P.A.G.E.S eXodus:3

At eXodus:3 of P.A.G.E.S, Toni Kan, the author of Nights of the Creaking Bird and Song of Absence and Disp, is the Guest Author in the house who will review the artworks of Kainebi Osahenye with pages from his books. Both the shortstory and poetry collections have connection with what Kainebi works stand for: the street children and its business, the government, international influence and difference, rape and rage, and more.

P.A.G.E.S, the confluence of literature, art works, comics and photography brings together two patriots and compatriots in dialogue with their country - Nigeria with their art and literature. This programme is designed to converge fictionist, poets and playwrights, arts and literary lovers at the Center for Contemporary Art, Lagos, to give literary interpretation to the works being exhibited and dialogue around it at the Centre every month.

BIO-DATA

Toni Kan is an award winning poet, essayist and short story writer. He holds both a B.A. and M.A. English (Literature) degrees from the Universities of Jos and Lagos. His works have been published widely in the Art pages of prominent Nigerian newspapers and his poems have appeared in the anthology 25 New Nigerian Poets edited by Toyin Adewale. He has also had short stories published in anthologies like We-Men, Little Drops (1) and Diamond and Ashes. An award winning poet, essayist and short story writer, his awards have taken him to Scotland and Switzerland. Toni Kan is the author of the novella Ballad of Rage, Nights of the Creaking Bird and When A Dream Lingers Too Long. He is currently working on a novel, Secrets of the Untold.

DETAILS OF THE EXHIBITION

Trash-ing. New Works by Kainebi Osahenye
Opened on Saturday, 12th September 2009, by 3pm and Exhibition continues till 10th October 2009.

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos is pleased to present an exhibition of  new mixed media and painterly installations by acclaimed Lagos based artist Kainebi Osahenye. With over twenty years of artistic practice, this current incarnation Trash-ing builds on the continuous process of experimentation which has pushed the boundaries of his painting.

Trash-ing signals a new departure from his well-known large-scale neo-expressionist paintings towards the incorporation of more conceptual concerns through a format that increasingly borrows from an installation orientated process. Losing none of his gestural signature strokes, nor the luminosity of his colours or the edginess of his subject matter, Trash-ing highlights some of the issues that have pervaded his work for over a decade. In the recent works these existential, political, religious and everyday themes which habitually manifested with a degree of playfulness are presented less implicitly in favour of a suggestiveness which attests to the state of maturity he has attained in his career.

Osahenye moves seamlessly from the metaphysical to the physical, from the unreal to the real, foregrounding issues for which he is well-known and expanding on others such as globalisation, consumerism, man’s inhumanity and the environment forming the entral(nodal) focus of this new body of work. In so doing the exhibition’s title succeeds in playing on the multiple connotations of the word to ‘trash’ to signify destruction, abuse, rejection and waste. It also serves as an explicit reminder on the one hand of man’s disregard for one other and on the other, towards the environment.

Using appropriation as a tool, Osahenye’s most ambitious work to date is the ceiling to wall installation titled ‘Casualty’, 2009. Made of thousand of beer cans, the work is less about the ‘trendy’ fad in recycling than in
acknowledging the limitation of the traditional mode of painting whilst simultaneously recognising the abilities and the possibilities of pushing boundaries without losing the essence of the painterly. On sighting the burnt cans near a garbage dump of a hotel in Auchi, Osahenye states that he ‘was instantly confronted with thoughts of war, cruelty, melancholy, pain, displacement, anguish and deformity and I started conceiving ways to install
this large scale work to express the force and the power that I felt.’ Whether the totality of this and other works of the artist marks the beginning of the ‘new’ face of contemporary Nigerian painting remains to be seen.

Don't leave your SWAGGER!

Don't leave your SWAGGER at home, come with it!

The stage is set. Tomorrow is the day when Poets/Spokenword artistes will make a statement that will play a roll in the history of poetry and performance poetry in Nigeria and Africa.

Poetry is in everything called entertainment. The business aspect of this genre in the Nigerian and African orature is essential for its promotion and income generation too.

Come join us as we at Kowry Kreations Media raise the bar of poetry business in the country and Africa at large, with this edition of POETRY POTTER, our monthly poetry event.

Sage Has.son, the spokenword artiste that will never accept to being refer to as Rap artiste, will be around and his new spokenword CD will be on sale.

Our guest artistes: Plus One and Felyne will blow your mind. Remember Plus One is a new group of three young energetic and creative minds, accepted with their debut album. And Felyne, a female Nigerian-American Rap artiste, has made her mark in the music industry in the US and ready to make her mark in the Nigerian music industry - a sub-sector of the Creative Industry, which is expected to start contributing at least 30% to the Nigeria GDP per annum.

Note: Dress for the REDCARPET.

Call 08057143261 for any info.

