They have never been interested in others but for what they can
get. The opportunity to study other cultures have presented it self
severally but they were not up for it. They have written mind alteration
books for their vision. It would have been ideal for them to introduce
most of these books into their schools for knowledge, more researches
and better appreciation of others. But hell no they were only interested
in altering our mind set, artifacts and how much they can make from the
unknown world.
My gratitude goes to our men and women, most of
whom have lost their lives in saying the truth. Truth must prevail; I
have realized danger of the silence conspiracy to erase anything African
in the face of the earth. The fact that civilization of man started in
African has disappeared from the pages of history books, even pyramids
of Egypt to some people were built by aliens, It is too good to be
African; if given a chance to recreate the map of Africa, Egypt and some
part of South African will definitely be carved out of the map to serve
their purpose.
There have been conflicting records of when
Europeans came in contact with African Art. With due respect to our art
historians who have made references to 1905 as the year of European
first contact with African Art as widely documented. I beg to disagree.
We should not forget the looting of Benin Art treasures. The Punitive
Expedition of 1897 was a military excursion by a British force of 1,200
under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson that captured, burned, and looted the
city of Benin, incidentally bringing to an end the highly sophisticated
West African Kingdom of Benin.
Secondly, the Scramble for Africa
(or the Rat Race for Africa) was the proliferation of conflicting
European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period,
between the 1880s and the start of World War I. This era was more of art
and treasures than territories. You are free to disagree. You can as
well tell me of any other continent; that has suffered massive global
extortion and exploitation of arts and culture. A visit to museums
around the world will shade more light on this.
The earliest documented entry of a piece of African art into a
European collection occurred around 1470, with a work that a Portuguese
collector acquired from the kingdom of Kongo.
Please permit me to
introduce the so called founder of cubism and modern art, Picasso and
his rivalry and partner in plagiarism Matisse, who were first European
avant-garde artist collectors of African Art. His full name was Pablo
(or Pablito) Diego Jose Santiago Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno
Crispin Crispiniano de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad
Ruiz Blasco y Picasso Lopez. We know him today as simply Picasso.
Pablo
was born to father, who was also an artist, known as José Ruiz y
Blasco; his mother was Maria Picasso y Lopez. His earliest paintings
were signed Pablo Ruiz after his father, but around 1901 he started
using his mother's name, Picasso. He studied graphics in Spain and
graduated in 1900.
Pablo was among the long list of bored minds, whose art of imitation
and copying couldn't sustain. He found himself in a nasty dance of
poverty and isolation because no artist would want to risk their
creations with a copy artist like Picasso. Shortly after graduation He
moved to France 1901 where he quickly laid his hands on African art
works. In his words I do not seek. I find. You can imagine the innocent
creations of African masters in the hands of a man who had copied art
most of youthful age. Pablo believed that Bad artists copy. Good artists
steal.
Modern art is simply a conspiracy child of racism and
imperialism. The so-called founder had these to say. Today, as you
know, I am famous and very rich. But when completely alone with myself, I
haven't the nerve to consider myself an artist in the great and ancient
sense of the word. There have been great painters like Giotto, Titian,
Rembrandt and Goya. I am only a public entertainer who has understood
his time. What was his time? It was said the confession is good for the
soul.
In the part 1 of this article I mentioned the conspiracy of
European avant-garde artists, art collectors, art critics, art
historians and imperialist to create away out of their creative drought
using African Art as escape goat. The artistic elite was mainly
concerned with the rejection of academic tradition. African art became a
source of inspiration for these artists who were searching for systems
of representation other than naturalism and illusionism. The critic
front-runner of this group was the French art critic Louis Vauxcelles
who coined the term Cubism after seeing the landscapes Braque had
painted in 1908 at L'Estaque in emulation of Cézanne. Vauxcelles called
the geometric forms in the highly abstracted works "cubes."
Louis
Vauxcelles (1870-?) was an influential French art critic. To him are
attributed the terms Fauvism (1905), and cubism. Vauxcelles coined the
phrase 'les fauves' (translated as 'wild beasts') to describe a circle
of painters associated with Matisse as well as the audiences who
criticised them (he couldn't decide which were more arrogant).But an
artist can demonstrate zero proof of his artistic ability in the context
of established representative visual art, yet he could end up as a
master of modern art? Tell me you smell something funny about this too.
The
Cubist painters rejected their inherited concept that art should copy
nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of
perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to
emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and
fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these within a
shallow, reliefs like space. They also used multiple or contrasting
vantage points. Louis Vauxcelles and his group were not interested in
professionalism but escapism and name calling for the propagation of
their supremacy vision. Pablo had them all fooled; the agony is that
many are still fooled till date. I guest because of their common
denominator of hate and racist drive, none really cared about the long
time effect of their deceit.
In the words of Pablo the founder of
your modern art; an artist must know how to convince others of the truth
of his lies. The people who make art their business are mostly
imposters. There is no abstract art. You must always start with
something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. How naïve can
you be, the man who had over 100 African art in his collection, copied
and made money of them do not believe in abstraction.
Lets look into more facts in the part 3 coming soon.
Chidi Okoye is an award winning sculptor, painter, poet and
author whose impressive bodies of work have won the admiration of local
and international art collectors. For Chidi’s artworks and more
information: [http://www.modernartimages.com/modern-art.htm]
[http://www.chidi.com/modern-art.htm] http://artplaza.blogspot.com
