Edozie, a practising artist for some 14 years, met Bosah at an exhibition in Abuja and the rest, as they say, is publishing. Speaking to journalists at a press conference on December 7, the duo revealed that the book was a long time coming.
"I did this because of my love for art and what I think is a gross under-representation of artists in the country," said Bosah, who is a US based publisher and environmental engineer."It's a book on contemporary art, but I call it ‘modern' because it is all encompassing," he said.
"This book will make it easy for curators to recognise the talent available in Nigeria. Most of the works in the collection are from this generation of artists, many of them below 50 years of age," he added.
Choosing the artists
On the rationale behind the publication, Edozie said older artists like the late Ben Enwonwu and the likes of Bruce Onobrakpeya had had so much written about them. "We need to talk about the new ones," he said.
Bosah disclosed that the artists featured in the book were chosen based on merit. "We issued a call for submissions in late April, which was free. We reviewed them based on quality and also for printability.
"During the course of the compilations, the Lagos state chapter of the Society of Nigerian Artists got their photographers to take pictures of the entries sent in by their members and we picked up the cost," the duo revealed.
They added that all the entries were sent to a jury of four who ranked the artists and drew a final shortlist.
Some of the artists who made the shortlist and who were featured in the book include: Andrew Esiebo, Stella Awoh, Adolphus Opara, Oliver Enwonwu, Joshua Mmesirionye and George Edozie himself, among many others.
The book is also a collection of various aspects of art from photography to mixed media and paintings. The effort was not without its obstacles, according to Bosah and Edozie.
"There were a lot of naysayers initially. But we have proven them wrong," Edozie said, while Bosah pointed out that there was no support from the government for the book.
On why there had to be government involvement and if they sought the government's support, he said they did not directly seek for government backing, but they did inform the right people about the project.
"This book should be in state libraries, libraries of secondary schools and higher institutions and museums in the country," the publisher argued. "And this is where the government comes in, because it needs to ensure that copies of the book are made available in all these places.".
Other projects
On other upcoming projects they are planning, both artist and publisher disclosed that they plan to do a book on women artists in the coming year. They also conceded that it is not inconceivable that they would produce another book along similar lines to ‘101 Nigerian Artists: A Celebration of Modern Nigerian Art'.
"We expect to do another one in the future but that is tied to the success of this one," Bosah said. A number of exhibitions in major capitals of Europe and North America involving the artists featured in the book, are also in the works for the coming year. "The success of the artists featured in the book is our major concern," they insisted. The book, a glossy and beautifully worked affair, includes a foreword by poet Gabriel Okara.
Bosah and Edozie indicated that the artists featured ‘101 Nigerian Artists' will receive free copies of the book while those who sent in entries but who were not included would get the copies at discounted rates.
‘101 Nigerian Artists: A Celebration of Modern Nigerian Art' is published by Ben Bosah books.
Your current post has veгified necesѕary to myself.
ReplyDeleteӀt’s геаlly helpful and you're simply obviously extremely knowledgeable in this region. You have got opened up my own sight in order to various views on this kind of topic along with intriguing and reliable content material.
Check out my web blog: http://culturerooms.com
Here is my web page ; phentermine