started to feature in their portfolio foremost subjectswere famous Nigerian political leaders as in the examples drawn by MiddleArt.16 Later ones focused on popular Nigerian artistes including actors/actresses and musicians, who remained favourites of the artists in view ofthe topicality and popularity of the genre. Indeed one can use the paintingsto study popular culture in Nigeria in view of the currency of the dressculture and hairstyles of the artistes depicted among the growing populace.The portrait paintings are always unsolicited, at least on the part of thesubjects of the paintings. The buyers are mostly owners of music shops, barbersshops, relaxation centers, and other rendezvous where the iconic imageof such artiste attracts immense acceptability. As far back as the late 1970sto the early 1980s portrait paintings of musicians such as Sunday Adeniyi,a.k.a. King Sunny Ade (a famous Yoruba Juju music maestro), SikiruAyinde Barrister, (Fuji music master), and Kollington Ayinla (another fuji

Fig. 4. Postage stamp designed by Alhaji Lasisi to commemorate the emergence of AgbaniDarego as Miss World 2001.



exponent) have become commonplace items on streets and corner shops insouthwestern Nigeria. Idealized portraits of religious icons are also includedin their creative idioms. In other regions of the country where urbanartists also ply their trade portraiture of popular personalities17 are also commonfeatures in their repertoire. In view of the mass appeal of celebrity portraitureamong the generality of the people, by mass-producing the portraiture on,and without demand, the career urban artists have inadvertently flourished.

It is necessary to reflect on how the artists’ works impact on the socio-economic life of the artiste they promote. It is incontrovertible that fromthe unsolicited mass-produced portraiture of the artistes a celebrity status isestablished for them. Whether in Africa, Europe of America, the media hasbeen a major tool in harnessing prime social space and creating relevancefor individuals in the society. Urban artists understand the power of the mediaand exploit this advantage to the full. They essentially represent the com-moners’ tabloid for articulation and contemplation of a changing vista.

Fig. 5. ‘Dignity in Labour’ A postage stamp also designed by Alhaji Lasisi.



Rebels on the Street or Muse of Morality?

How far could one stretch the argument that urban artists are rebels on thestreet? If rebellion is understood as breaking away from the status quo forself actualization and determination, then Nigerian urban artists are makinga success story of their rebellious tendencies. Some public good, however,is derivable from the ‘rebelliousness’ of urban artists and the realization of thesocial consciousness they arouse and their significance in this regard informedmy reference to them as Muse of Morality. If one wants to feel the tempoof a society; its challenges, confrontations, frustrations, dialogue with, andresponses to modernity and its burdens and blessings, one simply looks atthe urban art in such milieu. If art is a channel through which one can unmaskthe nuances and tensions of a society, then urban art provides templates forsuch contemplations. Nigerian urban art particularly those produced in areas

Fig. 6. An elderly man wearing a t-shirt having an embroidered version of one of the postagestamps designed by Alhaji Lasisi.



typically referred to as tension zones, teases and captures the moments andtempos of socio-economic life of the society. They also articulate aestheticof double-sense. Some examples which underscore these points are drawnfrom Ìbàdàn (Oyo State), Abéòkúta (Ogun State), and Onitsha (AnambraState) all in Southern Nigeria.

Walls of Celebration, Confrontation, and Defiance

From Ìbàdàn I take some examples of the various types of urban art that areproduced in the city which are instructive in understanding the collectivetensions the people of the city share, their social memory, politics of differenceand commonality, social responsibility, and even irresponsibility. In sharingthe multidimensional creative offerings of urban artists in Ìbàdàn, the startingpoint is a sacred spot – the Agbeni Sàngó shrine where an urban artist adornedthe wall at the entrance of the shrine with visual lore which recall Sàngó theapotheosize god-King of Old Oyo and the Yoruba god of thunder and Oya,his wife (Figs. 7 and 8). Cultural images on walls and sacred spaces are growingphenomenon in urban art. Images illustrative and or indicative of professionalcallings are also becoming widespread in the city. They are found in traditional

Fig. 7. Wall Mural at Agbeni Sàngó Shrine showing images and registers synonymous withOya, Yorùbá goddess and Sàngó’s wife. The phone number indicated in the foreground ispurely an advertisement for the shrine keeper. Visitors to the shrine can contact him easily ifhe is away from the shrine.



healing homes and religious ambiences. Figures 9, 10, 11, and 12 show images,painted on the wall along Beere in the heart of Ìbàdàn city, which are basicallyadvertisements for business concerns including photo studio, property business,embalming home, and hospitality center. While it is legal to advertise goodsand services, the practice need not contravene the rule of law. However, theexamples of murals painted by urban artists in this section of Ìbàdàn city arestated not have the approval of constituted authority. This brings to the forethe notion that urban artists not only break the rules of art they also violaterules which govern the use of social space. However, the Beere exampleappears to be a peculiar case given the fact that the zone is reputed for crasslawlessness and defiance to constituted authority. This paradigm also bestillustrates our coinage of aesthetic of double-sense.

