Source: http://www.camwood.org/biograph.htm

Although a US national, I was born Igbo in West Africa. I hold a BA (summa cum laude) in Fine and Applied Arts with a major in painting and minors in printmaking and 20th C African American art history. I also hold a PhD in art history from the University of London where I worked under the supervision of John Picton. My doctoral research was on the painter and printmaker Uzo Egonu. The dissertation was published by Kala Press, London in 1995 as Uzo Egonu: An African Artist in the West and has been described as “the most sophisticated and instensive full-length analysis of a modern African visual artist” and “a major benchmark in the criticism of modern African art.” [see publications]

I have practiced as an artist for several years and since the late 1980s I have had one-person and group exhibitions in major galleries and museums around the world. Venues in which my work has been exhibited include the Venice Biennale, the biennials of Havana, Busan, and Johannesburg, and the Echigo Triennial in Japan, among others. Museums and galleries that have shown my work include the Whitney Museum of American Art, PS1 and New Museum New York, Whitechapel London, the Charlotenburg and Kunstforeningen Kobenhavn, Tramway Scotland, Setagaya Tokyo, Bildmuseet Umea, Irish National Museum Dublin, Plaza della Triennale Milano, Bonnefanten Maastrich, Koldo Mitxelena San Sebastian, Schlossmuseum Linz, Malmo Kunsthalle, Bluecoat Liverpool, the Smithsonian Washington DC etc. [see art career]

Ishibumi/The Longest River, my site-specific sculpture in Nakasato, Japan. 1999

I also work as an international curator and a consultant on contemporary art. I have curated exhibitions for spaces such as the Tate Modern in London, the Museo de la Ciudad in Mexico City, and the latere of the Venice Biennale, in addition to projects such as Fresh Cream [Phaidon Press, 2000]. I was featured among the 100 significant ‘emerging’ artists in Phaidon’s first exhibition-in-a-book project, Cream in 1998, and then as one of the 10 international curators who selected the 100 artists in the second project, Fresh Cream. Well known contemporary curators that I have co-curated with include Rosa Martinez, Fumio Nanjo, Gerardo Mosquera, Okwui Enwezor, Carlos Basualdo, Hou Hanru, Nelson Herrera Ysla, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Young Chul Lee, Chris Dercon, Salah Hassan and many others.

Banner for the exhibition, Authentic/Ex-Centric which I co-curated with Salah Hassan for the 49th Venice Biennale.

As an art historian and critic I have published extensively on contemporary art and my books on the subject include The Culture Game, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2004, and the co-edited anthology, Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace [MIT Press, 1999]. My work in the area of contemporary art theory has appeared in such canonical volumes as Art in Theory: 1900-2000, Art History and its Methods, Theory in Contemporary Art: 1985 to the Present, and The Visual Culture Reader among others, and my contributions to the sociology of cyberspace and new information technologies are considered seminal. My essay, “Forsaken Geographies: Cyberspace and the New World ‘Other’”, originally presented as a paper at the 5th Cyberspace Conference in Madrid in 1995, is one of the most widely read and anthologized essays on the subject. I have also published a couple of other books, among them Sojourners: New Writing by Africans in Britain, a pioneer literary anthology; and a number of political and other tracts.

I have taught at several colleges and universities since 1986 including the School of Oriental and African Studies, where I taught African Literature, Goldsmiths College, University of London, where I taught Critical Theory in the Visual Arts, the University of Illinois at Chicago where I introduced the history of African American art to the curriculum, and the University of South Florida where I held the Stuart Golding Endowed Chair in African art and taught graduate courses in contemporary art, also. [see art history class] I currently teach at the University of Connecticut as an associate professor of painting and African American studies, and associate director of the Institute for African American Studies.

