Jill Rees: Welcome Press

The old European nations are like old ladies sitting in their dilapidated old mansions sifting through their family jewellery with their memories. Sometimes, like Austria, they’re looking back at past glories. More typically, like Britain and France, they still think they’re players, and are again looking to play their part in the world. Nations with a past they would like to forget, such as Germany, are players but keep themselves to themselves. Some of the nations are struggling back to the surface after the devastation of World War II. There are new democracies, new nations, new economic systems. Many have already joined the European Union, others are trying to qualify. Turkey, bridging the Bosphoros between Europe and Asia, has chosen to be considered European, its mainly, but not only, Moslem population. And finally the nations who are still dreaming, like Bulgaria, not yet realising what it means to be European, the most privileged of the world regions.

Although there have been shifts in the peoples of Europe from time to time, the basic thought systems come from the ancient Greeks, whose thoughts and ideas permeate the European nations since the 5^th century BC, being largely adopted by the nascent Christian civilisations. During the last century, some of the cultures suppressed by this neo-classical culture, such as the ‘Celtic’ peoples of Spain, Brittany, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, have had a revival in recent years, helped not least by the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart! Is there an identity to being European? Yes, I think it would be a nod of the head to the classical civilisations of Rome and Greece, still regarded with the greatest respect in Europe, taken with the inventiveness of the indigenous peoples.

The former Eastern bloc countries, closed to the rest of the world as insular Soviet satellite countries for much of the late 20^th century, have found it surprisingly easy to return to their pre-war roles. The great romantic cities of Budapest, Prague and Sofia are once again at the heart of culture, drawing other European travellers as if by a magnet, the magnet of myth. Their old glory is still within living memory, and is so deeply embedded in their culture that it remains untouched by Soviet oppression. The melting pot of Celts, Slavs, Latins, Moors, Saxons, Scandinavians, all forming a delightfully varied but primarily united civilisations we can call European.

Of course there is a crossover with Africa. The distance between the continents on the Spanish/Moroccan crossing is only nine miles. The Celts are related to the Berber people who once formed a great Empire until finally defeated by the Arabs, and are now undergoing a cultural revival in the same vein as the European Celts. The Kabyle people of Algeria often have light skin and blue eyes, coming as they do originally from the Aryan peoples of ancient Greece. The Arab or Moorish empire stretched into southern Europe as far north as the Loire, and is the origin of the saying that the south starts at this East/West river, below which people tend to be darker in skin and hair colour, and the lifestyle more relaxed.

Africa is home to great empires too, the Berbers, the Arabs, the Malian Empire which was so wealthy from trading that the streets of Timbuktu were said to be paved with gold, the great Ethiopian Empire,Ghana, Bambara, Garamantes, Egypt. What does it mean to an African to remember these great peoples? The colourful Berber in Algiers, reclaiming his heritage; the purple-scarved Touareg, mapping the peoples of the immeasurable Sahara; the Malian farmer, surveying the quality of his cotton crop, the displaced farm worker of catastrophic Zimbabwe; the children sheltering from the bombardment in Iraq; the Nigerian tradesman counting his money and planning to smuggle it to the UK!. The Muslim villager, struggling to live with honour; the miners of South Africa; the gallant Ethiopian, whose borders remain uninvaded for the longest of all nations on earth, home of Shakespeare’s Othello.

Austria of course used to be a great Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who fought the Ottomans more or less continuously and derived a lot of their reputations and pride from these great battles. How unfortunate that troubles in the Balkan states led to wars they could not win, and in which they were minor players, and how misguided to side with Hitler and be faced now with the memory of grandeur, and also the mantle of shame. To remember or to forget - which is least painful?

Great peoples and great histories are in all our memories, as well as stories of shame. The result of the end of the Malian empire, defeated at the hands of the Arabs, marked the beginning of slave-trading within Africa, and eased the way for the white slave traders later. Involvement in the slave trade brought a sense of shame on the European empires long before they began to fade. These common histories join us as much as they divide us.

Africa, is divided by the false borders of the former colonies, divided by borders and by languages, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans Dutch; divided by tribes, some of which stretch over the old borders, some which create bloodshed to rival twentieth century Europe, like the murderous genocide in Rwanda; divided by religion, especially by Islam and Christianity, a story going back centuries, yet these two religions so close as to be siblings in the same family. Africa, who sometimes wants to progress by emulating the northern industrialised nations, and sometimes wants to find its own culture, buried in half-forgotten traditions. Ruined cities, archaeological treasures beyond the imagination of Europeans, newly uncovered in the desert winds, fossils from the beginning of time, the memory of man. The heritage of Africa lies also in the sculpture, textiles and music which form the basis of white culture in the guitar-blues of Mali, the dancers of Senegal, the colours of Kenya.

Most importantly, modern Africa, more modern than anybody, has taught us how to end division by forgiveness and by moving forward, when Bishop Tutu devised the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Africa gave birth to the greatest humanitarian statesman of them all in Nelson Mandela. Africa has its own future, taking its place again at the heart of the world’s great civilisations, this time founded on culture and dialogue instead of destruction and war. Africa and Europe, we have so much more that joins us, than divides us.