The axis from Beere to Mòlété in Ìbàdàn is the base of Làmidì Adédibú,the strongman of Ìbàdàn politics who continues to hold the state under siege.His portrait (Fig. 13) painted on the wall of a house which projects and towersabove the street indicate his lordship of the zone, the endorsement of thepeople of the area, and the helplessness of history in etching both evil andgood in human memory. Adédibú is lord of chaos and repressive rule inÌbàdàn. He holds no official public office yet imposed local governmentcaretaker committee pays homage to him with tribute ostensibly siphonedfrom public coffers. Later elected local government chairmen and even the

Fig. 8. Mural dedicated to Sàngó, the Yorùbá thunder god. Location: Agbeni Sàngó Shrine.Photo courtesy: Adérónké Adésànyà, 2007.



Fig. 9. Mural along the street wall in Beere, Ìbàdàn advertising the urban artist and a photostudio. Photo courtesy: Adérónké Adésànyà, 2007.

Fig. 10. Urban art serving two purposes; advertisement of services and admonition of the society.



Governor of Oyo State also reputedly pay him tribute. His perceived popu-larity got the better of him recently when he took his disdain for constitutedauthority to the hilt. He had, before and after the enthronement of the presentOlúbàdàn Oba Odùgadé Odúlànà I, been rubbishing the authority of theOlúbàdàn. However, the summit of his disdain for the royalty was at the2006 Sallah Prayer. He, through his recalcitrant mob, demonstrated yet anothertyrannical attitude by forcing the representative of Olúbàdàn out of the Agodiprayer ground, and ordered the abduction of one of the former directors ofthe Odua Group of Companies. Still, he was not done with impunity. Whenthe National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)sealed off of a cold room where he stored expired fish, he defied NAFDAC

Fig. 11. Bolaji Amusan, a.k.a. Mr Latin, a popular Nigerian home video actor is depitedcarrying a coffin on his head. The painting serves two purposes: First, it advertises the artistand the film in which he starred. It also advertises the trade of coffin makers and funeralundertakers in that area of Beere, Ìbàdàn. This urban painting underscores the notion that thecreative formats of urban artists essentially transform into markets where people, products andservices unite.



and mortgaged the health of the people of Oyo State and residents of Ìbàdànby ordering his thugs to force open the sealed store thereby allowing the badfish stocked to be sold to the populace. For these and many other examplesof flagrant abuse of power Adédibú has been largely described as an alterego of Basòrun Gáà, the despotic chieftain of Old Òyó who terrorized theroyalty as well as the people during the reign of four respective Aláàfins:Aláàfin Lábísí (1750 who ruled for 17 days) Aláàfin Awónbíojú (1750 for 130days), Aláàfin Agbólúajé (1750–72) who had a longer reign than the firsttwo because he submitted to the rule of Gáà but was eventually forced tocommit suicide, and Májèógbé (1772–73). His style of state terrorism wasunparalleled as the period witnessed a great magnitude of constitutionalupheaval in Oyo Empire and tribute due to Aláàfin’s palace was diverted tohis palace. Still in spite of his ignominious profile the urban artist find hima popular subject for popular art in urban spaces in Ìbàdàn. The art in agiven sense double-speak, it promotes what the society abhors.

From the analysis of Adédibú’s portrait and profile I move on to the portraitof Otúnba Adébáyò Àlàó Akálà (Fig. 14), his political son and incumbentGovernor of Oyo State. Akala’s images which have been criticized by manyas vain glorification adorn strategic spots in Ìbàdàn, and indeed the wallof fame in Beere, also indicate and establish both his and Adédibú’s political

Fig. 12. Sometimes weeds contest space with urban paintings as in the case of this hoteladvertisement painted on the wall along Beere. Photo courtesy: Adérónké Adésànyà, 2007.