POETRY POTTER 30th edition

We announced the 1st POETRY/SPOKENWORD REDCARPET in Nigeria, if not in AFRICA, last month. But it did not hold because of an unfortunate situation beyond our control.

Indeed, 29th edition of Poetry Potter was voted as a successful event by our Guest Artistes: El Nukoya and Lilian Amah, and unanimously by our distinguish Members of the House. It’s on this thrust that we intend to build a solid foundation, and this month which marks the 30th edition of the event, will be the beginning of the three months RedCarpet event for Poets and Spokenword artistes in Nigeria and Africa.

This in an initiative of Kowry Kreations Media, which attempts to spur the business of poetry/spokenword in the country and Africa. And as well make the genre as lucrative (business wise) as its sister genre, music. We hope introducing some social elements into the promotion of poetry will push it a bit forward from its current point. And we promise to do this consistently with integrity.

With our Partners: Capricorn Tents&More and HEV Pictures/Snap, Poetry Potter is aiming at its peak. Sage Has.son, the ace spokenword artiste will be around and his new CD will be on sale.

FUNLOLA AOFIYEBI - the winner of Celebrity Takes 2/Actress
PLUS ONE - a new hip-hop group of three young and creative minds.
FELYNE - a Nigerian female rap artiste based in the US.

Come show yourself LIVE!
Poetically and Lyrically though!
Incorporated with your body language!

Date: Saturday 26th, September 2009
Venue: Rotunda Hall, National Library opposite Casino Cinema, Alagomeji, Yaba
Time: 14:00 p.m. to 18:00 p.m.

Interested media outfits should contact Oyindamola Adesina on 08067599900.

Seun Ajayi
Project/Programme Director
Kowry Kreations Media

Curators take a bashing at Poetry Potter

By Ireyimika Oyegbami
September 6, 2009

The alleged role that curators play in making artworks inaccessible to the public took the front burner at the last monthly meeting of Poetry Potter, held on August 29.

A regular gathering of artistic minds in Lagos, the programme, which drew participants from the city’s poets, painters and other artistes featured drama presentations, music and dance.

A play titled Death of the Curator, directed by Lekan Balogun, highlighted the perceived role of curators in keeping works of art from public viewing, a charge Bisi Silva, a curator, vigorously defended.

Corruption in the art world

This subject was the focus of the hour-long drama performed by three men dressed in traditional costumes depicting the North, East and Western parts of Nigeria.

Characters spoke about how curators around the world were responsible for the dearth of art and also on corruption in the art world, which made it impossible for ordinary people to relate with the arts.

One says, “The common man is no longer able to improve his happiness through arts as the curators sit on artworks keeping them out of reach of the common man, hiding art away in coffins and moving them around rich men’s homes and museums, away from where the artwork originated from.”

The curators and not the artist, it was argued, get paid the huge revenues generated by artworks. Successive world governments were not left out of the bashing as the curators were described as their tools in the perceived worldwide aim to systematically rob mankind of the precious gift of art.

The play was very well put together and was well received by the audience.

In her submission, Silva said that while the supremacy of the curator could be curtailed, they should not be done away with. She wondered what the artists would do if there were no curators.

Playwright, director and actor, Lekan Balogun, spoke on the role of theatre in pre-independence society when the people in government applied such disdainful terms as “cockroach theatre” and “moribund plays” to the theatre and dramatic works.

Writers and vanity publishing

Among the special guests at the event were El Nukoya, author of the novel Nine Lives and Lilian Ama Aluko, actress, movie producer and author of the novel Echoes of a Heartbeat.

Ibadan-born Nukoya, who paints, said his pseudonym is the coinage of a Yoruba phrase which means “to select” in Arabic.

He revealed that it took him years to write Nine Lives because as he stated: “I never write when I’m not inspired to do so,” adding that computers were rare when he started writing in school. After his youth service, he had 1225 sheets of diverse colours and sizes on which he had scribbled his work.

El Nukoya, who self-published his book, said the so-called vanity publishing was an intellectual challenge which was up to the writer. He listed some of the challenges he encountered on the road to publication.

An international publishing firm refused to take him on, saying they could not place his book because he had characters wearing Valentino shirts and driving a Porsche, which did not fit in with the Africa they wanted to portray.

He further claimed that the few publishing houses in the country only did two kinds of publishing: academic writing and biographies of celebrities where the publishers are sure of making at least ninety percent returns at the book launch. “This is why most Nigerian writers are self-published,” he concluded.

Aluko asked why Nollywood was not known for adapting good books to movies and noted that copyright acquisition is difficult. Her going into playwriting and acting, she said, was due to her love of reading in her childhood, when she constantly raided her father’s library.

Commenting on the complaints about the sound quality of movies produced in Nigeria, the actress blamed it on the noise of generators while shooting movies as the neighbours often put on generators which disturb the peace.

Both Aluko and El Nukoya gave advice to the creative writers at the event. They read excerpts from their works, and also signed autographs.

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