By Joe Igbokwe, PM News
It is the duty of intellectuals in every society to set agenda for
leaders so that they do not derail. They set agenda so that services
will be delivered as at when due. Intellectuals do not exhibit
intellectual dishonesty; they speak the truth to power always not
minding whose ox is gored. When any society goes astray it is simply
because the intellectuals went to sleep or they have been bought over.
But the real intellectuals do not subscribe to the politics of the
stomach.
The real intellectuals prefer to die of hunger than to
sell their hard earned dignity. Understanding the dynamics of Nigerian
politics has been the biggest problem of the Igbo in Nigeria. The Igbo,
yes my Igbo don’t seem to place a neat handle on Nigeria’s intricate
politics and how well it can be harnessed to improve the lots of the
race. The annulment of June 12 1993 Presidential elections provided an
opportunity for Igbo to join other Nigerians to defend democracy and
rule of law but only a handful of Igbo stood with the Yoruba to defend
June 12. The majority rather chose to be seduced by traders and
illiterates to term the struggle a Yoruba struggle. The struggle for
June 12lasted for five years and the rest is now history. But Yoruba was
not defeated. Presidency was ceded to them for 8 years.
Leadership
failure since 1999 has presented another opportunity for Igbo to work
with other Nigerians to rescue Nigeria from rudderless and inept
leadership PDP has foisted on the country. The Hausa/Fulani sacrificed
ANPP and CPC to join APC. Yoruba moved from AD to AC, ACN and then APC.
Instead of my people joining other stakeholders in the project Nigeria,
they tagged the APC as Boko Haram party, Yoruba party, and Hausa party.
They rather decided to tag slavishly along the despised and failed PDP
and even when a mass exodus has hit the PDP, some Igbo traders and
dancers of fortune feel it is their duty to warm the bed with a dead
child. They eagerly received a dead child like the PDP which in fifteen
years have destroyed the Igbo leg of the Nigerian three legged
structure. From being the one of the three legs of Nigeria before the
coming of PDP, the Igbo are today not even considered one of the sixth
legs of a wobbling Nigeria yet some Igbo mercantilists propped by their
bulging stomach and led in the nose by traders are serving as cannon
fodders to the PDP. This they do, either as direct members of PDP or as
hidden enablers of PDP. APGA has today been turned over to the PDP to be
raped and exploited to its pleasure while the rest of the country moves
to salvage the crumbling nation from the deadly virus the PDP has
become.
The worst is that some so-called intellectuals who should
know and direct the race aright have allowed the rumblings of their
stomachs to make them intellectual pall bearers. They have allowed
themselves to be dragged by barely literate traders and political
harlots to serve at the meal table of the dying PDP, not minding the
odious stenches. They are the most fanatic in defence of the means and
odd ways of the PDP just because such action promises to keep morsels on
their tables. It is a shame!
Igbo nation cannot live in
isolation, Igbo nation cannot be an island unto itself. Igbo need to
work with others, network, interface, negotiate, inter-relate,
synergize, strategize, engage, dialogue and coordinate to make progress.
Until Igbo show that they can be trusted by other Nigerians who are not
Igbo the chances of ruling Nigeria may be remote. Igbo must love the
people they want to rule. If you read ethnic meaning into any project in
Nigeria it may lead to mistrust. To tag APC, Boko Haram party, Hausa
party or Yoruba party is not a good strategy. It is at best a self
defeatist ploy by die hard reactionaries to keep Igbo in perpetual
chains and continue benefiting from the overflowing table of rot the PDP
has employed to wreck and crumble this country for the past fourteen
years. These Amaziahs of the Igbo nation are in a desperate mission to
keep Igbo in perpetual bondage where they will never rise again. They
have been dominant in the Igbo nation since after the civil war and have
been the sole beneficiaries of the decreasing fortunes of the Igbo
nation. It does not show tact, it does not show intelligence, it does
not show commitment or deep understanding of the dynamics of Nigerian
politics.
Political Traders are still choking the development of
politics in Igboland. They still use money to confuse our people. They
have nothing to give Igboland except filling their personal pockets. If
they have anything for Igbo, why is it that in the last fourteen years,
no Igbo man is located within the first six top positions in the
country? Why is it that out people still have no federal investment in
Igboland? Why is it that out people still spend days to cross the sole
bridge over the River Niger? Why is it that we have the worst federal
roads in Igboland? During election time, those that employ them as
internal colonial masters give them money, give them police to come and
manipulate results. After each election, they smile to the bank and ala
Igbo continue to wallow in pitch darkness. They buy up votes and
electoral materials just to be relevant. We have suffered mediocrity in
the name of leadership. These are the fraudsters that bought and
diverted electoral materials in Anambra.The recent electoral fraud in
Anambra can be traced to this factor (the menace of political traders)
Intellectuals must reclaim Igboland and cause our people to rise above
clannish behavior, selfish politics, primordial sentiments, ethnic
preoccupation to join others to reclaim Nigeria.