control of Ìbàdàn and indeed, Oyo State. Less than two years ago, it was theportrait of Rasheed Ladoja, the immediate past governor of the state thatwas on the wall. His iconic image has since been painted over and replacedwith that of Àlàó Akálà. This has been the practice for several decades thatthe urban artist who creates street paintings in Beere has colonized the areafor his creative endeavors. Indeed, to gain fresh insights into political develop-ments in Ìbàdàn, one only needed to pay a visit to the Beere region andespecially to the site where the urban artist periodically paints portraitureof political bigwigs in the State and has made the genre a significant aspectof his creative output. The fact that the urban artist paints portraits of anyincumbent whether good or bad, is an affirmation of his double-sense, hisdilemma with morality and amorality, and a demonstration of his ideologicalinconsistency.

Fig. 13. Mural painting showing Lamidi Adedibu. Photo courtesy Adérónké Adésànyà,2007.



Art Aristocrat, Art Proletariat

Much as one would speak of urban art in Nigeria as essentially art producedby and for the lower or popular class, one cannot ignore the fact that someof the works celebrate, and indeed promote and or profile political elites. Suchworks are referred to in this article as art aristocrat meaning, art made for thepleasure, celebration, and promotion of the elites. The creative expressionsof urban artists in Abéòkúta, southwestern Nigeria, may generally center oncommercial prints and designs, and sometime express dominant indigenousreligious attitudes in an area, as in the case of mural painting (Fig. 15) andrelief sculpture (Fig. 16) which comment on the Ògboni cult in Abéòkúta,most of them basically thrive through commissions from the political class.In Abéòkúta, urban artists, the purveyors of this genre, commit their materialsand creativity to portrait painting of political personalities. I have seen manyexamples of unsolicited portraiture in oil of different members of the politicalclass including those of Honorable members of the State House of Assemblylittering the cityscapes where urban artists ply their trade. Of these examplesare the portraitures executed by Kayode Moses Akinola (b. 1965) and Olan-rewaju Ayodeji, two artists who have carved out niches for themselves asprominent urban artists in Abéòkúta. Both Kayode Akinola, owner of Kayoses

Fig. 14. Mural at Beere showing Governor Alao Akala of Oyo State and another PDP stalwartpossibly the candidate for Ìbàdàn North Local government Chairmanship. Photo courtesy:Adérónké Adésànyà, 2007.



Studio, Lalubu Street Oke-Ilero, Abéòkúta, and Ayodeji of Creative MindsForum have to their credit portrait paintings of political bigwigs includingthose of Otúnba Gbénga Daniel the incumbent Governor of Ogun State, hisarch rival Senator Ìbíkúnlé Amósùn and Senator Ìyábò Obásanjó-Bello. Thesesimple portrait paintings provide political prominence for those depicted.However, Oladimeji’s is perhaps the most remarkable of the two in the sensethat he takes portrait painting to another level by turning it into a com-positional genre whereby the outstanding qualities of the individual depictedand his major achievements while in office, the logo and symbols of his partyare incorporated into the paintings. The portraits of Gbenga Daniel (Fig. 17)and Ìyábò Obásanjó-Bello (Fig. 18) are cases in point. The paintings arebasically unsolicited but effective advertorials for the political personalities.They underscore the notion that the character of urban art has always beenpatronizing but the degree of this sycophancy continues to assume a com-pelling dimension in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic whereby ‘art aristo’ is foistedon the public.

However, the urban artist is not always a sycophant who uncriticallyeulogizes the political class he can also moralize and sermonize. We seethis tendency come to the fore from the examples cited by Chike Aniakorin his 2003 study of some urban artists in southern Nigeria. In one of theparadigms highlighted it is established that there is also a political aspect

Fig. 15. Relief sculpture showing six titled Ogboni members. Photo courtesy: Adérónké Adésànyà,2007.



to the popular artist’s subject matter. Aniakor refers to a painting titled‘The Oppressor’ as ‘a metaphor for political despoliation, whether from pastmilitary leader, from business tycoons whose agenda make life very diffi-cult for the ordinary people’. According to him ‘the oppressor . . . may be apolitical predator or the aggressive trader at the Onitsha market’ who specializein illegal business deals and sponsors gun running and illegal drug trade. Theoppressor is a fit metaphor for the absence of a moral center in our society,whose macro model is the Onitsha urban center, with its core in theOnitsha market.18

Citing another urban artist simply called CAS who examined the bitingeffect of inflation on the people, Aniakor notes that the artist takes stockof the cost of all material goods and services such as education, buildingmaterials, transportation, cooking items, vehicle, and others and how peoplehave suffered from sky high inflation This is a critical analysis of the state ofNigeria coming from an artist whose sphere of creative influence is outsidethe ivory towers. It underscores the fact that the artist is not an uncriticalindividual he is in fact one who takes interest in multiple issues includingthe sharp contrast between the rich and the poor in the society. The urbanartist calls attention to social malaise, irresponsibility of the ruling class, andthe prevailing injustice.

