In the commemorative book of Afrika Heritage 2000, the 3rd Biennale of The Pan-African Circle of Artists, there is a long essay by Nkiru Nzegwu, a Professor of Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture at the State University of New York at Binghamton. The work has as its focus, the politics of gender transmogrification as it relates to the conception and realization of New Tradition: Seven Artists of the Nsukka Group, a major exhibit curated by Emeritus Professor Simon Ottenberg and held at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, in October 1997.2

Although one or two of my associates who saw the paper during the production of the commemorative book considered it “too lengthy and over-flogged in parts,” I refused, as an editor of the book, to subject it to rigorous editing, not only for purely academic reasons, but, perhaps, also in order not to aspire to those principles which Everlyn Nicodemus has described as “political correctness.”3

Now that I am to attempt a meta-critique of Nzegwu’s paper at the instance of the National Gallery of Art, it is important to valuate her opinions and contentions so as to locate them in the right perspective and also determine the basis upon which they could be related to art, gender, and sexism in the Nigerian context. In essence, it is not worthwhile, in the present exercise, to examine Nzegwu from the context in which she has located herself in her discourse. The major reason is that although she has focused on an exhibition that deals with Nigerian art, the exhibition transcends the Nigerian localism in the sense that it was curated by an American anthropologist and hosted in a major American institution. Since the present exhibition purports to highlight the contributions of women to art and society in this part of the world, aspects of Nzegwu’s thesis will be used to raise questions about gender relations within art circles in contemporary Nigeria.

The central concern of the article by Nzegwu seems to be its disapproval of Ottenberg’s lone female representation in the exhibition.4 She argues that with his choice of Ada udechukwu, Ottenberg suggests “that African women artists must be evaluated by a domestic-feminine standard since they lack the time and dedication to pursue a career in the arts.”5 Not only that. Nzegwu believes that Ottenberg should not have colluded with the Smithsonian Institution in extending, through the exhibition, the idea that “in the intellectual study of African art anything goes, including homogenizing women artists of uli, and organizing exhibitions which tendentiously state that African women artists are professionally weak.”6 She goes on:

When he (Ottenberg) feels that many male artists are needed to elaborate the history and development of Uli, but believes that only one lone female is required to account for women’s expressivity in art, an important gender statement is made. The statement foretells a negative attitude towards women, suggesting that Nigerian women artists are exceedingly small in number, and that those who are artists lack professional rigor, dedication and sophistication. Such patronizing Othering serves to locate women artists outside the boundaries of a serious critical study of art history, and widens the gap between them and men.7

Nzegwu reasons further that

While Ottenberg must be commended for traveling six times to Nigeria, interviewing artists, and understanding the sociopolitical determinants of this art, he must be censured for ignoring the issue of parity of concern to Nigerian women artists who are facing systemic effacement. In organizing future contemporary art exhibitions, there is need for ideological reflection and reconsideration of cross-cultural translation of art of the Third World into the First World.8

From the fore-going recitals, the broad issues that emerge from Nzegwu’s postulations, beyond the centralizing subjects of her thesis, are those of gender bias, the common politics of female “anonymization,” marginalization of women artists, male curatorial tyranny, effacement of female artists, and the imperative of “Gender conscious analysis (as) a necessary corrective to the deployment of male privileging aesthetic concepts.” It is upon these claims that a critical inquiry into the situation of women artists in Nigeria can be based. But I must hasten to point out that although the Ottenberg-Smithsonian project had as its focus uli as a modern creative idiom, much of the issues raised by Nzegwu foreground the wider picture of internationalist art politics. It is in using them as a datum for coming to terms with the local experience in Nigeria that their import may be better appreciated.

If one must concede that Ottenberg views “African women as submissive, passive appendages of men,” as Nzegwu suggests,9 then one must also agree that he is possibly exploiting an existing pattern. Most African societies still have little or no social recognition for women, in spite of the ever-widening influence of modernization/westernization. Male privileging “anonymization” of women in Africa is a cultural residuum. Although most African governments have initiated several programmes for the enhancement of the position and situation of women, the shadow of traditional masculine pre-eminence still looms large.

In Nigeria, for instance, a woman cannot stand surety in most cases, nor do widows have real control over their deceased husband’s estates. To ameliorate this situation, and other issues affecting women, the Nigerian government has created commissions and ministries that are to oversee affairs bordering on the welfare of women in the society. I would not concern myself here with the performance of such institutions in Nigeria, but it is important to underline the inherent danger in their tendentious ability to reduce women to mere issues, sector, or factor in the community to be managed for certain desired goals. Under critical interrogation, the relevance of such institutions to the emancipation of women becomes questionable, in spite of their acclaimed merits; they also become counter-productive in highlighting and underlining, rather than minimizing, the purported weakness of women.

