A Good Reason Why EMOWAA Should be on the Front Burner

A proclivity for academic research explains the recent appointments of Chika Okeke-Agulu and Andrea Emelife by the Edo Museum of West African Art, which is also known as EMOWAA. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke reports

Among the local cognoscenti, the acronym EMOWAA, which stands for Edo Museum of West African Art, resurfaces in their collective memory with its penumbra of distinction and significance. For, indeed, this museum—designed by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye OBE, whose other projects include the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), a Smithsonian Institution museum—easily earned its name recognition in the industry’s consciousness for its unique attributes.

Even though this cultural depository, whose trust was set up in 2019 as a non-profit foundation incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, is still in the planning stages, the location of its building complex in the ancient city of Benin seems to be a settled matter. According to its website, its architectural vision leverages archaeology to connect the new museum with the local landscape by revitalising and incorporating the surviving remains of historic Benin City’s walls, moats, and gates, which can be seen throughout the modern city today. This is in addition to the fact that it includes, among other things, a courtyard with a public garden full of local flora.

When it becomes operational, the museum will gather, preserve, and exhibit works from West Africa’s artistic heritage. It will also serve as the hub for the planned Benin cultural district, providing infrastructure, research, and education, as well as capacity-building opportunities for scholars and creative workers from across West Africa.

This is, therefore, a good reason why the museum’s recent announcement of the appointment of the Nigerian-born art historian Chika Okeke-Agulu and the Nigerian-British curator AindreaEmelife as senior advisor and curator, respectively, should reignite enough interest in the museum to return it to the front burner of trending news in the art sector. As for the duo’s appointment, it aligns with the art space’s predilection for modern and contemporary art, even when it hasn’t lost its focus on traditional art. 

Its executive director, Phillip Ihenacho, echoed this in a recent statement, arguing for West African modern and contemporary art amid the din of the clamour for the sub-region’s cultural legacy.“One of the key for museums and heritage institutions in Africa is relevancy to contemporary African society,” he said. “We need to build infrastructure and programming to celebrate the rich traditions of the past, but also connect to the present arts scene and invest in the skills and knowledge that enable opportunities for contemporary creatives and heritage professionals.”

No doubt, the inclusion of Professor Okeke-Agulu and Emelife to the EMOWAA Modern and Contemporary team effectively communicates the organisation’s intention to concentrate on advancing academic study in contemporary and modern West African art. In addition, EMOWAA is working on creating its collection strategy, creating the curatorial framework for the creative district it is creating in the centre of Benin City, and creating fresh, multi-faceted narratives and interpretations of West African art and history.

Take Professor Okeke-Agulu, for instance. His lustrous antecedents as an artist, critic, and art historian, whose specialty is indigenous, modern, and contemporary African and African Diaspora art history and theory, stand him in good stead for his new role. Currently serving as the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art, Archaeology, and African American Studies as well as the Director of the Programme in African Studies and the Director of the Africa World Initiative at Princeton University, US, he is also the 2022–23 Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford University, UK. Born in the southeastern Nigerian city of Umuahia, he holds an MFA in painting from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a PhD from Emory University in the US.

In addition to working in numerous institutions around the world, he has co-organised a number of exhibitions, including the travelling survey El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale at the Haus der Kunst, Munich (in 2019), which he organised with the late OkwuiEnwezor.

His many other exhibitions include Who Knows Tomorrow (Nationalgalerie, Berlin, in 2010); the Fifth Gwangju Biennale (in 2004); The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994 (Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 2001); Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa (Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1995); and the Nigerian section of the First Johannesburg Biennale (in 1995). He is on the curatorial team of the Sharjah Biennial (in 2023).

 “A project like EMOWAA is long overdue,”enthusedOkeke-Agulu in reaction to his appointment. “It has become imperative that we find a way to study, appreciate, and celebrate contemporary and modern art from the African continent. It is exciting to join EMOWAA and play a part in advising on how we can develop new institutional infrastructure to support advanced knowledge and appreciation of the role of art and artists in connecting our rich cultural histories to who and where we are today.”

Emelife, who studied history of art to post-graduate level at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, UK, has previously, as a curator and art historian, led several high-profile projects focused on modern and contemporary art. Questions bordering on colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism, and the politics of representation have been the central themes around which these projects orbit. Black Venus, a survey of the legacy of the Black woman in visual culture, is one of her most recent exhibitions. It debuted at Fotografiska NY in 2022 and will tour to the Museum of the African Diaspora, or MOAD, in San Francisco, California, in early April, and Somerset House in London, United Kingdom, in July.

Emelife was named to the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm in 2021. Emelife is a New Curators Trustee.

She is presently working with Thames & Hudson on her second book, which will be published in 2024, after her first book, A Brief History of Protest Art, was released by Tate in March 2022. She has written essays for several publications, the most recent of which is Revisiting Modern British Art (Lund Humphries, 2022). She was appointed to the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm in 2021 and also serves as a trustee of New Curators.“One of my principal goals as EMOWAA’s newly appointed Curator, Modern and Contemporary is to build on the efforts to tell our stories and the intricate connections and links that exist, starting with Nigerian modernism and boldly reaching to the many corners of West African modern and contemporary art history [that are] yet to be developed and discovered,” Emelife pledged. “I am honoured to be part of building the legacy of modern and contemporary African art.”

These appointments, alongside EMOWAA’s other surefooted steps, signal the beginning of a thriving museum culture in the Nigerian art scene, along with EMOWAA’s other steady moves.