Fig. 16. Mural painting in Abéòkúta showing a depiction of the Yorùbá Ògbóni in an unusualformat and medium.



Conclusion

Nigerian urban art is basically the playful yet critical genre which grew fromthe streets and survives on the street, its lifeline being the moments and moti-vations, tempo, and tensions of the society which give it permission. Fromthe data discussed in this article, it is established that to encounter and contem-plate Nigerian urban art is to come to full realization of a society simultane-ously at play and seriousness. The urban artists, from Middle Art (one of theearliest), to Logic Art (one of the most recent), address their own audiences,cultivate their own clientele, tell their own stories and that of the society,create and endorse new identities, and increasingly expand their socio-economic space. Their creative formats are markets where products and peopleunite. While early urban artists produced art which market products andservices, later ones create art which market personalities. The engaging storyof Nigerian urban artists and their art is still expanding. How their workcontinues to interface with socio-economic attitudes and cultural challengesespecially their articulation and expression of the notions of gender andreligion are fertile areas for expanding discourse on urban art. As the manysides and shades of urban art still await such investigation, history will definitely

Fig. 17. Portrait painting of Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State combined with a compo-sition of market scene. Campaigns for politicians are disguised or expressed in different ways,including the idea of showing the Governor as one who identifies with the masses, in thispainting.



gradually locate and unfold its holistic significance to Nigerian art historyand its relevance to understanding the nuances of Nigerian politics. In themain, Nigerian urban artists’ continue to gain recognition in the acknowl-edgments and patronage they get from their traditional patrons (the masses– the individuals and the small and medium scale business entrepreneurs)and their contemporary clientele (politicians) who increasingly give theirart a lifeline.

Short Biography

Dr Adérónké Adésolá Adésànyà is a Senior Research Fellow (Visual Art/Art History) in the Institute of African Studies, University of Ìbàdàn. Sheearned her B.A. (Ed) Fine Arts from the Obafemi Awolowo UniversityIle-Ife; her Masters in Visual Art (African Studies), and Ph.D. Visual Art/Art History from the University of Ìbàdàn. She also holds a PostgraduateDiploma in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University, UppsalaSweden. Her areas of specialization are African Art History, Visual Art,

Fig. 18. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, daughter of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and Senator ofthe Federal Republic of Nigeria. Urban artists are increasingly focusing on portraits paintingsof politicians like her using the format to legitimise their position and programmes irrespectiveof whether they are popular or not. Here, the manifestoes Health, Education and . . . whichshe presented during her campaign for election are highlited in the background of this portraitcum compositional painting.



Folklore and Gender Studies, Migration history, and Peace and ConflictStudies.

Adésànyà was an awardee of the M. K. O. Abiola Postgraduate Fellow-ship of the University of Ìbàdàn in 1997, is a Fellow of Codesria GenderInstitute 1998, Fellow of the 2004 Peace and Conflict Studies Programmeof Uppsala University, Sweden, and was Visiting Scholar at the Institutefor Advance Studies Indiana University, Bloomington in 2007. She haspublished many essays in her areas of specialization. She is co-authorwith Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi of the book titled: Restless Minds:Migrations and Creative Expressions in Africa and the African in the Diasporas(Carolina Academic Press, 2008). Her collection of poems, Etches of FreshWaters, a co-authored volume with Toyin Falola, is under contract of CarolinaAcademic Press. Her forthcoming book on art history titled CarvingWoods, Making History, a major text on the vestiges of Yoruba woodcarvingstraddling the nineteenth century to the present, is under contract ofAfrica World Press.

The creative endeavors of the art historian cum artist include poetry,painting, cartooning, and illustration. She is an active academic whohas toured many universities in the United States including the Univer-sity of Texas at Austin; University of Texas at Arlington; Brooklyn Col-lege, New York; Florida State University, Miami, FL; and the StateUniversity of San Marcos, TX, among others, giving lectures and seminars.

Notes

* Correspondence address: University of Ìbàdàn, Oyo State, Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected].