The same logic may be extended to exhibitions that has women as sole celebrants and subjects. In a society that is apparently shared by everyone and in which gender equality is touted as one of the desired ideals, an exhibition of exclusively female artists not only undermines the women’s claim for parity in the wider environment, it may be a negative sop to their passion, which could prolong their inability or indecisiveness to move to the centre and compete with men more consciously.
But at times, such exhibitions have their merits. When well articulated, they can foreground by diverse means the glowing contributions of women to the development of art in Nigeria, for instance. Beyond this, they may also raise a number of critical questions which can enable creative women to redefine the claims for “marginalization,” “effacement” and “male privileging aesthetic concepts” and encourage them to view their circumstances from an entirely new vista. Furthermore, in addressing all the attendant issues, it must be borne in mind that most African languages are not gender specific, which underscores the perception of the woman as an appendage to the man. But the question is, does this fact logically translate to women effacement? Or, does it mean that practically in pre-colonial Africa, the woman was more of an object than a subject?

The logical questions that arise from Nzegwu’s claims and part of the essence of the present exhibition are whether art training in contemporary Africa, or in other places, is gender-specific, and whether so-called female artists in Nigeria have made palpable efforts to rescue themselves from the alleged marginalization and male-dominance, if at all any such situations concretely exist. In a recent interview with Chinwe Uwatse, one of Nigeria’s few practicing female artists, she told me very vehemently that she did not train and as a female artist, but an artist.”10 She has equally demonstrated that fact through her antecedents.11 In the same class can be found other artists like Ndidi Dike, Lara Ige-Jack, Marcia Kure, Stella Idiong, Blessing Moffat, Ebele Okoye, and recently, Helen Uhumwagho and Nkechi Nwosu-Igbo. These few have proven through their creative and professional tenacity that art is a variant of life and should be shared by everyone who could find his/her way through its winding paths, irrespective of sex.

If marginalization refers to the inability to harness one’s potentials and locate oneself at the point where one can influence the relationships between time, space, and one’s capability or ability to stake a claim within that time and space, then Nigeria’s “female” artists are seriously marginalized. Not by any person or institution, but by themselves in their inability to commit themselves to their profession and aspire to the highest possible achievements. Products of art, especially in this contemporary time, do not carry gender markers so that people can identify and discriminate against “female art” for any reason.

The real problem with Nigerian women artists is two-pronged. While on one hand they carry the burden of the enormous demands made on them by the society (especially marital demands), it is worth noting, on the other hand, that a general sense of laissez-faire and “bottom-power” mentality have become the cheapest things among women in these parts. Marriage is so important in most parts of Nigeria that most women would sacrifice anything including their career, in order to make their marriage work. It is probably this picture that Ottenberg, according to Nzegwu, paints about Ada Udechukwu and her art in the New Traditions … exhibition:

Ottenberg begins by informing us that Ada’s plans for graduate school were abandoned because of lack of funds, and because she was planning to marry Obiora Udechukwu … Then we discover that the birth of her first child was one of two very significant events in her life. It emotionally destabilized her “being young and still settling into marriage” … As Ottenberg tells it, “It was as if she had not quite caught her breath, feeling enveloped, a sense that has occurred to her a number of times since then.”… The other momentous event occurred about 1983 when “she obtained from her husband a fabric paint tube with a ball point.”.. While this information may have been offered to tell us how she began to learn to paint on textile, its effect is to turn our attention to her marital relationship… This focus on homeliness underscores the busy nature of her household duties .. Ottenberg explains that she “did little further textile cloth until 1990, being involved with children and the home.” At that time, he reveals, “she felt dismembered herself, trying to balance her own expectations of herself with the reality of her life as she saw it – motherhood and family and the creative aspects of her poetry and visual art” … 12

Nzegwu finds the above image unacceptable as a model for the African woman, especially as it is advanced by an intimate outsider. But it is, perhaps, the true picture of the average African women artist. And I must remark that in spite of her perceived set-back on account of domestic responsibilities, and her lack of formal training in the visual arts, Ada Udechukwu has fared much better professionally than most married and unmarried

(trained) Nigerian women artists. There are many I know that are worse off. Many would graduate from art school and turn to something else for daily bread, abandoning art completely, while others would become art teachers at various levels with little or no studio practice at all. But the revolving puzzle here is, why are most women able to cope with many other careers in these parts but appear unable to do so more creditably in art? For instance, there are many of them in banking, teaching, commerce and a host of other trades, but only very few are found in art and even fewer hold the biscuit in that discipline. It is, perhaps, time this situation is examined for possible redress.

This disturbing reality may be a function of the general attitude of girls in the training process. Both as an art student and teacher, I have observed that it is common practice among female art students to hire mercenaries – mainly their male classmates or senior students – to do their class assignment for them. This is not to say that there are no hard-working female students in the schools, but it would seem that a good number of girls would prefer hirelings to personal practice that can augment proficiency. Some of my female students I have spoken with over the years have insisted that they would turn to other things than art as soon as they graduated

Of course, there is a link between this attitude and the prevailing value system in the society. Nigeria, especially in the last two decades, have become a very materialist society where there is only one generally accepted virtue – money making. Except in the case of a few artists, art only provides a precarious means of livelihood in this part of the world. For most women, therefore, it is either to take up paid employment of white collar nature or take refuge in the illusory cocoons of matrimony. The rest would normally resort to the “bottom-power” tactics which is one of the oldest weapons in human society. And there is no time in Nigerian history when the politics of feminine charm has reached such an alarming proportion as it has at the moment. Many Nigerian women (just like their male counterparts) would go to any length to achieve any goal.

