BusinessDay 04 Mar 2018
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Sunday <strong>04</strong> <strong>Mar</strong>ch <strong>2018</strong><br />
C002D5556<br />
37<br />
Arts<br />
Tutu: The most expensive artwork by a Nigerian artist<br />
OBINNA EMELIKE<br />
With the impressive<br />
auction<br />
sales record<br />
of a<br />
number of artworks, especially<br />
from Nigerian artists in<br />
recent time, the era of looking<br />
down on pieces of artwork<br />
here in the country and across<br />
Africa is gone for good.<br />
Imagine picking a painting<br />
at an art auction in Lagos for<br />
N5 million ($25,100) in 2015<br />
and selling it for N7 million<br />
in 2017 while same painting<br />
cost N3 million 10 years ago.<br />
This was exactly the<br />
same scenario for Adetutu<br />
Ademiluyi, a painting of Ife<br />
princes by Ben Enwonwu,<br />
late Nigerian master sculptor.<br />
The painting, which was<br />
bought for less than £5,000<br />
in the late 70s was sold at<br />
an unimaginable sum of<br />
£1,205,000 at the Bonhams<br />
Africa Now Sale in London<br />
on Wednesday.<br />
The intrigue is that the<br />
painting was estimated to<br />
sell between £200,000 and<br />
£300,000 ($275,000 to<br />
$413,000) but stunned everyone<br />
who underestimated<br />
its value.<br />
Another intrigue, perhaps<br />
an irony as well, was that the<br />
painting was recovered after<br />
over 40 years in a North London<br />
flat occupied by people<br />
who probably never cleaned<br />
or appreciated the piece of<br />
artwork on their wall. They<br />
also never knew the value.<br />
Expressing his surprise<br />
at impressive performance<br />
of the artwork by a Nigerian<br />
artist, Giles Peppiatt, director<br />
of modern African art at<br />
Bonhams, a London-based<br />
auction house, said, “The<br />
portrait of Tutu is a national<br />
icon in Nigeria, and of huge<br />
cultural significance”.<br />
The Bonhams director<br />
said he delighted that the<br />
artwork generated so much<br />
interest and set a new world<br />
record for the artist. “It is very<br />
exciting to have played a part<br />
in the discovery and sale of<br />
this remarkable work”, he<br />
concluded.<br />
By the feat it achieved at<br />
the Bonhams auction sales on<br />
February 28, <strong>2018</strong>, Tutu as the<br />
artwork is popularly called, is<br />
the most expensive artwork<br />
by a Nigerian artist.<br />
Though the works of<br />
Njideka Akunyili, a Nigeria<br />
United States of Americabased<br />
artist, also command<br />
high sales record, she is considered<br />
by most art collectors<br />
as American having lived in<br />
the country for years and<br />
married to an American citizen.<br />
On <strong>Mar</strong>ch 7, 2017, at<br />
Christie’s London, her painting<br />
called “The Beautyful<br />
Ones” sold for $3,075,774<br />
(including fees), earlier “I Refuse<br />
to be Invisible”, another<br />
work of Njideka, sold for<br />
$2,647,500 (including fees)<br />
far above the estimated $1.5<br />
million-$2 million.<br />
Back home, Tutu stands<br />
tall in terms of revenue. It<br />
beats the rest including other<br />
works by Ben Enwonwu such<br />
as a set of sculptures which<br />
fetched £361,250 in May<br />
2013 in London. His 1976<br />
oil painting, Princes of Mali,<br />
which made £92,500 at Africa<br />
Now in 2014, Anyanwu<br />
sculpture from 1962, sold<br />
at May 2017 auction at Art<br />
House Contemporary Lagos<br />
for N54,050,000, Obitun<br />
Dancers, an oil on canvas<br />
sold for N52, 900, 000 in<br />
November 2016 auction,<br />
among others.<br />
Comparing Tutu with<br />
artworks by other Nigerian<br />
artists, the reigning artwork<br />
by revenue generation also<br />
beat ‘Reflekisi’, a wood panel<br />
by El Anatsui, another legendary<br />
artist, which sold for<br />
N16,675,000 at Art House<br />
Contemporary Auction<br />
sales in May 2017, and Zata,<br />
another work of El Anatsui,<br />
which features a wood<br />
panel from 2015 and was<br />
sold for N15,400,000. Tutu<br />
also surpassed the revenue<br />
of Yusuf Cameron Grillo’s<br />
‘Threatened Innocence’, an<br />
oil on board, which sold for<br />
N18,400,000 in Art House<br />
Contemporary Auction sales<br />
in May 2017 and Bruce Onobrakpeya’s<br />
‘Greater Nigeria’,<br />
which sold for N10,120,000.<br />
Tutu also grossed more than<br />
the revenue of Demas Nwoko’s<br />
