Madam Ngu looked at my most recent painting and from the expression on her face, I could see that she did not like it.
She sat on the big chair in the center of my studio in the Ekenwan campus. I had arranged my paintings around the wall as she requested, ready for her critique.
“Muyo,” she said, “you need more life drawing classes.”
“Yes, madam,” I responded.
Yesterday, my friend, Femi, called from Maryland and we had a long and beautiful conversation on the art of social distancing.
He wanted to buy a painting.
I told him I was happy to sell a painting and sent him a picture of the work.
I said the painting would look good as a Zoom backgrounder—like when FOX News calls and wants your opinion.
Are you going to panic because the artless interior of your home would suddenly become exposed to hundreds of millions of people on television and social media?
How many people can be really, really true friends?
Or is friendship restricted to just two people?
Is friendship possible among three or more?
First, Yoruba people are cynical about friendship: the culture outright dismisses the notion of friendship as naïve.
“Ọ̀rẹ́ òtítọ́ ò sí,” is an adage that means “There are no true friends.”
“Ojú larí, ọ̀rẹ́ ò dénú,” means “We see the eye service, but the friendship is not deep.”
My edited book on the work of Dotun Popoola is now out.
It looks so magnificent, like a grande Egungun performance.
The publisher says it goes for 50,000 naira per copy.
This hyper-colorful hardcover book that is larger than a royal Agbada arrived at my doorsteps for the New Year.
It is the most beautiful book I have ever seen.
Congrats to the wonderful art historians, Kunle Filani, Tolulope Sobowale, Olusegun Fajuyigbe, and Kehinde Adepegba, who contributed powerful essays to the book.
Steve quickly realized that it was a bad idea to take off his shirt to enjoy the breeze. He hurriedly wore it back. He had complained about the heat, which was one of the reasons we left the house.
Steve, finally, decided to take us to a place not too far from the house to show off the body of water he said he discovered. He had been raving about it, but we were unable to go and see it, distracted by the various things happening in such rapid succession.
Prominent on the list of my to-do-things was a visit to River Steve.
PEACE, LOVE AND HAPPINESS
Egbé lifted me up and away,
down the tunnels of clouds
and we alighted inside the ground
a million years and a thousand days
below the level of my house.
“Browse,” Àjà said, “read the entries.
Plenty to see and ponder,
so very much to read and wonder
in a half-penny newspaper.
First, you must see the three Magi
Looking to find the Messiah
At the throne of Herod?
The Three Mega-Pharmacies
Looking for the Corona Virus
didn’t start their search
in the manger scenes of Bethlehem.
2020 has been an eventful year.
We will not itemize the list of the horrors of the year.
Can we, instead, highlight the blessings?
Rather than explore the sadness of the year, can we paint images that are sweet?
Can we find the joy hidden behind the sorrow?
Can we squeeze order out of the chaos?
Are you a twin?
Yes, you are.
We are all twins.
Some drag their twin other to the world.
Most of us leave ours back at the source, in the other world.
When we talk to ourselves, we are ritually chatting with our twin in the other world.
In Yorubaland, twin births are frequent.
Why the Art Museums Are Closed
A dialogue with Africa
about the ancestral images
that the West looted
from the continent is inevitable.
Without this dialogue,
all the museums in the world,
all the art galleries,
all the exhibition spaces,
are uninhabitable spaces
One day, one day!
Soja go come.
Soja go do.
Soja go catch Don’t Climb.
Walahi, Talahi
O: THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
To pronounce this sound,
turn your lips into a circle.
Then push the air
through your lips,
gently,
then forcefully.
The sound comes out in a continuous flow
until you are out of breath:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
That is the sound