1 Karin Barber, ‘Popular Arts in Africa’, African Studies Review, 30/3 (1987): 3.2 Susan Vogel, Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art (New York, NY/Prestel: The Centrefor African Art, 1991), 11.3 Ibid., 120.4 Ibid., 9.5 Ulli Beier, ‘Signwriters Art in Nigeria’, African Arts, 4/3 (1971): 22–7.6 Ulli Beier, ‘Middle Art: The Paintings of War’, African Arts, 9/2 (1976): 21.7 C. O. Adepegba, Nigerian Art: Its Tradition and Modern Tendencies (Ìbàdàn: Jodad Publishers,1995), 79–80.8 See Christopher Doghudje, ‘Milestones in 20th Century Advertising’, Vanguard, 3 January2000, p. 17.9 Vogel observes that the trend was prevalent in many places, but especially Anglophonecountries where local sign painters had created a genre of elementary advertising and commercialdecoration that was pictorial as well as graphic. Vogel, Africa Explores, 120.10 These include the Nigerian College of Arts and Science which later became Ahmadu BelloUniversity Zaria, Polytechnic Ìbàdàn Art School and the Yaba College of Technology.11 The tension between academic and urban artists is not peculiar to the Nigerian art scene,it also came to the fore at the CICIBA Biennale in 1985 where academic artists showedtheir disdain for the inclusion of urban artists’ works in the exhibition. Vogel, Africa Explores,116.12 Beier, ‘Signwriters Art’; Beier, ‘Middle Art’; Nicklin; Vogel, Africa Explores; Adepegba,Nigerian Art.



13 This is otherwise known as British formalism, a legacy of the British colonial power intro-duced into Nigeria during the colonial period. The art tradition continues to exist alongsideother art traditions in most formal art schools in Nigeria.14 Alhaji Lasisi with his long-term experience as designer of various stamps which bear testimoniesof various events in Nigeria regards himself as an archivist, hence, this stamp embroidered on aT-shirt with the inscription ‘A Living reminder of events’.15 Middle Art may indeed have started this practice as Beier writes that he painted portraits offamous people who caught his imagination: Lubumba, Kennedy, Nkrumah, Churchill includingthe Nigerian leaders such as Azikiwe, Awolowo and Sultan Bello, the Saudaurna of Sokoto,among others. Beier, ‘Signwriters Art’, 26.16 The urban artist made such paintings simply to identify him with the universe of the richand powerful in the society. It represented for him a make-believe world that he would neverenter.17 See Vogel, Africa Explores 153, for the example of Augustine Okoye’s (a.k.a. Middle Art)painting of Late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sadaurna of Sokoto.18 Chike Aniakor, ‘Towards New Transformations of Idiom: Art, a Terrain of Creative De/Construction East of the Niger River’, in Laurent Fourchard (ed.), Modern History of Visual Artin Southern Nigeria (Ìbàdàn: IFRA, 2003), 33.

Bibliography

Adepegba, C. O., Nigerian Art: Its Tradition and Modern Tendencies (Ìbàdàn: Jodad Publishers,1995).

Aniakor, Chike, ‘Towards New Transformations of Idiom: Art, a Terrain of Creative De/Construction East of the Niger River’, in Laurent Fourchard (ed.), Modern History of VisualArt in Southern Nigeria (Ìbàdàn: IFRA, 2003), 25–44.

Arnoldi, Mary Jo, ‘Rethinking Definitions of African traditional and Popular Art’, AfricanStudies Review, 30/3 (1987): 79–84.

Barber, Karin, ‘Popular Arts in Africa’, African Studies Review, 30/3 (1987): 1–78, 105–11.Beier, Ulli, ‘Signwriters Art in Nigeria’, African Arts, 4/3 (1971): 22–7.Beier, Ulli, ‘Middle Art: The Paintings of War’, African Arts, 9/2 (1976): 20–3.Hospers, John, Meaning and Truth in the Arts (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North

Carolina Press, 1974).Hassan, Sallah, ‘The Modernist Experience in African Art, Towards a Critical Understanding’,

in Phillip Altbach and Salah M. Hassam (eds), The Muse of Modernity: Essays on Culture asdevelopment in Africa (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press Inc, 1996), 37–61.

Kemal, Salim, and Gaskell, Ivon (eds), The Language of Art History (London/Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991).

Vogel, Susan, Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art (New York, NY/Prestel: The Centre forAfrican Art, 1991).

Documents

Aesthetics of Celebration, Tension and Memory: Nigeria Urban Art History