M89 The Eye Society

The Eye Manifesto (1989)

In 1989 five artists in the Nigerian city of Zaria formed the Eye Society in response to what they saw as a serious threat to the creative integrity of the country’s visual arts. All of the artists had studied at the Ahmadu Belo University in Zaria. At the time, Nigeria was suffering from a long-running economic crisis caused by the collapse of oil prices after a ‘golden decade’ of prosperity in the 1970s. This severe downturn in Nigeria’s fortunes in the 1980s coincided with a desire among wealthy Western collectors for traditional African art. Cynical dealers actively discouraged innovation by African artists, arguing that any artwork of a conceptual or experimental nature would be dismissed as inferior by the international art market. Instead, Nigerian artists were encouraged to turn out old-fashioned, stereotypically ‘African’ paintings of stilt dancers and ‘exotic’ Fulani maidens, and they struggled to find an audience for anything more sophisticated. Concerned by such constraints on their creativity, the Eye Society took direct action, publishing a journal called The Eye, which promoted contemporary Nigerian artists, and undertaking to establish an arts programme in order to educate the general public about contemporary art.

‘The Eye Manifesto’ was written by the Eye Society members and published in The Eye Monograph in 1989. In it the group advocated the right of artists not to have their work prescribed by tradition or prevailing expectations, but instead be free to engage unreservedly with the dynamic, international nature of the modern world.

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The Society believes in the freedom of the artist to use his varying experiences for the benefit of mankind. Such experiences embrace the whole of human imagination – deriving, for example, from such phenomena as nature, tradition, science and technology.

While it acknowledges the presence of tradition in all societies it is aware, however, that every society is affected by cultural changes. These changes may be brought about or are influenced by the culture of others. It is insincere, therefore, for an artist to pretend not to notice these changes and to insist on portraying his society as if it were static. The Eye believes that the visual arts provide the forum whereby the dynamism of culture can be appreciated. Thus the Society does not expect artists to be tied down to mere local expectations to the detriment of other dynamic cultural developments of mankind through art. It identifies the seeming absence of progress in most developing nations as a resultant effect of such self-limiting methods that usually are propagated by those who often wish that artists chart a direction purportedly national in appearance but essentially parochial. In the present African and Nigerian circumstance, the Society believes that the artist should not be seen to propagate artistic narrow-mindedness.

Objectives

The projection of the visual arts as an instrument of development of the society.

The documentation and analysis of developments and history in the visual arts.

The promotion of community projects in the area of environmental aesthetics, arts and crafts through workshops and other activities involving members and selected communities from time to time.

The organisation and promotion of exhibitions, workshops and symposia.