JOSEPH OGBEIDE- COMPLICITY, MADNESS AND OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM.

By Nii B. Andrews.

What do you do when your social system functions on complicity; what can you do? 

What do you do when the prevalent public perception of the police and law courts is one of unbridled corruption; when your country has a seat on the UN Security Council but its security agencies cannot secure seized excavators or changfangs that are polluting the rivers, destroying the forests and farmlands within your own country?

BABA S’OPE (2021); Acrylic on Canvas; 24 x 36 inches.

And if the free public education system is not fit for purpose or the public health facilities often border on the vertinary grade; and everywhere there are square myrmidoms, minions and praise singers baying from round holes; what do you do?

Confronted with a similar state of affairs, Tunde Oyateru engaged in a no holds barred exposé; he wrote a book, THE DAY THE MAD MAN KNEW.

When a society is permeated with a deep malaise of chronic underachievement laced with bombast, we all become challenged in describing, understanding and agreeing to what is indeed normal and why.

ANYTHING FOR THE WEEKEND (2021); Acrylic on Canvas; 24 x 36 inches.

Is it really possible for us to have true insight into our condition? 

Do we understand that insight has long been a parameter for judging who is mad?

It is from the totality of the above premises that the Nigerian artist, Joseph Ogbeide, crafts a visual language that presents a blunt discourse which provides ample information, education and entertainment.

HOLD YOUR CHANGE? (2021); Acrylic and Spray Paint on Canvas; 24 x 36 inches.

The art comprises a series of acrylic and spray painted works on canvas.

Ogbeide’s paintings dissect the complex nexus of complicity that engenders the injustice, corruption, poor governance and impunity – the hallmark of the brazenly distorted relationship between public officials and citizens.

The stark question is are we all mad; how different are all of us from those supposedly unaware of their individual chaotic and distorted mindset?

SHOCK YOU? E NO SUPPOSE SHOCK YOU? (2021); Acrylic on Canvas; 24 x 36 inches.

To further complicate issues, madness may be an evolutionary adaptation – or an attempt at an adaptation – that helped societies in the past survive.

 Theodosius Dobzhansky, the great geneticist wrote, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”.

In due course, this societal madness could prove transformative for the whole community even as it shows its detrimental effects on individuals.

Meanwhile, dark humor may provide a refuge for some; “this bi ghana ooh”, or the “naija factor” or “dark and lovely”; but for others, that strategy is misguided and solely appears as a cowardly acquiescence to the disgraceful and unacceptable status quo.

LAST BUS STOP (2021); Acrylic and Spray Paint on Canvas; 24 x 36 inches.

Ogbeide’s drawings are simple line drawings veering towards a sparse minimalism and abstraction for they are THE THINGS THE MAD MAN SAW, the title of his current exhibition.

But Ogbeide is still able to transmit the whole gamut of emotions that animate the human condition; he uses color, texture, perspective and distortion.

This is buttressed with text and titles in pidgin English – a trusted means of conveying provocative thoughts and ideas for which standard English is sometimes woefully inadequate.

Ogbeide with this latest exhibition again serves notice that he has to be taken seriously as a contemporary artist and thinker.

All purchases of artwork in the exhibition come with a paperback copy of Tunde Oyateru’s The Day The Mad Man Knew.

BLUE KAFTAN RULER OF KONTRI PEOPLE (2020); Acrylic on Canvas; 24 x 36 inches.

*****Joseph Ogbeide; “THE THINGS THE MAD MAN SAW”; 12 – 30 June, 2021; Radisson BLU Anchorage Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

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