SINCE THEY LOVE BENIN ARTEFACTS SO MUCH…

In the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, UK, a 12-foot-high installation, titled ‘Standing Still’ and inspired by Oba Ovonramwen, is currently – figuratively speaking – confronting Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes

It’s high time, the 12-foot-high installation, titled “Still Standing”, seems to proclaim defiantly in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, UK. Put together by the hugely successful contemporary Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor, it could be called a monument to Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, who ruled the Benin Kingdom from 1888 to 1897, when the British punitive expedition abruptly ended his reign. Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, a prominent officer in the British Royal Navy, oversaw the mission, which became one of the darkest chapters of Nigeria’s recent history.

On display since Thursday, February 17, it will remain available for public viewing until Saturday, May 14. The exhibition’s opening date was chosen to coincide with the period – February 9 to 18 – when a 1,200-strong British army unleashed mayhem on the Benin Kingdom, an incident known infamously as the “punitive expedition.”

One of the most outrageous recollections of that expedition, which was marked by so much wanton destruction of lives and property, was the looting of over 2,500 ivory and bronze objects from the destroyed palace and shrines. Benin was reportedly in ruins with the Oba’s palace razed to the ground. Then, there was the mindless bloodletting, which accounted for the death of thousands, including civilians. Oba Ovonramwen, who was on his way to exile, had witnessed the hanging of six of his chiefs.

The looted items, which included religious, artistic and ceremonial works, are scattered around prominent Western museums and collections, having been given as gifts to participating soldiers.

Ehikhamenor who divides his time between Lagos and Maryland, USA, has been an outspoken advocate of a reparation and restitution as well as a shift in focus from the works of old to those of contemporary Nigerian artists. Writing on social media and in a widely circulated January 2020 New York Times Op-ed “Give Us Back What Our Ancestors Made,” Ehikhamenor has railed at and called attention to what he has described as “cultural appropriation of Nigerian and African art”.

So, it makes sense that visitors to St. Paul’s Cathedral will find Ehikhamenor’s work next to the plaque of Admiral Rawson in what is being described by Dr. Paula Gooder, Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s Cathedral as providing “an opportunity to reflect in a different way on the ongoing task of understanding the complexities of these monuments in 21st-century Britain.”

A statement from St Paul’s Cathedral notes that “the specially-commissioned mixed-media work forms part of 50 Monuments in 50 Voices, a partnership between St Paul’s Cathedral and the Department of History of Art at the University of York to invite contemporary artists, poets, musicians, theologians, performers and academics to showcase their individual responses to 50 historic monuments across the Cathedral.”

Talking about Ehikhamenor’s installation, it was made from about 6000 rosary beads and Benin bronze ornaments. The work, according to Toni Kan, a writer and a close associate of the artist, is a compelling historical confrontation on three levels; first as remembrance, then as memorial and finally as an interrogation of the past and colonial history. But its power derives mainly from the binaries and dualities that inform its composition. “Working with rosary beads and Benin bronze elements, the work embraces animist and Judeo-Christian religions, making it almost ancient and modern in its invocation of a rich world of history and myth, religion and belief, as well as the clash of Western and African worldviews,” he adds.

Admittedly, “Still Standing” compels the viewer relive the haunting memories of that dreadful event in the Benin’s history, which remains one of its most tear-jerking episodes. Even as victors, did the British soldiers conform to the Law of Justice?

With this work and exhibition, Ehikhamenor stokes debate about the 1897 event, claiming that “history never sleeps nor slumbers.”

“For me to be responding to the memorial brass of Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, who led British troops in the sacking of the Benin Kingdom 125 years ago, is a testament to this, “he adds. “The installation ‘Still Standing’ was inspired by the resolute Oba Ovonramwen, who was the reigning king of the Benin Kingdom at the time of the expedition, but the artwork also memorialises the citizens and unknown gallant Benin soldiers who lost their lives in 1897, as well as the vibrant continuity of the kingdom till this day.”

Indeed, there could have been no more fitting memorial to a resolute warrior king who was vanquished and exiled after being forced to watch as his kingdom was attacked, pillaged and burnt. The curators, Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and Simon Carter, Head of Collections at St Paul’s Cathedral, as well as the artist, are encouraging not just a conversation but a reckoning by positioning the image of the Oba beside Admiral Rawson’s plaque.

As Dan Hicks notes in his own comments, “Installed on the 125th anniversary of the attack on Benin City, this specially-commissioned work opens up a unique space for remembrance and reflection. Still Standing reminds us of the ongoing nature of the rich artistic traditions of Benin, of the enduring legacies and losses of colonial war, and of the ability of art to help us reconcile the past and the present.”

Meanwhile, the work which has been acquired by the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum will be finding a permanent home in a museum which, according to the statement, “holds one of the most significant collections of Benin royal artworks.”

This implies that long after the exhibition has opened and ended, the conversation will continue and that conversation will not just be a confrontation of colonial notions of ownership and provenance, it will amplify the points made by Ehikhamenor and Hicks to the effect that Benin art is alive and well.

Now that the Benin bronze cockerel Okukor has been returned, with the din of clamour for the return others getting more strident, pundits think that it is high time the European obsession with works of antiquity stopped. For if they love the Benin art that much, they should look to acquiring more contemporary works.

That longed-for transition has started fittingly with Victor Ehikhamenor’s work Still Standing, which pays homage to the past while looking forward to the future with its collage of influences both animist and Judeo-Christian.