COVER KING
COVER KING
The completely self-taught "Lagos Afro-pop art exponent/Afro-visionary artist" gained worldwide fame as the designer of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's album covers; and between 1974 and 1993, he produced 26 of those, apart from hundreds of covers for musicians like Bob Marley, Kris Okotie, Osita Osadebe, James Iroha, Gilles Peterson, Miriam Makeba, and Lucky Dube. In addition, for about a decade, from the early 1980s he was a consulting album cover designer for Polygram Records in Nigeria, designing more than 2000 covers for them.Totalement autodidacte, le « porte parole » de l’AfroPopArt de Lagos est un artiste « Afro-visionnaire », il a acquis une renommée mondiale en tant que illustrateur-concepteur des pochettes d'album de l'inventeur de l'Afro-Beat Fela Kuti. Entre 1974 et 1993, il réalise 26 pochettes pour Fela, en plus des centaines d’autres pour des musiciens tels que Bob Marley, Kris Okotie, Osita Osadebe, James Iroha, Gilles Peterson, Miriam Makeba et Lucky Dube. A partir du début des années 1980, il est également illustrateur-consultant de pochettes d’album pour Polygram Records et pour des labels independants au Nigeria, concevant ainsi depuis le début plus de 2000 pochettes.
AFRO POP ART
AFRO POP ART
Quiet celebration
The overriding focus of the new set of works, is a celebration of black heroes. I'm a pan-Africanist, so I'm interested in any progress that is relevant for the so-called Blackman. So, I am interested in celebrating our positive attributes. Which explains why many of the pieces focus on two black heroes who have caught the attention of the world in arguably unprecedented ways: Barack Obama and Michael Jackson.
And then of course, there s Fela. One of the works, titled "Ah-Free-Can"; shows Fela, his trademark wrap of ganja between his lips, framed by the index and middle fingers of his left hand, which form a conspicuous V-sign. But it is not a painting, it is digital art. I take a picture and break it down digitally and then start to colour it; Lemi explains.
The minimalism stands out. The images for which Lemi made his name are typically done in full, riotous colour; heavy on slogans and realist in expression. The Fela album covers, for example, are visual replications of the wild energy of Fela's sound. But this new phase of Lemi Ghariokwu is marked by its muted colours, the contemplativeness of its characters (Obama, Jackson, Fela), its contemplation-inducing mood and above all, its heavy symbolism. And the medium, the canvas, is the plastic sheets popularly used by sign writers in advertising.Douce Célébration
L'objectif premier de la nouvelle série d'œuvres Digital AFroPopArt consiste en une célébration de héros noirs. « Je suis un panafricaniste intéressé par toute sorte de progrès qui soit pertinent pour le soi-disant Homme Noir. Je m’intéresse donc à la célébration de nos qualités. » Ce qui explique pourquoi la plupart de ses travaux mettent l'accent sur deux héros noirs qui ont attiré l'attention du monde entier sans précédent : Barack Obama et Michael Jackson & Fela est la première personnalité. Une des pièces intitulée « Ah-Free-Can » montre Fela avec un joint de ganja, sa marque de fabrique, entre les lèvres, coincé entre l'index et le médium de la main gauche, venant à former un grand signe en V. Cependant, il ne s’agit pas d’une peinture, mais d’art numérique. « Je prends une photo que je décompose numériquement, puis je la colorie », explique Lemi. Un certain minimalisme en ressort. Les images avec lesquelles Lemi s’est fait une réputation sont généralement effectuées avec des couleurs pleines et éclatantes, emplies de slogans et de facture réaliste. Les pochettes d'album de Fela par exemple, sont des répliques visuelles de l'énergie sauvage du musicien. Mais cette nouvelle phase de Lemi Ghariokwu est marquée par des couleurs atténuées, l’état contemplatif de ses personnages (Obama, Jackson, Fela), et surtout, un fort symbolisme. Quant au médium, les «toiles» sont des feuilles en plastique pour cette série, très utilisées dans le secteur publicitaire par les concepteurs de logos.
