Drawing the Line: Obiora Udechukwu and Nigeria’s Smiling General 1980s-1990
‘Nigeria witnessed its first military coup in 1966, a civil war (1967-70), oil boom in the 1970s. In the 1980s, General Ibrahim Babangida, the smiling, brutal dictator, enforced Structural Adjustment, raised corruption to statecraft and impoverished the citizenry. In that same decade, the painter and poet Obiora Udechukwu (b. 1946), a leading figure of the Nsukka School, was at the height of his powers, with drawings and paintings celebrated for their lyrical power and trenchant social commentary. I consider the fate of art and the broader critical culture during the long decade, in the shadow of the military regimes.’
Date:
24 February 2023, 17:00 (Friday, 6th week, Hilary 2023)
Venue:
Examination Schools, 75-81 High Street OX1 4BG
Speaker:
Chika Okeke-Agulu
Organising department:
Department of History of Art
Organiser:
Alexander Stavrou (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
vrc@hoa.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Slade Lectures 2023: African Artists in the Age of the Big Man
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editor:
AB Siegenthaler
