‘Funding Art leaves it in controllers’ hands’

Emmanuel Eni, aka ‘Blackman in European Kitchen’ is an artist, poet and philosopher. His work encompasses sculpture, painting, installation and audio-visual performances.. He spoke on wide ranging issues, including why art should not be funded. GREGORY AUSTIN NWAKUNOR writes.

What’s your background?
I grew up in a polygamous home with 36 brothers and sisters… in affluence. I had all I needed. I’m the only artist in the family. At the age of six, every one was wondering how I could sleep in a room full of clay, mud and colour pencils. Everybody wondered how I could draw and paint my parents true to life like a picture. That was the beginning of my creativity till I studied sculpture and other art forms in the higher institution.

What’s your strongest memory of childhood?
Visiting a museum at the age of four.

Explain what you do in a few words
I make sculptures. I have about 500 of them in various materials and colours, they include, large scale terra kota, fiberglass sculptures, many monumental scale reinforced concrete sculptures, some weighing four tonnes and some up to 25 tonnes, including a number of bronze sculptures. Paintings total up to 300 small and large scale ones. Having spent about 15 years drawing on paper,there are about 400,000 paper works counted and documented and still counting. I’m also into poetry, dramas and diverse literature, among which is the recently published 320-page anthology with 600 poems, titled, Kindonkind. I’m currently developing urban art and designing catalogues of installations and advancing new movement sequences for performances and public interventions.

Why art?
I am a born and trained artist. I don’t know any other job. It is my calling. A necessary creed to create works of beauty and a ‘Tir na nÖg’ of life’s realm of agelessness that relieves the strenuous huddles of human passage in a world of tedious occupations, which is stuck in the search of livelihood through practice of diverse trades in the quest for self-sustenance and subsistence for family and society.

How do you work?
I work with an inherent duty chronometer-like. I work also in thoughts, motivated by my actions, which, therefore, make every place my studio. Knowing that I, like a farmer who must go out daily to work his fields, I must do the same, working my creation, lest my art, like the crops in the field, will be over grown by shrubs.

What’s integral to the work of an artist?
An artist’s work is the calling and creation of spirits to rejuvenate the soul of humans. It is also to show the beauty in them. An artist work is to sharpen the intuition of humans and society to know what uplifts their consciousness. He or she is to be a neutral and transparent companion at a ratio of one artist to even millions of people. Through the interpretation of the artist’s own life, an allegory should be transposed in three known stages — physical, metaphysical and philosophical — and thrown like an exemplary mirror projection to his or her society.

The artist role is to supply all the creative needs that help society replenish itself and help society know that another name it has is not only the known physical one, but the one that calls it ‘a collective order’, which is a uniting name that is intangible as well spiritual. Thus, the artist fills the society with beauty of being and spirit.

What has been your seminal experience?
My protean calling has created several seminal results such as, ‘Contemporary Barock Art’ under which all aspects of my creativity unite: Visual arts, installations, performance art, poetry and music. Also, the creation and patent of the well known ‘New light Paintings Art’, which, apart from not being lithography, or stained glass, is a style and material of rediscovered picturisation, whereby, the inner light of the painting itself surpasses the light of the paintings outside. In it, memory of the colour pigment and the canvas is obliterated, which makes the painting to have longevity like living forever. Doing so without breaking down its matter, over time, regardless of climate and light. This ‘New Light Paintings Art” reveals the ultimate brightness inside and outside of the picture. I also have described and illustrated the (BMSFAP) Basic Metric Scale For Art Products- in my published stage drama that deals with the dangers of curated art and the inner machinery of the art world. Titled, ‘Death of the curator’, BMSFAP is a scale that determines the price of a given art product, without cognisance to material, time of making and the artist name. BMSFAP helps art buyers to know the price to pay for a given art. Another seminal result is, of course, my writing of ‘Blackman in European Kitchen’, a poetic lyric with music, dance and performance that treats the similarities and differences between cultures.

How has your practice changed overtime?
Through the years, I’ve been moving towards solidifying my doctrines and logics in philosophy, while including preparatory drawings for the largest bronze sculpture compositions that I will create in the next few years.

What genre of art do you most identify with?
I adhere to poetry, which is the soul inspiration of every giving profession and life style and I love paintings and drawings.

What work do you most enjoying doing?
Thinking and applying my thoughts to all my media.

What themes do you pursue?
I chase after iconoclasm of cultural, political, religious and philosophical relevance. Especially uncommon and not proportional ones.

What’s your favourite art work?
Can a father name his favourite child?

What is your artistic outlook on life?
That life will be so simple for all and that laughter will become the only language of understanding.

What memorable responses have you had to your work?
At exhibition opening when every one suddenly understands and talk about my art.

Is the artistic life lonely and what do you do to counteract it?
As my mind grew, I didn’t know where to go, as I am part of the tiniest minority being an artist. The loneliness of the crowd also is contagious. So, I go into my spirit, which cheers me up from my loneliness.

What do you dislike about the art world?
Middlemen and curators. I have experienced them dampen the spirit of young artists who have not found their pioneering qualities and alienate the true meaning of art and artists’ independence.

What research do you do?
I use the computer to answer questions then I find the solutions and actualize the result.

What do you dislike about your work?
What can I dislike about my work?

What do you like about your work?
The pioneering qualities and enterprising spirit.

Should art be funded?
Funding art leaves it in the hands of a controller. Most times, it ultimately serves the role of the funder, rather than the purity of the artist’s intention and talent.
Art should be bought directly and used.

What makes you angry?
Unnecessary quibbles, discrimination and racism.

What’s your scariest experience?
Having sometimes to run and fight for my life with Neo Nazis and racists.

Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?
Watching birds eating in suspense while in flight.

What’s your most embarrassing moment?
I can’t remember any.

What jobs have you done other than being an artist?
None.

What food, drink, song inspires you?
Fufu with ogbono soup, beer and afrobeat songs.

What superpower would you have and why?
I have superpowers. Every true artist is a magician.
Name something you love, and why.
I love the past because it helps me to find a useful future.
Name something you don’t love, and why.
I love every thing in essence though some are difficult to admit because they open my eyes and my understanding.

What is your dream project?
Creating a lot of five to 10 tonnes multi figure bronzes of universal iconoclast compositions and title themes. Also, mounting large scale travelling exhibitions on universal African philosophies.
Name three artists you’d like to be compared to.
Hard. For fame and art history, there are many, but that I will like to keep to myself for now.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
Make all your commissioners love you.
Professionally, what’s your goal?
That my art will be known by all and will live forever.

What wouldn’t you do without?
Creating!
Favourite or most inspirational place.
Lagos, Nigeria
Also, say something about your birthday.

Like every birthday, I presume I’m feeling great considering the fact that it is day of reflection, thankfulness for the gift of life, love and friendships all over different parts of the world, especially through the cherishing gestures of my fans and their love every where they are.

I dedicate my birthday to all the people of Nigeria and hope that Nigeria, as a country, will find favour in the eyes of the world and that it’s glory and success will be cemented among the greatest in the world. Finding peace, harmony and success while leading Africa to a new epoch of total independence, sovereignty, good relations, knowledge and wealth.