For the masses of
Igboland, if after fifteen years, we are yet to articulate what we
gained from the same PDP these traders are dragging us to, when will we
start reaping the benefits of the slavish fidelity some political
profiteers have led us to pledge for a dying PDP? If a writer is silent,
he is lying. A school of thought says a story that must be told never
forgives silence. I concur!
•Igbokwe wrote from Lagos
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Interview with Okwui Enwezor, Director of the 56th Venice Biennale
By Chika Okeke-Agulu, Huffington Post
On Wednesday, December 4, the Press Office of the Venice Biennale announced the appointment of the Nigerian-born curator and scholar Okwui Enwezor as the director of the 56th Venice Biennale scheduled for 2015. In this interview, Enwezor discusses his career and the significance of his latest curatorial project.
Chika Okeke-Agulu: At the opening of Documenta11 in 2002, I remember saying to you that the next big challenge would be Venice. I said it as a kind of joke, but not because I did not think you could do it. Rather I was aware that only one other person--the legendary Harald Szeeman--had curated both Documenta and Venice. In any case, since Documenta you have organized Gwangju and Seville Biennales, as well as La Triennale, Paris, and now, Venice. I cannot imagine what it feels to join Szeeman in this curatorial pantheon?
Okwui Enwezor: Thanks Chika. That's extremely kind of you to make a comparison with me and Szeeman. I know this question will inevitably come up, and I want to be as clear as possible, I belong to no pantheon. There really isn't a comparison; Szeeman is entirely in a league by himself. In the abundance of his ideas, the almost carnal fervor for artists, artworks, and objects of all kinds, along with his bold, original curatorial experiments, he paved the path to the thinking that curatorial practice need not be too studied, formalist or dogmatic.
The fact that we are the only two curators to have helmed both Documenta and Venice Biennale is a historical happenstance; but one who's significance is still settling in. It is of course, a great honor to be entrusted with the task of organizing an exhibition of this magnitude and international acclaim. Nevertheless, it is not lost on me that there is some kind of meaning in the symbolism to which you drew attention. Exactly 15 years ago, I got handed the reins of organizing Documenta. I was 35 at the time, I had limited track record, no major institution, patron, mentor, behind me, yet somehow that amazing jury that selected me saw beyond those deficits and focused, I hope, on the force of my ideas, and perhaps even a little wager on the symbolism of my being the first non-European, etc. My sense of it was that the jury wanted a choice that could be disruptive of the old paradigm but still not abandon the almost mythic ideal of this Mount Olympus of exhibitions.
I came to Documenta as I said with little track record, but with an abundance of confidence. Now at fifty, I come to Venice with a different set of lenses and experience. As you mentioned I have now organized quite a number of biennials. It's time to get to work.
C. O.: Documenta11 was one of the few exhibitions that have been called game changers in the history of curating. And this, I believe had to do with your introduction of the multiple platforms scattered across the globe, as the constitutive sites of an event that until then only took place in Kassel. What are your preliminary thoughts about how you might approach Venice, given its history and structure?
O. E.: It's too early to say what shape the 56th Venice Biennale will take. Of course, I have some preliminary ideas, but those will be worked out in due course. The one virtue of Documenta is the time allowed to organize it, which made possible the platforms. But you must remember that the platform idea, which was fundamentally about the deterritorialization of Documenta, was not initially endorsed by certain landlocked critics, but once it took off its implications about going beyond business as usual became abundantly clear. I drew enormously from the Igbo saying: "Ada akwu ofuebe ekili nmanwu." The mobility of the platforms across major cities and some not so major ones was premised on this principle. To see the artworld properly as it should be, to engage in meaningful debate the curator must risk the sense of inquisitive wanderlust. However, Venice is an Island, but also a legendary maritime trading city that historically looked out to the rest of the world. The limited time permitted to organize the biennale produces a certain sense of temporal density. I am certainly thinking about how to surmount this conundrum.
C. O.: Looking at the trajectory of your career, from the early 1990s when, with a few friends and colleagues working in the margins of the contemporary art world, you founded Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, to becoming a leading academic, administrator and curator in the field of contemporary art, does it sometimes feel like an improbable story?
O. E.: All stories are improbable. Nothing is preordained. No one is born with a straight arrow in his quiver. It's a combination of relentless work and good fortune. Without this improbability there is no risk, no adventure, no discovery. I am an autodidact which was the basis of my ceaseless and restless appetite for ideas. I learned enormously about art, not in an art history seminar (I don't even recall actually taking one) but by seeing enormous number of exhibitions, being in the presence of art and artists every week, everywhere. I still do, and I maintain the exercise of seeing, reading, thinking, and writing.
