Of artists’ conspiracy, ghost-plagiarists

Irrespective of the context in which unauthorised ‘copying’ of art concept is defined, the mystery that shields identity of the forgers suggest that the plagiarists are some kind of spirits or ghost artists.

Clearly, these forgers are artists too – who dwell among their colleagues – but hardly get identified. Between artists who are victims of plagiarism and the gallery outlets, where such copied art pieces are exposed, there seems to be behind-the-scene ‘understanding’, after the storm that is made known to the public.

As much as the role of digital medium is no doubt culpable in aiding plagiarists’ skill, the internet, in recent years, has also been assisting in amplifying unathorised copy of artists’ works. In contemporary art appreciation and appropriation, digital medium has double edge roles in expanding an artist’s followership base and exposing the same artist to the hostile world of plagiarists.

At Art Dubai 2017, African artists boost sales

As the 11th edition of Art Dubai, in UAE came to a close, art from Africa made impressive business outing, adding to the unprecedented patronage at the fair.

Held at its usual venue, Madinat Jumeirah, the 2017 edition, recorded 28,000 visitors throughout the week. Among the 94 galleries from 43 countries were four diaspora representatives from London, U.K; Lisbon, Portugal; and Paris, France. The galleries showed artists from Nigeria, Cape Verde, Ethiopia and Mozambique Tafeta Gallery, London, which showed two Nigerian modernists, Ben Osawe and Muraina Oyelami made its debut at this year’s Art Dubai, leaving with sale of one of the works on display. Two days into the fair, director at Tafeta, Ayo Adeyinka disclosed that a painting by Oyelami, One Apartment was “shy of $10,000 to an Emirati collector.”

But what appeared like the most impressive outing for African art business at Art Dubai 2017 was achieved with the works of Ethiopian artist, Dawit Abebe.
Abebe’s paintings were “a great success” said the representing gallery, London-based Kristin Hjellengjerde. “The large ones by Dawit Abebe are priced at $30.000
and I pre sold 3 paintings by Dawit prior to his opening, they were priced at $15.000 each.” In fact, the founder and Head Curator Kristin Hjellengjerde, via email disclosed that “we sold out the booth.”


Lisbon, Portugal-based Perve Galeria showed Cape Verde modernist, Manuel Figuira, b.1938 and Mozambican, Ernesto Shikhani. “Figueira sold between 3.600 USD and 7.500 USD while Shikhani’s were between 3.800 USD and 8.500 USD,” stated Nuno Espinho da Silva | Production Director at Perve Galeria. “There are also interested clients in the Manuel Figueira tapestry (45.000 USD) and Ernesto Shikhani canvas 28.500 USD.”
For ArtTalks, based in Egypt, the 11th Art Dubai was the gallery’s best outing at the Modern space. “Art Dubai 2017 is our first ever art fair, and we’re delighted with how it’s gone – we’ve sold 5 works, ranging from 1500 to 80,000 dollars,” said Cherine Chafik of ArtTalks.

Chimamanda Adichie makes list of 50 world leaders

Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie has been named amongst the 50 greatest world leaders in the 2017 Fortune magazine ranking.

The ‘Half of a yellow sun’ writer was ranked at number 42 on the list with Chicago Cubs baseball team president Theo Epstein at number one.

Business mogul Jack Ma of AliBaba group of companies appears at number two and Catholic leader Pope Francis is in third place for his social integration projects as a clergy.

Terracotta Warriors’ museum in battle over copyright with Chinese amusement park

Response is an unusual effort by a state institution to assert copyright protection in cultural properties

Terracotta Warriors’ museum in battle over copyright with Chinese amusement park
The Terracotta Warriors’ museum has accused a Chinese amusement park of violating its copyright by displaying unauthorised replicas.




(Photo: Tuul and Bruno Morandi/Alamy)

The museum in China that oversees the Qin Tomb sites near Xi’an and its famous Terracotta Warriors is asserting its copyright in the army of funerary sculptures and their names at home and abroad. In February, the Emperor Qin Shihuang Mausoleum Site Museum in north-central China accused an amusement park that features replica warriors of violating its registered copyright. The response is an unusual effort by a state institution to assert copyright protection in cultural properties.

Four virgins in search of suitors

Several centuries ago, in a remote village somewhere in Africa, a strict but handsome widower, a
hunter by occupation, was said to have four daughters who were adjudged to be the most beautiful virgins in the entire land. Jealous and worried that other men would take his beautiful daughters, the brave hunter took the girls to live in the middle of a remote forest, where he spent all his life hunting to feed them and driving away male trespassers. But men were not deterred.

The equally brave ones from far and near teamed up and came on expeditions for the beautiful virgins hidden in the middle of the forest by the brave hunter. However, the more they came, the more they died. They were either caught by the poisonous arrowheads of the vicious hunter or by the numerous traps he concealed at different strategic spots on the  footpaths. Occasionally, those who sucessfully evaded the hunter’s arrows and traps had to contend with his fierce and great swordsmanship which the virgins watched with alarm. Suffice it to say that no man who had ever embarked on an expedition to the forest in desire of the brave hunter’s beautiful virgins had ever returned home alive. One day, the brave hunter died.