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Shopping is one thing, and let’s face it, shopping in Abuja is not all that varied, so I was relieved when the cool breeze of Hammatan drove me out of the midday sun into a craft shop to buy some souvenirs of Nigeria. The electricity had gone off, leaving an air of Africa-exotic in the dark dusty warehouse, and I had to feel the wooden sculptures to get an idea of them, before carrying them to the window to get a better look. In a second room at the back of the store, alongside those little drum-rattles and rather frightening masks that I was too scared to buy in case they carried some kind of ancient voodoo spell, I discovered a pile of old paintings which had been chopped away from their scaffolds.

Paintings are sad objects when they’re cut away from the wood, covered in dust, and left piled up in the corner like dirty washing, the dulled surfaces of the canvas cracked and flaking. Two eager shop assistants helped me view them by quickly flicking them over, stacking them nonchalantly beside the original pile, in reverse order. I managed to catch a dusky glance at each one for a brief second before it once again disappeared under the anonymous heap. It was impossible to compare them, and as I appeared indecisive, the assistants became impatient with me and starting taking them all out again and putting them one by one back into the original pile.

It is impossible to overstate the global importance of African art. Sculptures and paintings from West Africa were the lynchpin of the shift from forms of realism like the impressionists and expressionists, into the cubist and abstract art which defines the 20^th century. Innovative young men like Picasso and Matisse were deeply impressed by the works of art recently brought out of the French colonies to Paris. Called ‘naive art’ because of the strong definition in the lines of paintings and the forms of sculptures, they began to discard the conservative style based on the gradual shaping of objects, using subtle shades of colour blending to give objects perspective. Instead, they began to paint sweeping outlines of portraits, trying to find the same clarity of delineation as African artists.

They felt that they had begun to understand the true way to achieve abstract figuration, instead of the realism which artists had developed in Europe when they had diverted into recording events and performing flattering portraiture for their wealthy patrons. With the advent of photography, the role of artists changed utterly. Picasso and Matisse opened the world’s eyes to art other than the post-classical forms known hitherto, and altered the somewhat colonialist attitude to African culture. Among culture-lovers at least, the new exposure to the mysterious and misunderstood Continent’s art opened a deep respect and admiration, which continues in Europe to this day.

Patronage of the arts nowadays rests largely on the shoulders of the state, and there is good reason for this. A nation is defined by its art, as civilisation is defined by the citizen’s leisure time. One of the first things Europeans look up when they are deciding where to go for their holidays, is the art galleries. When a nation is going through a difficult economic patch and ‘tightens its belt’, funding of the arts is usually the first thing to go. So that you can measure the state of a nation by its support for the arts.

Economically, art is a money-maker. Tourists visit art galleries and choose destinations on the basis of its galleries, especially for shorter breaks. Visitors go to Paris to view the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, to Amsterdam for the Van Gogh museum and so on. Paris now has a new Musée des Arts d’Afrique et Océanie which has bought up fine collections of ancient and modern art mainly from former colonies. Individuals invest in paintings, which, if well chosen, can inflate dramatically and become worth millions. Fortunes may stand to be made in internationally uncovered African painters such as Ashiru Olawole Rufus and Victor Ekpuk. In the USA in particular, a modern art collection is seen as the prime cool for the nouveau rich, and no self-respecting movie star or business icon would be seen without one. It is often seen as a tax-benefit, since taxes in the north favour art collecting. Some countries, such as France, are always mentioned when anyone says a word about art. It has almost made its name as a world player based on its artists!

Abuja is almost shamefully poor at exhibiting its artists. I tramped round Abuja until I found the National Gallery of Modern Art in Garki. Even then, it is not always open for a permanent display. You have to travel out of the capital to Lagos to see Ben Enwonwu’s beautiful ocre tones. The Spanish Embassy in Abuja recently held a competition for young artists, which was very successful, and shows that there is a demand, at least among the visitors to Abuja, to see some local work. African art is very much sought after at the present time in Europe and the USA, and tourists are beginning to develop the confidence to visit areas of Africa other than the beach sites. It seems an ideal time to push Nigerian modern art into the foreground, especially with regard to funding, to develop Nigeria’s reputation abroad and attract visitors who wish to spend money on local attractions.

As with so many things, one feels that Nigeria could be a leader in African art. Joe Musa, director general of National Gallery of Modern Art Abuja, says:

“I have read the New York Times, I have read some of the major news prints in the world, and you find that the artist is a big newsmaker there. Be it the sale of a Picasso or a major art event hits the front page. But that does not happen here. I have a desire to see that such a thing happens here.”

It’s not just Picasso, African art is big news abroad. In Abuja and Nigeria as a whole, many artists are working in education or in local trades and firms. Nothing wrong with that to start, but there does need to be a chain of development for the artist to begin to exhibit and gradually to earn enough to paint or sculpt full time. With sound backing in the capital, politicians travelling abroad would be able to promote Abuja as a centre for arts and culture. The poor reputation and lack of proof of the ability to promote national events was one of the major doubts about Abuja’s Olympic bid. The promotion of the visual arts might be the beginning of establishing Abuja not only as the political but also the artistic and cultural capital of Nigeria and of Africa.

© Jill Rees

20 January 2008

1155 words

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