An Interview with Pearl Lam And Alayo Akinkugbe

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Thank you so much for joining us. I would like you to talk about yourself and tell us what you have been doing and why you are so interested in Black Culture and the black history of Art.

Alayo Akinkugbe: Thank you very much Pearl Lam for having me on the podcast today. I started a black history of art, which is my Instagram platform, in 2020 just before the lockdowns happened in the UK and in Nigeria. I was in my second year of university and basically, I started the page in reaction to the fact that I hadn’t studied any black artists in my first year of art history at Cambridge. It was really a means for me to self-educate and I started to do research and put my findings on Instagram. I was interested in the way that black people were represented in the European art that I was studying and in learning about black artists throughout art history. Obviously, I had no idea what was about to happen that year in terms of covid and in terms of people being on their phone much more than they were before the lockdowns and of course after the murder of George Floyd and there was this Resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and it was then in June 2020 when the page kind of like blew up after only a few months of I think I had probably less than 30 posts and then all of a sudden I was getting thousands and thousands of followers. it’s strange because it started as a means to self-educate but it ended up growing into this thing that I couldn’t really control. It’s been fantastic to kind of see the way that the art world has evolved since 2020 and the things that have happened and the page exploded but also the page itself has also kind of evolved and content has been changing.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): In Cambridge which other black artists have you read or studied or are there any black artists that you have you were taught about?

Alayo Akinkugbe: So partly I guess I’m missing part of the story here because in my first year we didn’t learn about any black artists and we went obviously from the classic kind of survey course going from ancient Greece and Rome, talking about ancient Egypt a little bit and then all the way up to like the present-day kind of ending with Carly Schneemann and Andy Warhol. The reason I started the page was because I took this incredible contemporary art paper which was taught by a professor called Amy Tobin and she worked at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Cambridge kettle’s yard, and she talked to us about this paper. She taught us about Isaac Julian and Glenn lygon and Jonah confer and all these kind of really well-known black artists from the UK and the US because the course was focused on the UK and the US from the 80s onwards and that was when suddenly like my love about history kind of deepened. Obviously, I already loved everything, and I had been learning this very classic like Renaissance like Dutch painting like all of that kind of stuff but when I started to learn about black artists it completely changed my perspective on what art is and it just deepened my passion but when you talk about these artists, it’s very different from the African art I’ve seen.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely, so what is your take on African art in General; on contemporary African art now versus Africans making art in the U.S or in England?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I think that different things are happening on the continent versus in the West. I think that obviously, sorry just to kind of backtrack a bit, on my course at no point did we study an African artist actually like we learned about a few a handful of black artists who were based in UK and us but never did we think about or touch Africa really and I think what is the main difference I guess it’s too simple to say that this is what African artists are doing, and this is what black artists in the in the west are doing, because everybody’s doing different things. I think it has been easier for people to write black artists working in the west into art history than it has for contemporary African artists. Because a lot of artists are drawing on things that don’t fall into kind of like ideas of the Canon of Western artists but that Western artists we’re talking about African and artists in UK or in or in U.S are more conceptual in Africa many artists don’t even understand what conceptual art is about.

Pearl Lam: So, what are you thinking about because what I see is the Western way of thinking about what Contemporary Art is. Western people think Contemporary Art is conceptual, that if it is not conceptual art then they’re not good artists. So how is this going to be applicable to African art? Because again it is being judged by the West.

Alayo Akinkugbe: Yep, it’s being judged through the lens of Western views.

Pearl Lam: Yeah, I always say, this is called the cultural colonization. What are your thoughts about that?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I think it’s interesting because obviously t I think that partly the reason why contemporary African or Africa in general has been viewed as this kind of separate thing is because everyone who is an authority or not history or people who are sort of Framing and shaping the way art history develops is looking at it from an outsider’s perspective. And it’s important that Africans obviously are writing about and thinking about African art and people who are aware of the way that history has developed and the nuances of obviously being African from whatever specific African country or whatever culture within those countries. Because as you know you went to Nigeria and within Nigeria, we have obviously like the three main tribes but then hundreds of languages. So, I think it’s important that people who are totally aware of the history and the culture and the way things work. And aware of the references that contemporary artists in Africa are making. When they draw on the past, it’s not always going to be from a Western Art historical perspective.

