Nigeria

^{When the Chief Executive Officer of the National Gallery of Art, Chief Joe Musa, assumed office two years ago, he made it very clear that his target for the visual art sub-sector of the Culture Ministry was, among other things, the repositioning of the visual art as one of the economic drivers of the national economy and wealth.
 
In the realisation of that mission, the parastatal, under the leadership of the Edo State born visually trained artist and gallery manager, has set out goals which, in his own estimations, are capable of turning around, not only the fortunes of visual arts, but also the well being of the creators of the arts.}

^{Like he would say, "It is no more the season of art for art sake. My era is an era of art for business. Until a time when the visual artist, like the musician, would begin to receive royalties for his works, we will not rest".
 
He revealed this while briefing the press on the readiness of the Gallery towards the hosting in September 2008, the First African Regional Summit and Exhibition on the Visual arts (ARESUVA) in the nation's capital city of Abuja.
 
Designed in line with the philosophy of New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), ARESUVA, which had its central working committee comprising the State Security Services, Foreign and Internal Affairs Ministries, as well as the Immigration department and was inaugurated at the Conference Centre, Abuja, by the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Adetokunbo Kayode, last week, is, from every indication, the newest poster face with promises of re- inventing and re-branding the visual art economy.
 
According to Musa, "The purpose of the African Regional Summit/Exhibition on the Visual Arts is to bring together stakeholders, dealers, traders and professionals in art business for the purpose of fuelling individual and collective creativity in the visual arts sub-sector in Africa."
 
 Going by this bold explanation, it becomes easier to make a lot of plausible deductions: First that, Nigeria through this show, will, for the first, time provide what appears to be the largest visual art market in the African art sub-region that will run between the 7th of September through the 13th 2008.
  
And, by doing this, the National Gallery would be bringing together, almost 31 years after the 2nd World Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), the whole countries of Africa again, though not to the city of Lagos, but the beautiful administrative city of Abuja, to come and discover not only the rich tourism and cultural strength of Nigeria but, more essentially, international appreciation and patronage towards the visual art market and energy of the continent.
 
As the two weeks show takes toll in the capital city, the nation is expectedly hoped to benefit tremendously from the economic activities that will play out of the visual show. According to Musa, the country is expected to generate not less than $50 million in return.
 
He said: "those 56 countries are coming to exhibit their works in Nigeria, do you know what that means? We are targeting that the country is not going to reap less than $50 million. At least, none of those participating countries will come with less than twenty artists. And all of them are going to stay in hotels, make use of taxis and do their shopping and all that".
 
"All international exhibitors will pay for exhibition stands as well as gallery owners in Nigeria, who would also pay for stands where they will exhibit Nigerian artists. The international artists will also pay for publicity and it is our intention to give this regional summit the widest publicity one can ever think of.”
 
Considering the fact that the visual art has many other sub-categories, Musa told journalists that the first edition of ARESUVA would only take care of the Fine Arts, which, of course, would involve installations.
 
And like he has explained in every other occasions, the idea would not be to restrict the ARESUVA to the city of Abuja as, according to him, plans have reached high degree to see that other sub-stations of the National Gallery nation-wide would be linked up with Abuja through hi-technology to enable them participate and benefit from the expected regional art market.
 
The commitment of the National Gallery to seeing to the improvement of the visual art sub-sector and visual artists could now be said to be no longer child's play, going by some other policy directions being initiated by the Joe-Musa led team. In the interim, the Gallery has introduced the idea of what it calls a Virtual Gallery, a web home if you like, where Nigerian artists could exhibit their works on line for easier access-ing and market transaction.
 
According to Musa "Fund has been made available for artists to come and register with the Virtual Gallery since we don't have a permanent physical structure on ground. The idea is to have all artists and works on net. And the internet engineer is already waiting for interested artists.'
 
Besides, the parastatal has concluded plans to produce what it also calls limited edition prints of artist's works for each exhibition done with NGA. The idea is to enable all art connoisseurs, who may not be capable of collecting the original work of their choice by constraint of price, to, as well, benefit from having a duplicate copy of that original work at a prize they can afford.
 
Going by this spirited commitment towards improving the state of art and art practice, the National Gallery will also, next month, take a team of Nigerian artists and selected number of journalists to Senegal to participate in the Dak'Art Biennale scheduled to hold between the 12th through 20th of May.
 
The idea behind the trip, besides exposing and marketing Nigerian artists in international visual shows, is also aimed at helping the team of artists and journalists understand how the Dark'Art is executed so as to properly prepare and execute the planned 1st African Regional Summit/Exhibition (ARESUVA).}