|
n the afternoon of
Saturday April 29, 2000, a less-than-inspiring crowd gathered at the
main corridor of the National Museum, Enug Eastern Nigeria. It is always
like that at most art events in these parts – a medley of personalities,
some authentic, other not so much so, but all making up the audience. In
this particular crowd, there were students (mainly from the IMT, Enugu),
there were artists, and of course lecturers. Among the last category
were the sculptors Chris Afuba and Obiora Anidi and the ace ceramist
Anthony Umunna. The trio were the chief celebrants of the day. They had
been invited by the Pan-African Circle of Artists (Nigeria Council) to
discuss their works and share their wealth of experience with the
audience made up of mainly young generation artists and students.
Like most PACA
activities, it was slated for 2.30 pm, but took off at 4.00pm, as many
people came late to the venue. Interestingly, the three speakers were
punctual, Umunna was the first to arrive, followed by Anidi and Afuba.
After some long minutes of niceties, PACA- Nigeria Secretary, Nnaemeka
Egwuibe called the gathering to order and the event began. Chali Nduanya,
the multi-talented artist and lecturer at the IMT, chaired the occasion.
Tony Umunna was the
first to make a presentation. He spoke on the theme, “Clay as an
Idiolect: the work of Tony Umunna.” He began by offering the audience a
historical capsule of his development as an artist and then dwelt on his
techniques and experimentation in sculptural ceramics. Armed with photos
of works showing different stages and periods in his career of more than
two decades, Umunna described how he had domesticated the medium of clay
and found in it a creative idiom with which he addresses issues in
aesthetics, functionalism, and the fleeting zone of socio-political
living.
Following Umunna’s
presentation were those of Afuba and Anidi. They were to talk on
“Between Afuba and Anidi: Sculpture as Mythmaking.” One had expected
that the two artists would make a joint presentation, seeking for points
of convergence (if any) and divergence (if any) in their work. Not a few
people were surprised when the artists took individual cracks at the
topic of discussion.
After chiding PACA for
not notifying him of the event in good time, Afuba stood at the
precincts of the
topic and made two contentious points.
First, myth was only a creation of distant cultures and imagination, an
ephemeral kind of thing. Second, if so, how could the sculptor’s
creation be “dismissed” as myth? In an attempt to drive home his points,
Afuba proferred some definitions
of myth, drawn from the
dictionary. He averred that although myth, all may function as a
resource base for the sculptor, the creative process or its culmination
– the work of art – could not be described as mythmaking or myth. He
therefore, concluded, or so it seemed, that sculpture was a concrete,
painstaking experience which was diametrically opposed to myth.
Speaking along the same
line, Anidi, in turn, took a swipe at the topic of discussion. Like
Afuba, he had some unkind words for the organisers for not giving him
adequate notice. All the same, he extolled the qualities of PACA and
enjoined the group not to relent in its efforts at the
professionalisation of art. Then he dropped his bombshell. Having run
through some dictionary definitions of myth, he questioned the validity
and relevance of the topic, since, as he believed, myth was fictional,
untrue, and of “no value to modern society.” Why should the process of
sculpture be brought down to the level of mythmaking? he queried. The
topic of discussion, for attempting to do so, was “absurd”,
“nauseating,” “rude,” and lacked merit. Why not “Mythmaking in
Sculpture?” he contended. The principal word in the topic, as he saw it,
was “as”, that is “Sculpture as Mythmaking” which brands the specialty a
branch of mythmaking. If the word “ in” had been used in place of “as”,
said Anidi, it would have made more sense.
As if to douse the
apparent tension in the air, Chali Nduanya treated the audience to some
poems and short stories before the open discussion on the presentations.
For lack of time, only three questions were thrown at each of the
speakers. It was Afuba’s and Anidi’s talk which generated some
contronversy on the floor. While some of the students present sought
further clarification on the purported demarcation between myth and
reality, ChukwuEmeka Agbayi, poet and art commentator, came up with a
critical comment on Afuba and Anidi’s position, contending that myth was
as functional as it was aesthetic and could not be said to be of no
value to the modern world. He argued that myth was real and could not be
arbitrarily divorced from creativity. Speaking in the same vane, the
painter C.Krydz Ikwuemesi affirmed the reality in myth and asserted that
art was essentially mythmaking since it involved creation from nothing (creatio
ex nihilo) or using the unreal as a datum for coming to terms with
the real.