Olajumoke Orisaguna: One year after

Olajumoke Orisaguna, former bread seller on the streets of Lagos who received public attention when she appeared on the cover of a magazine is celebrating one year of stardom.

She came to limelight when she `photo-bomb’ a picture that was taken by a professional Nigerian photographer TY Bello, while on her way to sell her bread.

She currently works as a model. She took to her Instagram handle @olajumoke_o , to mark the anniversary, thanking God and those who have been part of her success.


Olajumoke took to her Instagram handle @olajumoke_o , to mark the anniversary, thanking God and those who have been part of her success.

Jumoke Sunday as she is popularly called is a brand ambassador to some major outlets in the country including Payporte, an on line shopping outlet.

She also enjoyed massive media exposure both locally and internationally including, CNN and HuffPostUKStyle.

Niyi Osundare at three score and 10

“Farmer born peasant bred,” Isaac Oluwaniyi Osundare clocked three score and ten on March 12, 2017. He attained global limelight through the rigour of intellectual labour and an exceptionally profound creative gift, which is manifested in his poetry. His profile as a human being, teacher, scholar, poet and public intellectual is ennobling. His has been an infectious life, inspiring the young and the old alike.

Born on 12 March 1947 at Ikerre-Ekiti, Osundare grew up in an agrarian setting where life was poetry. The hills of Ikerre, the rivers, the lush green flora, the fauna, and even his family engagements as represented by his parents resonated with a kind of poetry that permeated the family DNA. It was in that ambience of earthy and folkloric existence where everything including the air exuded poetry that Osundare grew up.

As Osundare turns 70, he definitely would look back, smile and let his heart glow and then shed tears for Nigeria, the country he loves. Yes, he would smile remembering his parents, growing up and the many paths and possibilities that opened before him. He would smile and grin remembering his alma mater, the University of Ibadan which not only gave him a degree and a profession, but also gave him his soul mate and wife, the then Miss Adekemi, a woman with an infinitely beautiful heart. Yes, he would smile and grin thinking of Moyo (Biggest Mo), Tola and Bayonle, their children.

How to market arts and culture through digitalization

Founder Afropolitan Vibes, Ade Bantu (left); Founder, The Sole Adventurer, Bukola Oyebode; Media Manager, Ake Books and Arts Festival, Byenyan Jessica Bitrus; Rele Arts Gallery boss, Aderele Sonariwo and Director, Lagos International Poetry Festival, Efe Paul Azino at the panel on Marketing Arts and Culture at Social Media Week… in Lagos

To mark this year’s Social Media Week, a panel of discussants held court at Landmark Centre, Oniru, Lagos, to address issues around digitalization and marketing of arts and culture in Nigeria and how much success or otherwise that sector has been so far. On the panel were some leaders in Lagos’ arts and culture community: Ade Bantu of Afropolitan Vibes, Efe Paul Azino of Lagos International Poetry Festival, Aderele Sonariwo of Rele Arts Gallery and Byenyan Jessica Bitrus of Ake Books and Arts Festival. They spoke on how technology has fostered the growth of their brand offerings in the arts and also how it has helped them gain public support and followership.

Moderating the session was blogger and founder of The Sole Adventurer, Bukola Oyebode.

Media Manager of Ake Books and Arts Festival, Bitrus, explained the measures her organisation has put in place to promote its brand, saying, “For us, engaging and bringing new people into the field of arts is something that is very important. What we try to do is relate with our consumers, because we recognise that with audiences, all we have is impassive relationships. We utilise our different platforms in order to keep the traction that we need. For instance, at Ake Festival, we do interviews with all our guests, which we put on YouTube because we know that at the end of the festival, people want to go back and they want something to remind them about the festival.

Theatre producers meet for better arts criticisms, reviews

Theatre criticisms in Nigeria have been described as a midway review between journalism and academic criticisms. This was the stand of Mr. Ben Tomolujo who moderated a panel at the International Theatre Critics’ Conference of the just concluded British Council Lagos Theatre Festival organised by the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) in Lagos

Speaking on the topic, Theatre Criticism In Print Media And The Polity Of Newspaper Documentation Policy In Nigeria, Tomolujo said it’s important to understand the pioneer attempt of theatre criticism in the country, which according to him had no prestige in the late 60s and 70s.

“The power of the review by the middle class Nigerians in those days were reduced to mere reviews. At a certain stage, people were interested in the human angle to the lives of artists; the kind of girlfriends they were going out with, the type of trousers they wore and so on.


“The arts had a revolution when some theatre graduates took over newspaper reviews. They created columns for arts and theatre and started what could be called an advanced art of review, particularly the theatre, based on the criteria that they studied theatre in the university. We, then, had a form of fortification of art and a proliferation of the Arts Desk around the newspapers,” he said.

Osundare at 70: I have been extremely lucky with life

Professor Niyi Osundare, poet and teacher clocks 70 today. In this online interview with ANOTE AJELUOROU from his base in the University of New Orleans, U.S., Osundare reflects on life at 70, with commentary on the Nigerian situation

How significant is today to you?