‘The Wise Man’, which<br />
sold for N 9,900,000, Ben<br />
Osawe’s ‘Untitled B’, which<br />
sold for N6,380,000, and<br />
Uche Okeke’s ‘Virgin <strong>Mar</strong>y<br />
& Baby Jesus’, which sold for<br />
N5,225,000 among others.<br />
Going by the available<br />
records from galleries, auction<br />
houses and private art<br />
collectors, Tutu is currently<br />
the most expensive artwork<br />
by a Nigerian.<br />
Tutu is one of the greatest<br />
masterpieces of late Ben Enwonwu,<br />
and was on display<br />
at his funeral in 1994. The<br />
whereabouts of the other<br />
Tutu paintings remains a mystery<br />
until the discovery of the<br />
latest in the series of the three<br />
editions of the artwork in a<br />
north London flat last year.<br />
However, the current revenue<br />
feat has not only set a<br />
record for a modern Nigerian<br />
artist, but also triggers a<br />
global quest for other works<br />
by the late sculptor.<br />
Art collectors from across<br />
the world are now hunting<br />
for the third edition of the<br />
artwork, which is believed to<br />
be in the possession of some<br />
people who still do not know<br />
the value. Until the third<br />
piece is found, Tutu remains<br />
the most expensive artwork<br />
by a Nigerian artist.<br />
Nigeria Info breaks with first visual radio to audience<br />
In what looks certain<br />
to change the face of<br />
radio forever in Nigeria,<br />
Nigeria Info 99.3 – the<br />
country’s foremost Talk,<br />
News and Sports radio station,<br />
has become the first FM<br />
station to introduce Visual<br />
Radio to the country’s radio<br />
broadcast landscape.<br />
Visual Radio affords listeners<br />
the opportunity to<br />
watch their favorite local<br />
FM radio presenters in action<br />
on their computers and<br />
mobile devices deploying<br />
professional, multi-camera<br />
positions and angles with<br />
high-quality effects, graphics<br />
and multiple ad spaces.<br />
It’s a new dimension in radio<br />
broadcasting with interactive<br />
content and services for<br />
mobile radio listeners.<br />
With Visual Radio, listeners<br />
can enjoy engaging and<br />
exciting content: visuals, information,<br />
and entertainment<br />
of what’s playing over<br />
the air. Listeners can also participate<br />
in the radio station’s<br />
promotions, polls, contests,<br />
and interact with the show<br />
hosts and their special guests.<br />
In the words of Serge<br />
Noujaim, the radio network’s<br />
CEO: “We now live in an<br />
instant and content-hungry<br />
world. Modern radio must<br />
compete with multiple attention-grabbing<br />
sources to<br />
engage, maintain and grow<br />
audiences. This must not be<br />
at the expense of making<br />
great radio. It should be an<br />
addition to it. And we are<br />
proud to be the first in Nigeria<br />
to do so.”<br />
For Femi Obong-Daniels,<br />
the network’s head of stations,<br />
“Visual Radio presents<br />
a unique opportunity for<br />
advertisers to expand their<br />
radio advertising reach to a<br />
global audience online beyond<br />
the ears to countless<br />
eyeballs.”<br />
Visual Radio is already a<br />
fast-growing game-changing<br />
global phenomenon and Nigeria<br />
still has much ground to<br />
cover in catching up with the<br />
West; a quest that has now<br />
begun courtesy of Nigeria<br />
Info, with sister stations Cool<br />
FM and Wazobia FM following<br />
closely in leveraging on<br />
this new technology.<br />
Art is In Motion<br />
at 16/16<br />
Once again, 16//16,<br />
a contemporary art<br />
gallery and entertainment<br />
space in Victoria<br />
Island, Lagos, is rolling out<br />
another exhibition for the<br />
year tagged In Motion.<br />
It features an exhibition<br />
of photographs by Edouard<br />
Blondeau, marking the artist’s<br />
first solo exhibition in Lagos.<br />
In Motion is a double layered<br />
investigation into the<br />
idea of motion and how this<br />
relates to human subjectivity.<br />
Through techniques of motion<br />
blur and collage-making,<br />
Edouard explores the contrasting<br />
experiences (and<br />
their implications) of motion<br />
through space and through<br />
time.<br />
The exhibition will run<br />
from Friday <strong>Mar</strong>ch 9-18, <strong>2018</strong><br />
at 16/16 Gallery located at<br />
Flat 16, Defence Building,<br />
#16 Kofo Abayomi Street,<br />
Victoria Island, Lagos.