Akin Oladimeji (UCL) - 2024-25 Students
ucwcola@ucl.ac.uk

Jelili Atiku: Mapping His Poetics and Performances

Since the end of the twentieth century, art historians have engaged in recognising the ways visual cultures are interconnected. The global turn is part of a decentring strategy that is in parallel with the worldwide ubiquity of contemporary art biennials. However, the focus has been mainly on artists making objects. I will investigate African art with leading Nigerian performance artist Jelili Atiku(b.1968)as a nexus. With selected performances from Atiku, I will reflect on the relationship between ‘live art’ in Lagos and an African-centric historical perspective. For Atiku, internationally established performance practices, epitomised by Marina Abramovic, merge with embedded notions of the Yoruba-Nigerian socio-religious performance codes of masquerade to galvanise audiences. My theoretical framework will range from Marianne Hirsch’s concept of the post memorial to Yoruba philosophical explorations of ritual. Memory studies are crucial in examining the artist’s reflection of self in a multi-temporal practice, and anthropology facilitates a look at the underpinnings of his spiritual beliefs, which infuse his art. My in-depth exploration of Atiku’s performances and the contemporary resonances of politics and spirituality in his work has the potential to facilitate new understandings of live art from a global perspective, as opposed to a Euro-American standpoint.

Primary supervisor: Professor Tamar Garb