Akinwumi Isola.
Akinwumi Isola (1939-2018).
One of the greatest.
The only Honest Man
Interested in some of my published works?
Follow Me
Akinwumi Isola (1939-2018).
One of the greatest.
The only Honest Man
Many models would give an arm and a leg to look as fit as these artists at the Àkòdì Òrìṣà, Ile Ife, Nigeria!
Now, look carefully at this picture.
You will see the Àkòdì Òrìṣà artists pounding clay with pestles in a mortar. Do you notice that the mortar is upside-down, as these orisa artists are pounding the clay?
“Two husbands are better than one;
So also vice-versa,” this sixty-something year old woman informed me in Ile Ife.
In indigenous Yoruba systems, I still grew up to witness polygamy–when a man had several women, and when a woman engaged several men.
Oladejo Okediji, 1929-2019.
Death knocked on the door, ko ko ko ko; ko ko ko ko.
My father got up from the bed and went to the door and, very boldly, opened the door, saying, “Here I am. I’m ready for your very worst.”
Death: It’s not my fault. It’s just a job. This is what I’m paid to do.
Baba: I understand. Do it. Let’s get it over with.
CAN’T KANT COUNT?
My Egungun is dancing as we speak in an exhibition at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as part of an installation titled “Whirling Return of the Ancestors.”
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
When the civil war officially ended in Nigeria in 1970, a different type of civil war began.
It is what you may describe as the asymmetrical civil war: the war by the desperate and poor against all others in the country.
This work that I completed in 1980 was stolen from my house in Nigeria around 1994.
If anyone is in possession of it, please know that it is stolen work.
This work and more than fifty masterpieces were stolen from my apartment