Art has now transformed into the 4th dimension. The technically based imaging process now progresses beyond a fascinating oddity, because aesthetic efficacy has become obvious in the hands of poetically skilled practitioners.

 

An introduction of the modernist sensibility to Nigerian Art is necessary...I still hold the belief that there is no reason to suppose that the conceptual artist is out to bore the viewer. It is only the expectation of unemotional kick to which one conditioned to expressionist art is accustomed that would deter the viewer from perceiving 'modern art'. To make art which 'permits' too many people to project their own ideas in it is corruption; to continue to use technique which are easily available and unproblematic is decadence, failure to recognize the limitation of art is indefensible and morally wrong.

 

None of these tells you exactly what art ought to look like, or exactly how it should be made; but they give a clear indication of how it should not be.

 

"Old and New" therefore hopes to achieve the studiedness of an entomologist: by going a little bit to the right; ominous and playful, and a little bit to the left; heroic and solitudinous. In my humble desire to manifest the visions of 'old and new' in the vicissitudes of man's existencial volition, this collections have been able to recast man and his dream, they are urban and cosmopolitan, they are both the storm and the calm.

 

Extract from exhibition brochure "OLD AND NEW" WORKS OF JOE MUSA, 6TH - 20TH AUGUST 1996; HELD AT DIDI MUSEUM , #175 AKIN ADESOLA STREET VICTORIA ISLAND, LAGOS, Nigeria