Nigerian-artist-Lemi-Ghariokwu-Abiodun-to-speak-at-Detroit-Institute-of-Arts
Nigerian artist Lemi Ghariokwu Abiodun to speak at Detroit Institute of Arts – Ghariokwu known for iconic album covers of Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
(Detroit)—Nigerian artist Lemi Ghariokwu Abiodun, known for his iconic album covers of Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti, will give a presentation at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. The talk, which is free, is sponsored by the DIA’s Friends of African and African American Art.
In his presentation, entitled “Art as Visual Expression of the Underlying Soul of a People,” Ghariokwu will discuss how his work for Kuti and other designs illustrate his use of Nigerian aesthetic traditions to critique the country’s social, economic, and political ills. He will combine images of his work with select songs by Kuti.
The presentation will be followed by a reception with the artist and members of the cast of the Broadway musical Fela! at 8 p.m. During the reception, Dr. Nii Quarcoopome, DIA curator of African art and head of the department of Africa, Oceania, and the Indigenous Americas, will provide an informal tour of the African art galleries. Reception attendees will also receive a 10% discount on tickets for Fela! at the Detroit Music Hall Center for Performing Arts between Tuesday, Feb. 14 and Sunday, March 4.
Tickets for the reception are $20 and include hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. Advance tickets are required. Please contact Lindsay McGuire at 313-833-4004, or at LMcGuire@dia.org. Payment will not be accepted at the door. The deadline to purchase tickets is Monday, Feb. 6.
The event is part of the DIA’s Black History Month programming and is co-sponsored by the Detroit Music Hall Center for Performing Arts.
LECTURE LEMI GHARIOKWU
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Ghariokwu-known-for-iconic-album-covers-of-Nigerian-musician-Fela-Anikulapo-Kuti
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the premier art museums in the United States, is home to more than 60,000 works that comprise a multicultural survey of human creativity from ancient times through the 21st century. From the first Van Gogh painting to enter a U.S. museum (Self-Portrait, 1887), to Diego Rivera’s world-renowned Detroit Industry murals (1932–33), the DIA’s collection is known for its quality, range, and depth. The DIA’s mission is to create opportunities for all visitors to find personal meaning in art.
EXPOSITION FORCE NOIRE Lithographies de Lemi Ghariokwu – Photographies de Pierre Terrasson.
Vernissage Jeudi 5 janvier 2012 de 18h à 21h
GALERIE 59 RIVOLI – 59 rue de Rivoli 75001 PARIS
Force Noire est une exposition en hommage au Roi de l’Afro-Beat Fela Kuti.
L’exposition Parisienne FORCE NOIRE présentera pour la première fois en France le parcours de Lemi Ghariokwu, allant de ses débuts d’illustrateur de pochettes de disque et de son travail pour la presse au Nigéria, jusqu’à ses travaux récents. Cet évènement consacrera le talent de l’artiste de l’AfroPopArt en explorant les nombreux aspects de son travail visionnaire. Lemi a fortement contribué à l’iconographie du mouvement musical Afrobeat, diffusant à travers le prisme de l’illustration et de la peinture le message populaire et unificateur de Fela. Consacré roi de la pochette de disque par la BBC, maître de la caricature, Lemi peint sa propre vision de la négritude : l’Africanitude soit une célébration de « Héros Noirs », dont le réalisme pictural s’exprime à travers une forme narrative ironique, musicale, urbaine et érotique.
Pierre Terrasson a rencontré a le roi de l’Afro-Beat. L’hétérogénéité de son travail est surtout motivée par une curiosité sans borne pour tout ce qui peut sembler atypique, ce qui ne rentre pas dans les cadres. Ses archives sont dès lors pleines de personnalités énigmatiques, excentriques, hors-norme. Il a eu le privilège, de photographier l’effervescence de l’univers de Fela avec ses musiciens et ses danseuses lors de son arrivée à Paris. Ces photos inédites n’ont jamais fait l’objet d’une exposition en France ni dans le monde.
