Guardian

Iron Man Boxes Amoda To A Corner

IN its first commentary on the American movie series, Iron Man exactly three years ago (ARTSVILLE, MAY 30, 2010), this column argued that the producers owed copyright fees to Olu Amoda, the Nigerian metal sculptor. Too many of the gadgets in the second movie in the series looked like Amoda’s pieces. Ignoring our comments, Walt Disney has gone on to pile salt on injury; they’ve released Iron Man 3, now showing on cinema screens in Lagos, around the time that Amoda was exhibiting Cequel II, his most ambitious show to date. Visitors to ART TWENTY ONE, the new, spacious gallery at the Eko Hotel, would think it was Amoda who copied the Iron Man concept. New Bride, made of bicycle parts, the first piece you engage at the entrance to the show, feels like encountering the title character in the series. Other pieces in the reception area of the room make you feel you’re right inside the movie. Iron Man is a 2008 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, but Mr Amoda, an eighties art graduate of Auchi Polytechnic, has been showing his larger- than- lifesized sculptural pieces, in which metals take fluid, organic forms, for over a decade. The last viewing wasn’t entirely about Iron man type sculptural pieces. Indeed, quite a number of the large human sculptural forms are female figures, as if Amoda himself is contesting the masculinity ethos of the Iron Man series. There are, indeed, several segments in this awesome exhibition. There’s an intriguing section in which bicycle steering wheels become the horns of rams in a scene depicting a ram contest. It’s a brilliant offering.

Art: All About Decorating The Sitting Room?

THE Temple Muse has presented Amusing The Muse, Victor Ehikhamenor’s ongoing exhibition, in a way that the viewer can visualize how the works can “feel” in living spaces. The drawings, most of them rendered in charcoal on canvas, help to freshen the appeal of the space, a non-gallery gallery of sorts (tucked in a backyard street in Victoria Island), retailing pricey clothing, expensive liquour, “bespoke” Nigerian fashion, Adichie’s latest novel, and, in general, luxury goods. The arrangement doesn’t encourage a critical take on Victor’s works; indeed, it reduces the urge for a close engagement with individual drawings. It does, however, fit the pattern of access to Nigerian art: here, artists work, as a rule, at the pleasure of collectors who-in the words of Jess Castellotte, editor of a new book on art collecting- see visual art as “the distinctive luxury good that opens the doors of an elite club”. Ehikhamenor’s art deserves far more than this. The poet, painter designer plays up the aesthetics, no doubt, but his art is the type that a viewer cannot hurry away from. The cluttered, wavy lines give way to some central figure, or distinctive line, which tells a story filled with meanings. Amusing The Muse closes on Thursday, May 30. The Temple Muse is at No 24, Amodu Tijani, off Sanusi Fafunwa Street.

 Castellote: Nigerian Collectors Are Poor Keepers Of Records

PRIVATE individuals are at the forefront of art collecting in Lagos, writes Jess Castellote, in Collectors and Their Collections, the lead essay in Contemporary Nigerian Art In Lagos Private Collections, the coffee table book on the art of collecting in Nigeria. “They are the ones that move around in a passionate and at times, compulsive and obsessed way trying to find valuable works”. But they are poor keepers of records of their own vast investment. “Surprisingly, most of the (40+) collectors I have visited have done little to document their works. No acquisition records, no information on their characteristics, not even an inventory of the pieces in the collections”, notes Castellote, a Spanish architect who has lived in Lagos for 29 years. Besides, “the study of local collections”, by scholars, “has been left at the margin of an already marginalized field: contemporary African art”. But why is it important for private art collections to be so rigorously documented? Castellote describes them as the driving force behind the primary and secondary art markets. They are the ones ultimately sustaining the primary actors, the artists. Through their regular acquisitions, they provide most of the fuel in which the engines of contemporary Nigerian art run”. Even so, Castellote’s essay, devoted as it is to the ecology of private art collecting, is critical of the way in which other actors, who play a great role in the art market elsewhere, are relegated to the flank of the Nigerian art landscape. That this happens, he laments, is a “measure of the insufficiency of the contribution of private institutions”. Castellote declares: “Artworks of historical importance end up in private collections, when perhaps they should be in public museums or galleries, open to the general public.”

Ghariokwu’s Show Ends On Thursday

A SIX-DAY viewing of the art of Ghariokwu Lemi will end at the Didi Museum on May 30, the day after democracy holiday. Titled Art’s Own Kind, the exhibition is curated by Ugoma Adegoke and is presented by The Life House, a promoter of culture productions. Lemi leaped into the public consciousness in the late 70s, with his Afro Pop Art on the covers of Fela’s long-playing records (LPs); they were playful, vivid descriptions of the anti-establishment messages the musician was conveying in his lyrics. “Lemi attained legendary status for the deep insight in vivid depiction of the music and ideology of Fela Anikulapo Kuti on iconic album covers for the Afrobeat Legend’s career”, says a note on the e-invite to the show. The exhibition features three distinct segments and sub-collections: Vintage Lemi Works on Paper, Axiomatic Expressions and Afro Pop Art Series.

Six In One For A Book Launch

WHEN an author launches a book, writes Rotimi Ogunjobi, author of Ajala the Terrible Child, “he uses both hands to present it to you”. Then he adds, on the glossy invitation card: “What I the author launches six books at the same time? The event: Gleanings From Along The Highway Of Time, a launch event of six books and a play, comes up on June 27 at the Lagos Country Club, at noon. Watch this space.