Artists in ‘Songs of Gold’
The exhibition will be preceded by a roundtable conference on the theme: “Democracy as Magic Wand: Nigerian Democracy and the Fallacies of Hope” with Dr. Abdullahi Muku, Acting Director-General, National Gallery of Art as Guest of Honour. According to Krydz Ikwuemesi, the acting international secretary, the event is organised at this time when Nigeria anticipates […]
The exhibition will be preceded by a roundtable conference on the theme: “Democracy as Magic Wand: Nigerian Democracy and the Fallacies of Hope” with Dr. Abdullahi Muku, Acting Director-General, National Gallery of Art as Guest of Honour.
According to Krydz Ikwuemesi, the acting international secretary, the event is organised at this time when Nigeria anticipates not only general elections but the realisation of free and fair polls as has been ubiquitously proposed by the present government, PACA considers it apt to present Songs of Gold III as a way of gesturing at the new dawn. Without necessarily being prophetic or prescriptive, the artists will in their works proffer their individual responses to the rhythms of a panting land, a land of protracted dreams and fantasies where anything can happen, where many things have happened in the last 50 years.
Although PACA is Pan-African, Ikwuemesi explained that the event will feature only works of twelve Nigerian artists with instrumentalist ambience in the areas of painting, sculpture, textile, photography and other media. The artists include Ayo Adewunmi, Kent Onah, Erasus Onyishi, Matthew Ebere, Tony Odeh and Ekanem Edet, amongst others.
He added that PACA also intends to use the occasion to present the maiden edition of the Peter Areh Award for Art Entrepreneurship to a ‘young artist with entrepreneurial inclination’ as may be selected by an ad hoc jury. The award is in memory of late Peter Areh, art and culture promoter and a close associate of PACA, who was assassinated in Lagos in 2009.
Discussants include former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Chief Dubem Onyia and Mr. Olufemi Adeagbo, lawyer and public affairs commentator as lead speakers along with Dr. Peter Ezeh of the University of Nigeria. Prof. Jerry Buhari of Ahmadu Bello University and International President of PACA will chair and moderate the occasion.
In addition to problematising the meaning and perception of democracy and governance in Nigeria, the exhibition and roundtable will explore and foreground the links and relationships between art, politics, and nation-building.
The outing which is the third in the series began in 1999, at the dawn of the current democratic dispensation in Nigeria. An exhibition was mounted – Songs of Gold I – at the National Council for Arts and Culture in Abuja to commemorate and interrogate the political turn. It featured works in various media with diverse thematic thrusts within the bounds of resistance, activism and simple social commentary.
This was followed by the second edition in 2004, at Alliance Francaise, Enugu as part of the component exhibitions for Afrika Heritage, Songs of Gold II. Described as a milestone on the 1999 edition, it sought to review in graphic terms the politico-social conditions in Nigeria at the time vis-à-vis the status quo ante 1999.