In 1994 I co-founded Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art in New York and co-edited it for six years before leaving the publication in 2000. Nka is published by the Africana Studies Center at Cornell University. Otherwise I serve on the boards of Third Text, Social Identities, Atlantica, and the literary journal, Wasafiri . A speciall issue of Third Text on contemporary art from Africa that I guest-edited in 1993 literally defined the field of contemporary African art studies and set the stage for change in the reception of contemporary artists of African origin.

I have published poetry since age 14 when I won a runner-up prize in the World Animal Rights Day poetry competition. To date I have published 3 books of poetry. My second book of poems, A Gathering Fear, which is also my first collection, won the 1992 Christopher Okigbo All-Africa Prize for Literature. In 1993 it received honorable mention in the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. It has been published in two editions. My first book of poems, A Song from Exile has reappeared in two international anthologies and has been translated into Spanish and Catalan. My favorite of my poetry books, however, is the long, love poem; Songs for Catalina, written in 1993 for a Mexican muse. I have also published poetry in numerous journals and other media including Poetry International, Poetry Wales, Wasafiri and others. [see poetry] And, although journalism is one vocation few people associate me with, my work as a journalist has in fact been published in news and other media from Nigeria to Kurdistan and for a number of years I was a member of the Amnesty International Journalists Network in the UK.

On the very personal side, I was born under the Libra sign (harmony, fairness, equity, balance, charm, eloquence, creativity, sensitivity, impatience…in every respect a textbook Libra persona) on Wednesday, October 14, 1964 in the commercial town of Aba. My father is an artist, farmer, a Christian theologian and clergy. He began as a Lutheran school teacher and ended up as a minister of the Church of Christ. Following in his footsteps, I spent many years on the pulpit, first as a Sunday-School teacher from age 13 to 16, and then as a lay preacher from 17 till 21. My mother trained as a stenographer but has worked all her life as a trader, farmer and expert hair-braider. I have seven younger sisters. I keep no pets and I detest noise.

Guess which picture is my dad’s and which one is mine.

I enjoy chess, mathematics, reading, writing and making music in my spare time. My main instrument is the harp (harmonica) though as a child I had some talent as a drummer. I have tried the guitar since I was 17 but without success, regrettably. Now I just keep my guitars for display. What else I’d like to try my hands on someday is the saxophone. I am what you might call a person of the book. I read mostly poetry, essays, theory, philosophy, different scriptures, and the occasional fiction, though I would read almost anything. I also collect books: on war, firearms, world cuisine, gardening, architecture especially modernist architecture, furniture, design and interior decoration; and I read the books that I collect.

My favorite authors are Chinua Achebe, James Baldwin, Alex La Guma, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Naguib Mahfouz, Federico Garcia Lorca, Walt Whitman, Christopher Okigbo and Mahmoud Darwish. I also enjoy June Jordan, Carl Sandburg, Salvador Espriu, Octavio Paz, Allen Ginsberg, Edward Said, Roland Barthe etc, and I recommend Antonio Tabucchi. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, and there’s always surprising new discoveries. I’ve never read science fiction or comics, shame!

Beside my own music, my taste in music is very eclectic and ever-expanding, ranging from Sir Warrior to Yothu Yindi. Some of my favorites are:

