Thinking About Art

Jess Castellote

We are very fortunate in Nigeria to have so many artists with great talents. In studios in Lagos, Abuja, Nsukka or Benin City there are young artists who can draw and paint with precision or sculpt with real conviction and inventiveness. A few of them are also ambitious and technically strong, but sometimes I feel something is missing. Their works are attractive and impressive, but too often, they follow what is already fashionable rather than trying to create somewhere genuinely new. Some years ago, a main problem was isolation. It was very difficult for Nigeria-based artists to know about the history and current trends of art in other parts of the world. Nowadays, it is much easier for them to learn about other artists and see what is happening in Berlin or Sao Paulo. The deeper issue, it seems to me, is the absence of sustained intellectual formation, the lack of a habit of thinking seriously about what art is and has been, and what it might yet become. Many talented artists are working without that preparation, and in most cases it shows.

However talented the artist may be, if she is cut off from a much larger tradition and knowledge, from a whole world of discovery that others have already made, then, she is tremendously handicapped. I think this is the situation of the visual artists who do not study the history and ideas of art. It does not matter how naturally talented they are. The problem is that they are working in isolation while, for centuries, others have been arguing about what art is and what it can do. The artists who changed the direction of art were not just skilled makers; they were also thinkers. When the Cubists fractured form, they were challenging how we perceive reality itself. When Duchamp placed a urinal in a gallery and called it art, he was raising questions about who defines art, whether it is the artist, the institution, or the viewer.

When talking with young artists in Nigeria, I always bring the example of the “Zaria Rebels”. In the late 1950s, they argued that Nigerian art could not simply copy European academic models. They had studied those models carefully, but they also looked seriously at indigenous traditions, working through the tension between European academic training and African identity. For them, technique was not the point. Uche Okeke and his colleagues proposed what they called “Natural Synthesis”: bringing together forms like uli, nsibidi and adire with modern approaches. What matters is that they had new ideas and were well prepared to articulate them. That position did not emerge from ignorance, but from study, debate and a great deal of reflection and long discussion among themselves. They changed things, not just for their generation. It is difficult to push a boundary if you do not know where it lies. 

When I say that artists should study art, I do not mean only enrolling in a degree programme, though that can help. I mean becoming a student of the field in a broader sense: its history, its arguments, its failures and its breakthroughs. And remaining a student not just for a few years, but throughout their entire working life. The learning does not stop when the certificate arrives. Art history shows that the questions art asks change over time, sometimes dramatically. The Impressionists could challenge the academy because they understood it deeply; Conceptual artists could claim the idea was the artwork because they had questioned long-standing assumptions. Without some knowledge of this history, artists may find themselves presenting as new what has already been thoroughly explored and debated. Ignorance does not free us from influence; it simply makes that influence invisible, which is the worst possible way to be influenced. Philosophy also matters, even if approached lightly and without any pretence of being a scholar. It pushes artists to ask difficult questions about their own practice. What makes something art and not just an object? Who decides? What is the relationship between the work and the viewer? These are not remote academic debates. They shape what happens in the studio, whether consciously or not. The difference is that artists who have thought about them, and who know what others thought about them, have a choice. The others are just carried along.

My friend artists know that when I visit their studio, in addition to chatting and asking them to show me their current works, I always ask: what are you reading? Where are your books? Unfortunately, studios are generally cluttered with all sorts of things, but there are very few books in sight. It is always the same story: no time to read. This is understandable given market and social-media pressures. Yet in my experience, study is often precisely what allows an artist to move beyond repetition. Knowing how others have grappled with questions of authorship, representation or identity gives them tools they would not otherwise have. It allows them to ask better and sharper questions of their own work. What might a contemporary uli look like in digital form? What does daily labour in Lagos really mean, beneath the surface imagery that everyone is already producing? Questions like these do not produce immediate results. They require time, trial and sometimes sustained failure. But they deepen practice in ways that technique alone cannot.

Besides encouraging them to read, I often encourage artists to attend exhibitions more thoughtfully. We all know that exhibition openings are mostly social events, and that in our art scene, the social side is genuinely hard to resist. But it is also a chance to observe how ideas are presented, how the curator has decided to frame a body of work, and what argument, if any, is being made. Why is this work being shown now? What is being suggested? Do I agree? Reading wall texts carefully, seeking out reviews, even disagreeing with critics sharpens one’s own thinking in ways that are hard to get elsewhere. Today, much of this material is accessible online, at no cost beyond the time it takes. Without intellectual grounding, artists risk becoming followers of trends rather than contributors to new directions. Recurring themes like identity, politics or the environment matter enormously, but examined without rigour they become formulas. The work may look contemporary without being genuinely reflective.

A word about the market, because it cannot be avoided. I understand market pressures in Nigeria are real and opportunities still limited. But markets reward the familiar and safe more than they create new value. They are better at recognising value than at creating it. The artists who truly shifted the field usually responded to questions first, not market signals, and their work was often hard to sell initially. To make art in Nigeria is to live within tension. There is no shortage of material. What is sometimes lacking is the framework for turning that material into genuine inquiry. None of this requires foreign travel or expensive degrees, though those can help; it requires curiosity and discipline. I recommend that young artists begin anywhere: a history of African art, a book on modernism, a text by an artist whose work puzzles or excites them. And to follow the references — one book almost always leads to another, and that is how a body of knowledge slowly forms. I also suggest they keep a small notebook in the studio, to write down questions. Why do I keep returning to these colours? What assumptions am I making about beauty? What am I actually trying to test with this work? Talk to peers about ideas, not only techniques. Perhaps form a small reading circle. What matters is not prestige but genuine, sustained engagement.

Talent is real. The energy in studios across this country is real. But talent on its own can only go so far. Knowledge gives a channel to talent. And innovation is rarely sudden. More often it grows from years of questioning, reading and testing ideas against the resistance of practice. New art usually emerges from artists who know something of the long conversation they are entering and who are willing to challenge it from a position of genuine understanding, not just impatience or frustration with what already exists. Nigeria offers no shortage of material: the tension, the contradiction, the sheer pressure of daily life here is extraordinary fuel. But fuel without an engine does not move anything. The intellectual work is the engine. It is slow, it is often unrewarded in the short term, and it will not trend on social media. But it is the only kind of preparation that lasts, the only kind that eventually separates work that matters from work that merely circulates. My parting advice for artists is to open frequently a book and read it. Ask harder questions. Let the thinking go before the brush. Something will follow. Probably not what you expected, which, here as anywhere else, is usually the point.

• Dr Castellote is the director, Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art. Pan-Atlantic University