DEDICACE par Pierre Terrasson – de l’AFFICHE FELA et du LIVRE BACKSTAGE -
SAMEDI 14 JANVIER de 16 heures à 20 heures au 59 RIVOLI
CONFERENCE ROCKNROLL AFRICAN REBELS Mercredi 18 Janvier 2012 à 18 heures
Lemi Ghariokwu – Dinah Douieb – Paul Rambali ++++ GUESTS
Force Noire veut s’interroger sur le phénomène Fela Kuti sous un angle original abordant les thèmes de la contre culture des années soixante dix en Occident et en Afrique
Lors de la conférence nous présenterons au public 50 œuvres originales
de Lemi Ghariokwu qui sera à Paris du 13 janvier au 5 février 2012.
Samedi 21 janvier 2012
ATELIER DESSINS avec Lemi Ghariokwu pour les ENFANTS (accompagné d’un adulte) et les adolescents –
Participation : 10 euros
Le principe est de créer ensemble des œuvres : inscription, Tag, dessins, guidés par Lemi Ghariokwu, Dinah Douieb et Kate Beave. Les dessins seront ensuite conservés par les participants.
FORCE NOIRE EXHIBITION Paris 2012
Force Noire Exhibition
“Music is the weapon of the future”
Force Noire is an AfroPopArt exhibition in tribute to the King of Afro-beat Fela Kuti
Fela is a force noire, a force of nature. African Counterculter Hero
In 1974 in Lagos, Nigeria Lemi Ghariokwu meet the great musician Fela, established when an almost mystical bond followed by a rich artistic collaboration. The world of Lemi will greatly contributed to the iconography of Afrobeat music movement. Close to the life and work of Fela, he attends to his musical development at the top of his glory. Lemi has greatly contributed to the iconography of the musical movement Afro beat. He designs for twenty-six of Fela’s album covers perfectly illustrating his musical expression, it becomes witness to a social protest that was to date, spreading through the lens of popular illustration and unifying message of Fela.
The Paris exhibition is a first in France. Through the presentation of some of his works, from its beginnings as an illustrator of album covers his relationship with Fela, his caricatures for the press in Nigeria until his recent work, this event will devote the talent of Artist of the AfroPopArt exploring many aspects of his visionary work. Drawings forms vibrant and colourful decorated assembly satire, where words and slogans are registered as “tags.” His work inspired by the everyday life of the street, tv-news and information collected through the media, also has strong visual impact in the photomontages. “My inspiration comes from within and the knowledge of what is happening in my immediate environment, society in general and of the whole universe and its vibrations, the daily movement of people, the interaction of emotions, the current of ideas. “
King of Cover and master of caricature, Lemi painted his vision of blackness, also an hymn to “Black Heroes”, where the pictorial realism through a narrative expression of irony, music, urban and erotic.
When he left Africa for the first time in 2003 during a trip to New York in the United States, he finds himself propelled to the front of the stage during the exhibition in honor of Fela: Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti. He lives in NYC one time and thus realizes a mural for the city: Everybody’s Gotta Be Somebody, describing his vision of the American dream. In this work, the tag Somebody wants a nigga as president is part of a prophecy come. One can not help considering this registration as a visionary message referring to the provocation of Fela Black President and make the connection with the historic election of the first black president in the history of the United States, Barak Obama .
Lemi draws tags & vanities for Stussy brand clothes (USA) entrusts Lemi on the occasion of their 25th anniversary, the realization of a collection of T-Shirts. He painted lions roaring and hourglasses that can not count the time passing, skulls are funny and smiling, tags and other signatures …
Digital AfroPopArt is the name by which Lemi defines his recent work. These digital works to the strong imprint publicity want to bring a reflection on contemporary art and the relevance of a message “political” in a contemporary context in Africa and the world. A self-described “pan-Africanist interested in any sort of progress that is relevant to the so-called Black Man,” Lemi has focused his work on the celebration of black heroes in history (Obama, Michael Jackson, Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti ), he portrays a contemplative state steeped in symbolism.
The art of Lemi, a harbinger of contemporary African art, is intended as a vector of a Pan-African thought, explicit and voluntary federation of a universal human thought.
