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African heritage ‘forgotten’ in latest exhbition by top British artist
8:35 CAT | 09 May 2017
Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor has highlighted an exhibit at British artist Damien Hirst’s current show as the latest example of cultural appropriation.
Hirst’s Venice exhibition Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable hosts the imagined artefacts rescued from a fictional ship that went down off the coast of East Africa.
One of the pieces looks like one of the famous Benin bronzes cast in the 13th Century in the Ife Kingdom in what is now Nigeria.
Ehikhamenor says in his Instagram post that this postcard of Golden Heads (Female) “makes no reference to the Kingdom of Ife and great artists that originally made these timeless classics… Once again the hunter has glorified his tale in the absence of the lion.”
In another post he says: “For the thousands of viewers seeing this for the first time, they won’t think Ife, they won’t think Nigeria.
“Their young ones will grow up to know this work as Damien Hirst’s. As time passes it will pass for a Damien Hirst regardless of his small print caption.
“The narrative will shift and the young Ife or Nigerian contemporary artist will someday be told by a long-nose critic: ‘Your work reminds me of Damien Hirst’s Golden Head’.
“We need more biographers for our forgotten.”
Source: BBC
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