I arrived in New York in late summer of 1982, at a pivotal point in the development of contemporary art, fashion, performance, music, etc. in the city. I was a beneficiary of the perfect storm of creative upheaval: art, postmodern and postcolonial theory, identity politics: race, sexuality, gender, queer and feminist activism, and the AIDS pandemic further refreshed my perspective on difference and politicized my response to injustice. This was the context that opened me up to complexity and to thought me to be courageous and fearless.
Also, Coming from Nigeria I felt I owed no one an explanation for my existence, nor did I harbor any sign of paralyzing inferiority complex. What was apparent was that most Americans I knew and met were actually not worldly at all, but utter provincials in a very affluent but unjust society. And when this became clear I saw no reason why I could not have an opinion or a point of view. I was not about to be respectful of ignorance of Africa or prejudice against African culture. This gave me some chutzpah.
I started learning about what was going on in downtown New York across every cultural and literary sphere through publications like Village Voice, Detail, Seven Days. I attended openings, went to readings, saw an enormous number of exhibitions, in every imaginable context, from apartments to Soho galleries, to alternative spaces to museums, nightclubs such as Danceteria, Area, Pyramid Club, Peppermint Lounge, Palladium, Save the Robots, The World, Roxy, Madam Rosa's, and later Nell's, Mars, you just name it. I was educated as it were in situ. I can actually say that I was there.
At some point this intense experience as a young Nigerian who was deeply interested in art and all types of the creative process ceases to be a fluke. I don't believe in standing on the margins. You should also know that what partly made Nka viable was that I did actually have a deep knowledge of international contemporary art. I was not pretending. When I started thinking of setting up Nka in 1991 when I was in my twenties, I was intellectually ready and had a certain theoretical grounding and immersion in art, visual culture, etc. I was already collecting a bit of photography and some art. My first major acquisition was the portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat by James Van der Zee from Howard Greenberg Gallery on Wooster Street. I would go to the Comme des Garçon boutique downstairs to shop and up to the Greenberg Gallery to browse vintage prints by Cartier Bresson, Kertescz, Weston, Moholy Nagy, Baron de Meyer. So with Nka It wasn't as if I did not know what I was talking about. The only reason it also worked was because I had the language and it was fresh and people were open to giving it audience. That it led to where I am standing today is both surprising and thrilling. But we are nearly thirty years into this story. The novelty of endless looking back is wearing off. Obama's campaign slogan in the last election against the hapless Mitt Romney had it exactly right: Forward.
C. O.: Are you going to retire from curating biennales after Venice?
O. E.: I am not the retiring type.
On Wednesday, December 4, the Press Office of the Venice Biennale announced the appointment of the Nigerian-born curator and scholar Okwui Enwezor as the director of the 56th Venice Biennale scheduled for 2015. In this interview, Enwezor discusses his career and the significance of his latest curatorial project.
Chika Okeke-Agulu: At the opening of Documenta11 in 2002, I remember saying to you that the next big challenge would be Venice. I said it as a kind of joke, but not because I did not think you could do it. Rather I was aware that only one other person--the legendary Harald Szeeman--had curated both Documenta and Venice. In any case, since Documenta you have organized Gwangju and Seville Biennales, as well as La Triennale, Paris, and now, Venice. I cannot imagine what it feels to join Szeeman in this curatorial pantheon?
Okwui Enwezor: Thanks Chika. That's extremely kind of you to make a comparison with me and Szeeman. I know this question will inevitably come up, and I want to be as clear as possible, I belong to no pantheon. There really isn't a comparison; Szeeman is entirely in a league by himself. In the abundance of his ideas, the almost carnal fervor for artists, artworks, and objects of all kinds, along with his bold, original curatorial experiments, he paved the path to the thinking that curatorial practice need not be too studied, formalist or dogmatic.
The fact that we are the only two curators to have helmed both Documenta and Venice Biennale is a historical happenstance; but one who's significance is still settling in. It is of course, a great honor to be entrusted with the task of organizing an exhibition of this magnitude and international acclaim. Nevertheless, it is not lost on me that there is some kind of meaning in the symbolism to which you drew attention. Exactly 15 years ago, I got handed the reins of organizing Documenta. I was 35 at the time, I had limited track record, no major institution, patron, mentor, behind me, yet somehow that amazing jury that selected me saw beyond those deficits and focused, I hope, on the force of my ideas, and perhaps even a little wager on the symbolism of my being the first non-European, etc. My sense of it was that the jury wanted a choice that could be disruptive of the old paradigm but still not abandon the almost mythic ideal of this Mount Olympus of exhibitions.
