thisday0520

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2015 • THISDAY
39
CITY STRINGS
Onobrakpeya’s Footprints at Art Dubai
Celebrated for his work in Nigeria and outside the country, an 83-year-old master printmaker, Dr.
Bruce Onobrakpeya, recounts his experience as an exhibitor among art giants at the just-concluded
Art Dubai 2015 in United Arab Emirate, Rebecca Ejifoma writes
Art Dubai is a showcase of great works of art
place is a great tourist
attraction. The participation
of Mydrim Art Gallery at
Art Dubai 2015 was one of
the greatest things that have
"The
happened to Nigerian art
in recent times,” Mr. Bruce Onobrakpeya said
smilling as he recounted his experience.
It was his first solo show in Art Dubai in
his over 50 years of romance with artworks.
With a sense of pride Onobrakpeya shared this
experience with THISDAY at a post-exhibition
conference at Mydrim Art Gallery, Ikoyi Lagos
on a recent week.
Known across the globe as a leading international
art fair in the Middle East, Africa and
Southeast Asia, the 9th of Art Dubai included
92 modern and contemporary galleries from
40 countries in this year’s show.
Interestingly, Onobrakpeya had the finest on
his tray to serve art connoisseurs and enthusiasts,
who visited his stand to see his well-displayed
31 works shown in the modern section. They
included 15 paper works and 16 metal pieces
respectively.
And, besides being excited over his show
at the expo, the sculptor and painter enthused
that what was very interesting to him was how
his work was widely appreciated by visitors,
including the VIPs from the UAE government.
“The interest shown by the people was incredible.
It is important to say that when the heir
apparent to one of the rulers of Dubai came
to my stand he spent the greatest amount of
time with me asking questions and feeding his
curiosity. He looked at the works for a very
long time.”
The expo, which holds every March, presented a
select yet diverse line up of 92 galleries, including
Mydrim Gallery from Lagos Nigeria.
The idea according to the organisers is to
enable art aficionados to engage with the work
of over 500 artists from the UAE, the region
and the world across three gallery programmes:
contemporary, modern and medieval.
So with Onobrakpeya’s foils and etchings
wrapped in the finest finishing, the art giant
defined the Nigerian artists. “Going to Dubai
gave us the chance to actually measure our
art against the global view and I found out
that we are not doing badly at all − we are
doing very well.
“Our art has reached that standard as well.
The only difference is that some of these countries
have really organized their art around their
Onobrakpeya
culture more than we have done and more
developed in order to receive and benefit from
the art,” he said.
Creatively tag as a not-for-profit programme,
Art Dubai has become the cornerstone of the
region’s booming contemporary art community
over the last eight years.
The Art Dubai Modern featured Morocco’s
Mohamed Melehi and Mohamed Hamidi
represented by Loft Art Gallery, Casablanca,
and a Cape Verdian master, Manuel Figueira
as well as Ernesto Shikhany from Mozambique
showing under Perve Galeria, Lisbon.
Adding such lid to his artistic voyage,
Onobrakpeya explained how he got selected
from Nigeria.
He said: “Mydrim chose to present me in the
2015 just like that. She gave my son, Mudiagha,
and me tickets for the journey; packaged my
works and sent them there.
“The Art Dubai fair, I will consider as a very
great tourist attraction, which brought a lot of
people to the site. And I am glad the Mydrim
Gallery chose me for the 2015 edition.”
Still talking about his moments at the show
Onobrakpeya said, “Art Dubai exposes the artists
and is huge revenue spinning for Dubai.”
According to him, the contemporary section
comprised artists of same age or within five
years of birth; “They did not only present things
that are iconic and classical but had considerable
influence over a succeeding generation of the
economy.
“From Morocco, down to Lebanon, Iraq and
Pakistan, they came. While an artist called Pharid
is from North Africa, I am the only one without
an Arabic background,” he told THISDAY.
“All the other artists had their philosophy
which derived whatever they did from pattern
and the infinity of line and pattern. It became
a very nice thing to be in the midst of those
giants,” he said. “In Arabic art, the extensive
use of pattern is one lesson I also learnt about
the people’s culture of infinity.”
Speaking on the state of the Nigerian art,
Onobrakpeya said that the infrastructure has
become more developed in order to receive
the art and in other to penetrate on the art
otherwise.
“The art we produce here is as good as the
ones they produce there,” he said.
He added: “The Nigerian artists are doing
what other artists are doing. The difference is
that the infrastructure and the people around
The interest shown
by the people was
incredible. It is
important to say that
when the heir apparent
to one of the rulers
of Dubai came to my
stand he spent the
greatest amount of
time with me asking
questions and feeding
his curiosity. He looked
at the works for a very
long time
the artists, in some of these other countries, are
doing a bit more than we are doing.”
He thus hailed the people, the government
and corporate bodies among others for spending
more on developing the art and the artists in
those places and in Nigeria but urged them
to do more.
He suggested that as soon as Nigeria opens up
and the people in the environment in agreement
with the corporate bodies do more than they
are doing now in developing the infrastructures
and supporting art in different ways, “then we
will be at par with other artists.”
Art like football, he said, needs a lot of investment.
“The theatre was built and a whole town
was developed, which is called the Festac Town
today. That was for the art. We didn’t have a
second Festac. But we had one called aresofa
and another called the Association of Galleries,
which both packed up as well.
So, we don’t have a kind of fair that baits
people from all over the world. We don’t have
that infrastructure that will showcase our works
to check its international measure. We don’t have
the policy that collects the best of art works,
showcase them and the policy to create structure
people situation d artists to throw in people
from outside.”
But beyond that our artists, both young and
old, are producing very fine ones in the country.
But we need the policy and infrastructure in
place to make these works enjoyable.
This time, I saw the art from the Middle
East. It was great to be there and compare your
works. “To tell you how big it was there were
over 25,000 participants; making it the biggest
since the time of its establishment.”
Still on the expo, the Director at Mydrim
Gallery, Mrs. Sinmidele Adesanya said they had
no regrets whatsoever having chosen the artist to
show for the 2015 edition. “Some organisations
and individuals have shown interest in his works
and it is a very encouraging one.”
Mydrim, as told, was selected as the only
gallery of sub-Saharan African origin to participate
at the Art Dubai Modern 2015. Beyond the
immediate selling of works at the event, one
of the world’s biggest museums chains, Guggenheim
Museum, Abu Dhabi showed interest
in Onobrakpeya’s works.
Clearly, Art Dubai places emphasis on
maintaining its intimate, human scale, while
ensuring that quality and diversity for which
it is recognised as one of the most globalised
meeting points in the art world today remains.