| Abstract
|
:
|
In their various books on Igbo culture, Simon Ottenberg, Adiele Afigbo, P-J Ezeh, Herbert Cole and Chike Aniakor make references to ‘Igbo receptivity’, the ‘resurgence of Igbo arts’, and ‘Igbo cultural self-hate’, in an attempt to capture the wandering of Igbo cultural attitudes from one level of experience to another. While ‘receptivity’ and ‘resurgence’ are positive characterisations and paint a picture of resilience, ‘self-hate’ depicts a postcolonial nihilist tendency also at the heart of Igbo culture. If art is one major index for expressing and assessing the culture of a people, the Igbo uli art, arguably spanning three stages of historical-stylistic development, offers a basis on which Igbo culture and heritage can be appreciated and appraised in light of its receptivity, resurgence, as well as self-hate. Relying on the works of the uli women classicists, the Nsukka artists, and the outcomes of the Art Republic workshops, I argue that traditions never die in any finalistic sense, but rather degenerate and then regenerate new ideas, while nourishing and refreshing paradigms which extend the history and experience of the old. In their various books on Igbo culture, Simon Ottenberg, Adiele Afigbo, P-J Ezeh, Herbert Cole and Chike Aniakor make references to ‘Igbo receptivity’, the ‘resurgence of Igbo arts’, and ‘Igbo cultural self-hate’, in an attempt to capture the wandering of Igbo cultural attitudes from one level of experience to another. While ‘receptivity’ and ‘resurgence’ are positive characterisations and paint a picture of resilience, ‘self-hate’ depicts a postcolonial nihilist tendency also at the heart of Igbo culture. If art is one major index for expressing and assessing the culture of a people, the Igbo uli art, arguably spanning three stages of historical-stylistic development, offers a basis on which Igbo culture and heritage can be appreciated and appraised in light of its receptivity, resurgence, as well as self-hate. Relying on the works of the uli women classicists, the Nsukka artists, and the outcomes of the Art Republic workshops, I argue that traditions never die in any finalistic sense, but rather degenerate and then regenerate new ideas, while nourishing and refreshing paradigms which extend the history and experience of the old.
|