Today, in most of our schools, women tend to out-number the men, but it would be interesting to examine how most of them navigate through the waters of academic demands. While some have suffered sexual harassment from their peers and teachers in their pursuit of academic excellence, a good number would also willingly submit themselves to all sorts of ignoble practices and engagements in order to get by. Or, need I mention the alarming droves of otherwise talented women who would have been useful to society in so many ways (including art), but have chosen to trade in the world’s oldest and most enticing commodity – sex – in Italy, Ivory Coast, and other parts of the world?13

If I must talk about gender transmogrification here, then it must be in a sense that is considerably distanced from the one in which Nzegwu has used it. And it is necessary to point out that gender transmogrification is not exclusive to African art history, but to history in its totality. Although Nzegwu’s perspective is different from mine, that is, based on the environment on which each of us has focused, it is important to note that transmogrification in this part of the world is not entirely a masculinist project. In spite of their considerable contribution to the development of society from the so-called traditional era through the present, women, especially in recent history, have encouraged a transmogrification of their essence and place in the community, not only in their supine and passive disposition, but also by constructing a new reality that emphasizes only their primordial role of motherhood, or even in some circles, as the access road to sensual gratification.

The most effective antidote here is not a re-invention of the women by men or male-dominated institutions; it is time for the women – the women artists - to rediscover themselves, by themselves. In doing so, they should re-examine the historical spot where the rain of transmogrification began to beat them so as to be able to determine where it should stop to beat them. If, as Nzegwu submits, “Gender conscious analysis is a necessary corrective to the development of male-privileging aesthetic concepts” and, I add, art historical narrative, the women artists themselves – especially in this country – must rise up and initiate actions that can impact positively and more effectively on history – as it affects them.











Notes and References
1. In a letter dated August 17, 2001, the National Gallery of Art had requested me to write on the theme, “Crossing Boundaries: Gender Transmogrification of African History: a Critique of Nkiru Nzegwu. The awarded there here attempts to contextualise the discussion.

2. The exhibition featured Uche Okeke, Chike Aniakor, Obiora Udechukwu, El Anatsui, Tayo Adenaike, Olu Oguibe, and Ada Udechukwu. It is the culmination of a Smithsonian Institution’s Regent Fellowship awarded to Emeritus Professor of Anthropology Simon Othenberg in 1994.

3. See Everlyn Nichodemus, 2000. “Out of Invisibility: Problems of Writing on Contemporary African Art,” Chike C. Anikaor and C. Krydz Ikwuemesi (ed)s Crossroads: Africa in the Twilight. Abuja: National Gallery of Art, p.97

4. Ada Udechukwu was primarily a poet. Over the years, her drawing and textile painting have attained some maturity. See Nkiru Nzegwu, 2000, “Cross Boundaries: Gender Transmogrification of African Art History,” in Aniakor and Ikwuemesi (eds), Crossroads: Africa in the Twilight. Abuja: National Gallery of Art. Pp. 63-93.

5. Nkiru Nzegwu, Ibid, p.84.

6. Ibid, p.81

7. Ibid

8. Ibid

9. Ibid, p.79

10. Chinwe Uwatse in a conversation with C. Krydz Ikwuemesi. See “Without African Masks, Would there have been Picasso’s Cubism,” The Post Express, Lagos, November 1, 2000, pp. 26-27 and Krydz Ikwuemesi, 2000, “Chinwe Uwatse Evaluates the Nigerian Art Scene,” in http://www.ijele.com/ijele/vol.1.2/index 1.2.htm

11. Chinwe Uwatse has worked as art administrator at the National Council of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria. She is now the General Manage5 of Bang and Olufsen also in Lagos and has not abandoned her studio work as a painter.

12. Nkiru Nzegwu, Opcit, pp.84-85

13. During a recent study of some members of the Pan-African Circle of Artists some West African countries, the Nigerian Ambassador to Ivory Coast lamented to the visiting artists during a courtesy call on him, that the greatest problem the Nigerian mission faced in that country was that of prostitution and girl trafficking. According to him, an alarming number of girls from Nigeria, especially Edo State, are found in Ivory Coast, working as sex slaves. The girls are usually deceived at home by traffickers who promise to take them to Italy or Spain. On getting to Ivory Coast, they are dumped, their passports seized (by the traffickers) and are compelled to sell sex and make returns to their principals on daily basis. Although some have the chance of returning home, they would not for fear of shame and disappointment to their families who are made to believe, and prefer to believe, their daughters are doing well in Europe.