I came to Documenta as I said with little track record, but with an abundance of confidence. Now at fifty, I come to Venice with a different set of lenses and experience. As you mentioned I have now organized quite a number of biennials. It's time to get to work.
C. O.: Documenta11 was one of the few exhibitions that have been called game changers in the history of curating. And this, I believe had to do with your introduction of the multiple platforms scattered across the globe, as the constitutive sites of an event that until then only took place in Kassel. What are your preliminary thoughts about how you might approach Venice, given its history and structure?
O. E.: It's too early to say what shape the 56th Venice Biennale will take. Of course, I have some preliminary ideas, but those will be worked out in due course. The one virtue of Documenta is the time allowed to organize it, which made possible the platforms. But you must remember that the platform idea, which was fundamentally about the deterritorialization of Documenta, was not initially endorsed by certain landlocked critics, but once it took off its implications about going beyond business as usual became abundantly clear. I drew enormously from the Igbo saying: "Ada akwu ofuebe ekili nmanwu." The mobility of the platforms across major cities and some not so major ones was premised on this principle. To see the artworld properly as it should be, to engage in meaningful debate the curator must risk the sense of inquisitive wanderlust. However, Venice is an Island, but also a legendary maritime trading city that historically looked out to the rest of the world. The limited time permitted to organize the biennale produces a certain sense of temporal density. I am certainly thinking about how to surmount this conundrum.
C. O.: Looking at the trajectory of your career, from the early 1990s when, with a few friends and colleagues working in the margins of the contemporary art world, you founded Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, to becoming a leading academic, administrator and curator in the field of contemporary art, does it sometimes feel like an improbable story?
O. E.: All stories are improbable. Nothing is preordained. No one is born with a straight arrow in his quiver. It's a combination of relentless work and good fortune. Without this improbability there is no risk, no adventure, no discovery. I am an autodidact which was the basis of my ceaseless and restless appetite for ideas. I learned enormously about art, not in an art history seminar (I don't even recall actually taking one) but by seeing enormous number of exhibitions, being in the presence of art and artists every week, everywhere. I still do, and I maintain the exercise of seeing, reading, thinking, and writing.
I arrived in New York in late summer of 1982, at a pivotal point in the development of contemporary art, fashion, performance, music, etc. in the city. I was a beneficiary of the perfect storm of creative upheaval: art, postmodern and postcolonial theory, identity politics: race, sexuality, gender, queer and feminist activism, and the AIDS pandemic further refreshed my perspective on difference and politicized my response to injustice. This was the context that opened me up to complexity and to thought me to be courageous and fearless.
Also, Coming from Nigeria I felt I owed no one an explanation for my existence, nor did I harbor any sign of paralyzing inferiority complex. What was apparent was that most Americans I knew and met were actually not worldly at all, but utter provincials in a very affluent but unjust society. And when this became clear I saw no reason why I could not have an opinion or a point of view. I was not about to be respectful of ignorance of Africa or prejudice against African culture. This gave me some chutzpah.
I started learning about what was going on in downtown New York across every cultural and literary sphere through publications like Village Voice, Detail, Seven Days. I attended openings, went to readings, saw an enormous number of exhibitions, in every imaginable context, from apartments to Soho galleries, to alternative spaces to museums, nightclubs such as Danceteria, Area, Pyramid Club, Peppermint Lounge, Palladium, Save the Robots, The World, Roxy, Madam Rosa's, and later Nell's, Mars, you just name it. I was educated as it were in situ. I can actually say that I was there.
At some point this intense experience as a young Nigerian who was deeply interested in art and all types of the creative process ceases to be a fluke. I don't believe in standing on the margins. You should also know that what partly made Nka viable was that I did actually have a deep knowledge of international contemporary art. I was not pretending. When I started thinking of setting up Nka in 1991 when I was in my twenties, I was intellectually ready and had a certain theoretical grounding and immersion in art, visual culture, etc. I was already collecting a bit of photography and some art. My first major acquisition was the portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat by James Van der Zee from Howard Greenberg Gallery on Wooster Street. I would go to the Comme des Garçon boutique downstairs to shop and up to the Greenberg Gallery to browse vintage prints by Cartier Bresson, Kertescz, Weston, Moholy Nagy, Baron de Meyer. So with Nka It wasn't as if I did not know what I was talking about. The only reason it also worked was because I had the language and it was fresh and people were open to giving it audience. That it led to where I am standing today is both surprising and thrilling. But we are nearly thirty years into this story. The novelty of endless looking back is wearing off. Obama's campaign slogan in the last election against the hapless Mitt Romney had it exactly right: Forward.
C. O.: Are you going to retire from curating biennales after Venice?
O. E.: I am not the retiring type.
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