• Abigbo Mbaise: Straight from the county where I was born in Igbo country in West Africa. Certainly the most sophisticated word-art music in the world.
• High Life: Joe Nez, Sir Warrior, Stephen Osita Osadebe, Victor Olaiya, Victor Uwaifo, Celestine Ukwu, Oriental Brothers, Ikenga Superstars, Okukuseku, Ramblers.
• The Blues: Robert Johnson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonnyboy Williamson, Mississippi John Hurt, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, BB King, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Memphis Slim, some Eric Clapton, some Van Morrison etc.
• Rock: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler, Dr. Hook, Guns and Roses, Tracy Chapman, Pre-Batman Seal, all Nigerian rock from the 70s – the Rock of Ages, Apostles, Wings, Offege, Cloud 7, Bongos Ikwue, and later, Sony Okosun, etc.
• Pop: Quite a few acts. I’m not into “Afro-pop’, though.
• Funk/ Afro-Beat: James Brown, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Sly and The Family Stone, George Clinton, Isaac ‘Black Moses’ Hayes, everything ever produced by Randy Muller. I like some Meshell Ndegeocello.
• Hip-Hop: Tupac, NWA, Public Enemy, Scarface and Getto Boys, generally, Digital Underground, Mos Def and Talib Kwali, Nas, Positive Black Soul (Africa’s finest), Los Orishas, and every other major act or group from the Wu Clan to Willie D. In other words I quite like old school Southern and West Coast gangsta rap (excluding Snoop). I consider Scarface among the greatest poets of the 20th C. I like some Eminem, too. No lightweight rap acts and no kid stuff.
• Reggae: Marley, Steel Pulse, Aswad, Black Uhuru, Toots and the Maytals, U-Roy always, Burning Spear, Gold, some Tosh, some Bunny, some Gregory, some Pablo Moses, and the greatest rhythm section in the world: Sly and Robbie. Then, fast-forward to Sizzla, rightful heir! although I’m not sure what all that gay-bashing stuff is about. By the way, his own troubles aside, truth be told, Buju Banton, measure for measure, is the greatest Reggae musician to emerge since Marley died; the most experimental, most daring, and by far the most sophisticated lyricist of them all. Yes, and I’ve got to pay respect due to Lee “Scratch” Perry, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, Hines and the Dominoes, Marcia, Sister Nancy, Yellow, Sugar Minot, Beres, Jah Cure, Richie Spice, nuff said.
• R&B/ Soul: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone! The Rev. Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, Patti LaBelle, Al Jarreau, The Commodores.
• Country: Charley Pride on number 1, Willie Nelson, Don Williams, Kenny Rogers, Patsy Cline, the Kris Kristofferson songbook, some Mel Haggard, some Jim Reeves because I grew up with it. I like the Dixie Chicks, but not much else in contemporary country and western.
• Jazz: All the old school: Duke, Sachmo, Count, Ella, Lady, then, Miles – Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead, Kind of Blue, Highlights from the Plugged Nickel [with Herbie Hancock on piano at the famed Chicago club, December 1965], Bird, Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Monk, Mingus – ah, um, Dollar Brand, and the God of the Trumpet, Hugh Masekela. Plus: George Benson, Earl Klugh, Groover Washington, Steve Williamson and Beki Mselekhu.
• Calypso: The finest ever was Lord Kitchener. I liked some Mighty Sparrow back in the day, but nothing to beat Lord Kitchy or his classic, Sugar Bum Bum. Even the modern remake of SBB feat: Tony B, Natalie B and the Lord himself still beats all the soca out there. Never got into soca, thank you.
• I also like The Empress, Miriam Makeba, and of course, the Diva Supreme, Miss Perfumado, Cesaria Evora. Did I mention fellow Libra firecracker Chuck Berry; the father of rock and roll? You should hear the so-called “Million Dollar Quartet” – Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins on their famous December 1956 jam session practicing Chuck Berry and adoringly talking about our man like groupies! Certainly one singer you are most likely to catch me listening to any given day.

Then, I would listen to just about anything except European classical music. Well, I do like Tchaikovsky [the Marches] and for a while I was into Nigel Kennedy, also. I never developed a taste for opera. Can’t feel it.

I am an electronic toys freak (computers and cameras, mainly.) And yes, I do enjoy good company and engaging conversation. No smoking, no drugs, no alcohol, no meat. I’m really not big on food either [wish one could run on a nickel-ion battery!] For the longest time I did leave a tease here that I can’t dance. I guess the only addition to that is; try me!

All text and graphics © copyright Olu Oguibe 1996-2007 Contact: Olu Oguibe Email Music © Buju Banton The Olu Oguibe Homepage Publications Art Vitae