On this occasion, Pierre Terrasson presents his eyewitness account. Pierre had the pleasure and privilege in the eighties to photograph Fela when he arrived in Paris with her dancers and musicians from his first concerts and festivals in France. These photos are new and have never been the subject of an exhibition.
Music is the Weapon of the Future chanted Fela in 1977; Pierre Terrasson has spent this decade to take pictures “out of curiosity, a golden age, that of 80 years, where being a photographer is not improvised. “Sailed out of sheer passion in the world of eccentric hard-rock, rock and punk, which has seen stadiums, outdoor festivals, small venues. Pierre met the king of Afro-Beat on his first visit to Paris. He had the privilege to photograph at his hotel with the press, in a series of concerts and festivals, backstage, more intimate with his wives, his son Seun, his dancers, dressed in embroidered fur coloured wire, proudly displaying their makeup and flaming pearl ornaments.
Alexandra Stefanakis met Fela during his travels in France & Europe. Alexandra gives us two strong images, vision and sensitivity immédiate of Fela. “I expressed the aura of great musicians as closely in tunewith that of the Kosmos, at least what I perceive ».
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-1997) was a revolutionary musician whose fame reached levels barely imaginable in his native Nigeria. Charismatic and controversial leader, Fela was the inventor of a new musical style, the Afrobeat, a fusion of jazz, funk, traditional Yoruba music, Highlife (Ghana & Nigeria) The extraordinary openness of Fela led him to experiment with music that drew its strength from a universal vision. It records in the seventies with the great Roy Ayers xylophonist and with the great drummer Ginger Baker an African psychedelic rock. .
During the seventies he founded his own territory in Lagos in Nigeria, the Republic of Kalakuta (“rascal” in Swahili) which included a recording studio, a concert venue (the Shrine) and one municipality. In 1974 and 1977, Kalakuta is attacked by a thousand soldiers pillage, rape and set fire to the community. During this last attack, his mother Fummilayo Ramson Kuti, activist human rights and feminist, was fatally injured.
In 1978 during a grand ceremony, Fela “Ramson” Kuti Yoruba converts to the cult and married his 27 dancers. He changed his name to Fela “Anikulapo” Kuti, “he who carries death in his pocket.” In 1979 he formed his political party “Movement of the People” and self-proclaimed “Black President”. For a decade he proposes to the presidency of Nigeria in defiance of a corrupt and oppressive will never consider his candidacy.
In Lagos, a new Shrine was opened under the direction of his first son Femi Kuti. Femi and Seun Kuti musical walk in the footsteps of their father, providing the seed of his musical message the Afrobeat.
In 2009, an initiative of the New York label and the Knitting Factory luminaries Jay Z and Will Smith, Fela’s hero against the African culture has risen to super star on Broadway in the musical FELA! Directed by the choreographer Bill T. Jones and displaying its cast including Patti Labelle, the show is sold out for a year and receives three “Tony Awards” in 2010. In 2011 the show starts a tour in the world in 2011-2012 (England, Nigeria, Netherlands, USA).
His life is exceptional and is a symbol of Force Noire, the fight for freedom of expression and human dignity. African counter culture Icon, his strong personality, his daring and energy justify the power of his musical originality. His charisma, his radical music and creativity have led to international success. When he died, more than a million people attend his funeral.
The Curator
Dinah Douieb
FORCE NOIRE Exhibition
From Tuesday January 3rd 2012 to Friday February 3rd 2012
@ 59 RIVOLI – 59 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris – Metro Chatelet
Open everyday from 2 pm to 8 pm closed Monday
Opening Party : + Show Case Femi Kuti, Tony Allen, Kiala + +
Saturday Sunday : Kids Workshop by Lemi Ghariokwu – Dinah Douieb -
Curator: Dinah Douieb – 1dinamyte@gmail.com – 00 33 60759988
Communication/Organization : Tiférèt(e) Geneviève Barthelemy -tiferetmusic@gmail.com & Laura Morabito
Press officer: Nadia Sarraï-Desseigne – kat.spirit@orange.fr – 0663490758
Partnership Modupé Otesanya, Sanya Films : Cie Arik Air, 59 Rivoli, Mairie de Paris, Fraap.Fair Fibers
