FORGING IDENTITY IN FORM: THE INFLUENCE OF ART AND SCHOLARSHIP ON NIGERIAN SCULPTURE

Abstract

Modern art making in Nigeria rested on the background of false assumptions and deceit on Africa's concept and philosophy of art and the purpose of its production by the colonialists who manipulated the educational exposure they gave to the colonized. African idea of art and its production   was considered and tagged fetish and uncivilized by the colonialist and every attempt was made to destroy and replace it with their own idea of art. Pioneers of art teaching in the colonized territories were made to see the indigenous art as inferior and worthless in a new world directed by foreign ways of life. Sculpture being the most dominant art form in Nigeria suffered desecration, rejection and destruction in the church school system at the grassroots of modern education through the secondary and to the tertiary level. Even with many years of tertiary level of art teaching, public exhibition of sculpture and higher degrees recipient in sculpture, there is still gap in the scholarship of sculpture.  This study evaluates the academic status of sculpture as an option of visual arts discipline in terms of scholastic progress, material usage, stylistic bent and resources for its instruction in training institutions.  The method used for the study is a descriptive survey of practices by artists linked to training, curricular assessment and examination of teaching resources matched with output. Findings show a bandwagon effect in techniques and material usage, extinction of indigenous styles and techniques, little passion for innovation and craze after hardly affordable imported materials for production. Home grown sculpture text books are not available in the school system even where materials for such are abundant