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Physical description:
25 p
Type:
Books
Place:
Nigeria
Date:
1988
20th century
Notes:
Paper originally presented at the INSEA Africa and the Middle East Regional Congress, University of Lagos, August 1988.
Filani argues that modern Nigerian artists have achieved a successful blend of the old and the new in their search for the unique without inferiority complex or apology either to traditional art forms or to new influences from the outside world. Filani expands on Dele Jegede's classification of modern Nigerian art: neo-traditionalists, the informal and the academic.
The neo-traditionalists are sculptors, closest to traditional art in form, content, materials and techniques. Lamidi Fakeye, Felix Idubor and Ladi kwali, the ceramicist, are the exemplars of the neo-traditional. The informal school of artists are non-academic but talented and creative individuals nurtured in workshop environments. The Oshogbo Mbari artists, for example, may lack skill in draftsmanship or the intellectual intensity of academic artists, but they are artistically and commercially successful in spontaneous, innocent renderings of folk tales and myths. Filani includes "street artists." such as sign painters, among the informal artists.
The third and largest category of artists are the academic ones, whose approach is intelletcual and who self-consiously strive for a new Nigerian identity. Filani gives a capsule history of modern art from the pioneers (Onabolu, Enwonwu, Ngbodaga-Ngu) and the early Zaria and Yaba schools to more recent developments, such as the cultural revival of the 1970s and the proliferation of art schools, staffed now by Nigerians. A few independent artists, such as sculptor Erhabor Emokpae or realistic painters Abayomi Barber and E.C. Madukaego, are essentially modernistic in outlook, even though they did not come through the formal art schools.