Yes, the Biblical three score and ten: a milestone indeed and in truth! It is by no means a mean achievement in a country, where the male life expectancy is something between a dreadful 45 and 50 years. I have been exceedingly lucky, with regards to the kind of good health I have had, and the fact that I survived two traumatic events: the attack by the yet unknown, yet un-apprehended hoodlums, who axed my head in January 1987 and very narrowly missed my brain. Then there was Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, which came so close to sweeping away my wife and I in New Orleans. But I also know that this ‘luck’ is both a gift and a challenge: a profound reason to rededicate my life to the struggle for a just and humane world.

How fulfilled are you as a writer and teacher?

Fulfilment? Ah, that luxury is for the smug and complacent. I am humbled by what this farmer’s son from Ikere Ekiti has been able to achieve, and grateful to those who have helped me along the way, especially my parents, my own family, my teachers (yes, my teachers!), my colleagues, my publishers, my students, and many other benefactors in the different parts of the world my professional career has taken me to. To be soberly frank, life hasn’t been a bed of roses, but neither has it been a Golgotha of thorns.

Could you give a little background to your journey so far, starting from your beloved Ikere-Ekiti and how it shaped and sharpened your creative consciousness?

Well, I think most of my response to this question is now in the public domain – in a manner of speaking – from virtually all my previous interviews. In a nutshell, let me say again, that the kind of parents I was lucky to have; the kind of Ikere-Ekiti, and the kind of Nigeria I grew up in shaped the course of my life. A tirelessly hardworking father, a farmer who also had some time for songs and the drum, and rippling humour and repartee; a pensive, morally tenacious mother, both of whom told me there was no honest alternative to hard work; the pioneers of Western education in our extended family, my egbon Tayo Ayodele, Pius Olowoyo, Layo Idowu, Oluremi Jegede, Peter Ayodele and Sany Toso Gbangba, who made education and enlightenment so attractive, so achievable.

Summit to reenact Ibadan literary glory underway

An Ibadan-based educational opportunity and literacy development organisation, BIBLOPHILLIANigeria, is perfecting arrangements for the maiden edition of its Young Writers’ Summit and Literary Festival. Billed for April 21, 2017 at Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, the summit is a collaboration ofOyo State government, Association of Nigeria Authors, University of Ibadan and Medianett Limited. The target is to deliver a global standard literary festival for young writers.

Its objectives, according to CEO, BIBLOPHILLIANigeria, Kayode Adejumo-Bello include, recreating the Ibadan literary passion, celebrating the ancient city’s literary heritage, discovering new literary talents, producing next generation of literary stars, and creating a supportive, non-competitive environment, where teenage writers can work together as artists.

Essentially, the summit will not only address the dearth of great writers of Ibadan literary ancestry and origin, it is expected to stimulate academic and cultural revival of a city. The idea is to, on one hand, redeem and, on the other, recreate and reinvent the city as Africa’s capital of creative writing and literary excellence.


Two levels of participation are available: junior category, comprising students of English/Literature in English currently in JSS 2 in any junior secondary school in the Ibadan metropolis or students within the age bracket of 10-13 years.
Also, there is senior category, targeting students of English/Literature in English currently in SSS 2 in any senior secondary school in the Ibadan metropolis for students aged between 15 and 17 years. In all, adequate provisions are being made for a total of 2,500 student participants. Participation is free.

Dark rooms of memories

Fusing poetry, dance and drama, Strelitzia is an experimental piece that internalises poems with different theatrical gestures. Strelitzia, written by Donna Ogunnaike, presents a trajectory of experiences around human existence. The performance throws light on most of the fundamental aspects of life: time and memory.

However, it does not leave out ‘banal’ subjects such as sensuality.

The piece was presented in fragments with the audience led by a costumed-dancer, who like a fairy, guides them into rooms filled with memories of things and events of the past. Each of the room is symbolic, filled with experiences of human existence — from a man who is unable to detach himself from life tangles to the shadow-dance of a nude girl with a long tie that raises one’s sensuality.

AFRICANSA FESTIVAL : CALL FOR APPLICATION

Coming soon to a stage in the city of Ibadan.

Akande kicks off conversation on her novel what it takes

To further encourage reading and creative writing among students, the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, Akoka, yesterday featured Dr. Lola Akande, who read from her latest work, What It Takes, in the February, 2017 edition of the department’s literary reading. The monthly literary reading, which started in 2006, and has featured such writers as Chimamanda Adichie, Odia Ofeimun, Sam Omatseye among others, is an avenue for inspiring students of the department to be creative writers.

Students and lecturers gathered at the faculty’s boardroom as they sipped from Akande’s creative brew. She read excerpts from her new novel that brings to light the ills in Nigerian university system, specifically lecturer versus student relationship and the needless rigor required to acquire a PhD degree.

Akande explained that lecturers take advantage of their positions and the situation on ground to sexually harass and extort students as some of the students who are fragile fall into their whimsical trap. She said the aim of the novel is for society at large to be conscious of the happenings in the university system and for the dastardly acts that happened there to stop so as to promote quality education at all levels in the country.