Although no consensus
was reached on the issue – which is hardly ever the object of such
academic exercises -- the evening ended as a most interesting one,
interesting because it had provoked further thoughts, at least on the
nature of myths. It is perhaps for this reason that Ikwuemesi, in
reaction to a statement by Ayo Adewunmi the president of PACA who had
arrived the venue at the tail end of the discussion, said that the topic
rather than generate confusion (as Adewunni alleged) had given
everybody food-for-thought and would be revisited during the PACA
convention in August.
But beyond the
conviviality of an evening of discussion and interaction, Afuba and
Anidi’s position on myth seems worrisome to me. Although I have had
some long arguments with the anthropologist, journalist, and university
teacher, Peter Ezeh, on the nature of myths, I do not believe that a
discussion on an intellectual issue such as the relationship between art
and myth should rely on dictionary definition of key concepts. The
authors of the dictionary may be experts in lexicology but certainly not
masters of every sphere of learning. Thus a definition of myth given by
a dictionary or an encyclopaedia is not necessarily an expert opinion,
but a simplistic explanation that paints a general picture of the nature
of myths. To rely on such definition is akin to trivialising the issue
of discussion, academic as it may be, and throwing it in the street so
that every one who cares can have a crack at it.
If our distinguished
discussants had looked beyond the dictionary, they would have seen not
only what myth is but also what it is not. And that would have also
enabled them to find substance in the alleged “sterility” of the
subject. For even if, as they claimed, their work transcended the realm
of myth, that very fact should have been enough to critically engage the
audience rather than stand at the outskirts of the discourse and holler
at the topic and those who conceived it. It is indeed an absurdity to
describe a topic, especially the one under discussion, as sterile. I do
not believe that a topic would be so sterile that it cannot provoke
critical thought even on the very nature of its own acclaimed
sterility.
But Afuba and Anidi are
masters in their own rights. They are entitled to their own opinions.
Their opinion of myths represents one possibility. So also is the
opinion of the versatile Peter Ezeh. But some anthropologists think
otherwise. Mircea Eliade, for instance, describes myth as “ an
extremely complex cultural reality, which can be approached and
interpreted from various and complimentary viewpoints … it narrates a
sacred history… an event that took place in primordial time, the fabled
time of the beginnings”. She addes that “myth, then, is always an
account of a creation; it relates how something was produced… (it) tells
only of that which really happened, which manifested itself
completely”. Put simply, Eliade holds a concrete view of myths – as
concrete as a sculpture piece, I would say. And we can see from her
thesis that myth is not necessarily a fallacy of hope, nor is it the
manifestation of “aberrant childishness”.
Similarly, Carrey, in
Cliffs Notes on Mythology (1991) also affirms the value of myth,
asserting that myth is not a by-product of human society, primitive or
modern. Myth and society are co-eval realities; the legitimacy and order
of society often derives from myth. In other words, even if we claim
that myth has lost its essence in modern society, we must concede that
it can provide the necessary frost against the wild raging flame of
modernisation. But that is not even where the fulcrum of this essay
lies. The issue is whether or not there can be any relationship between
myth and art (which includes sculpture). The answer is obvious. Myth is
a work of art. It shares the same fantasy as all art as it seeks to
establish something in nothing. It can be a creation as well as a
narrative about a creation. In both ways, it aspires to both poetry and
the fine arts. It is “real” to the same extent that any other any other
genre of art is “real”. Even if it does not have the character of modern
history, it certainly did not merit the kind of bashing it received at
the National Museum, the other day. As we all seek to return to our
roots amidst the challenges of globalisation, myth, to me, represents
the surest route to our roots.
Even if one does not
find any reason to take the myth for what it is, one should be able to
accept myth for what it signified to those who contrived it, given the
fact that the present time is expressly contrasted with their own. Myth
represented so many things to primitive peoples. It was at once science
and art, a means of explaining cosmogony and its attendant phenomena as
well as a handle for manipulating life’s daunting vagaries and
exigencies.
I must hasten to
caution, too, that myth should not only be seen as a phenomenon that
comes through the mill of primitive imagination. I have argued
elsewhere with much opposition, that even science has its myths and that
the so-called modern world is full of myths: political myths, social
myths, personality myths and the rest of them. Even life itself is a
myth, whether myth is viewed in concrete or ephemeral terms. It is,
perhaps, for that reason that Shakespeare describes life as a “brief
candle”, “a tale told by an idiot.”
Until recently, “Art is
life” was a common saying among artists in these parts. If life can be
mythical and encodes a macrocosm of art, what was all the pandemonium
about at the Museum that Saturday?. As far I am concerned, it was merely
much ado about myth. |