Pearl Lam: How would your IG Channel talk about that and address that because we must address cultural colonization and also it seems that the world just wants everywhere to look like the West.

Alayo Akinkugbe: This homogeneous culture is really invading everywhere because I think it’s easier for people to just have a specific set idea of what something is. So, for instance lots of people have been talking about contemporary African art and think about it in terms of figurative painting. I think that’s been very easy for everyone post 2020 when suddenly everyone’s trying to diversify, and everybody’s interested in black figuration and it’s becoming this like this huge thing. I think it was very easy for people to be like, oh this is what the African artists are doing like lots of Ghanaian artists painting sort of bright background dark-skinned bodies and it’s digestible. it’s like this is Africa now, like you’ve seen it everywhere on book covers Etc.

Pearl Lam: How would your IG page deal with this culture being homogeneous and also this colonization of culture? How are you going to show to the world that this diversity does not just apply on colours but diversity of thoughts? Which is the most important thing? How are you going to address that?

Alayo Akinkugbe: It’s really interesting that you say this because I guess with my page, what I’m usually trying to do is try and break away from a monolithic idea of Blackness and of what black art is. And you’ll notice that’s why it’s called a black history of Art and not a history of black art because there’s no such thing as black. And the point is on the page you might have a painting by an indigenous Australian artist next to a contemporary Brazilian artist next to a drawing by Pisanello of a black woman. and it’s just kind of trying to prevent people from thinking of Blackness as monolithic or homogeneous and kind of show the diversity of black artistic production.

Pearl Lam: So, what is African art?

Alayo Akinkugbe: We absolutely cannot define it. Firstly, because when we speak about Africa we’re speaking about this continent with 54 countries with hundreds of languages, hundreds of tribes, and cultures in Nigeria alone as you know like there is so much diversity. Each tribe in each culture has its own history that is separate to the others around it obviously it connected in a way but also separate and we spoke about this earlier this week about how you know Nigeria as a country is a line that was drawn on a map by the British. Like it’s an amalgamation of all these different cultures that probably have no business being a country but here we are. We use the phrase African Arts so much but it’s not saying anything very specific because each country is so diverse within Africa so we can’t say like this is what African art is or this is what contemporary African art is because everything is so different.

Pearl Lam: As a woman in this African art World, do you feel discriminated against?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I haven’t felt particularly discriminated against, actually I found that within the African art space a lot of people have been lifting me up and have been giving me opportunities and have been encouraging me to sort of keep going and keep pushing and keep doing what I’m doing. More so than in the broader art world and maybe that’s because it’s a small bubble I haven’t felt I’ve almost felt very well I feel like I’ve been welcomed into it it’s very strange because this has only been going on since 2020. Obviously, I was still in university when this was happening so to have art historians and sort of authorities in the African art World um sort of reaching out to me and encouraging me that’s been fantastic. So, I’ve I haven’t I haven’t felt particularly discriminated against in that context and also there are lots of um well not lots but there are some women who I can kind of um look up to Bissy being one of them, unfortunately she passed away. I feel like it feels very much like a community from my perspective, so I have not experienced it.

Pearl Lam: Fantastic, I didn’t feel any discrimination or anything in Hong Kong or China as well. I feel it’s free and all that very different from many ladies and I have spoken to in the west.

Alayo Akinkugbe: And in Nigeria, I’m not saying I’m not going to say that there isn’t sexism, of course there’s sexism. Especially because we’re so strongly influenced by British culture, Victorian culture, which is like the most prudent of all. There is very much a history of women being strong and empowered and there are lots of stories about the market woman who would go out and sell and make the money and bring it home to their husbands who would stay at home and plow. Like I said, there is sexism in Nigeria. But there’s also a strong history of women being empowered and women being entrepreneurs, making money and like being in in high positions.

Pearl Lam: In this digital era, what do you think the role of a gallery will be?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I think it’s interesting the way that galleries are changing, and I think that a lot of young gallerists tend to have these kinds of nomadic spaces and a strong digital presence. Moving forward, I don’t think that we’re going to move away from the physical Gallery space. I think that would be such a disservice to us because you sort of need to experience it in person but um yeah, it’s interesting that a lot of artists’ careers are being born from Instagram and a lot of gatherings are building their audience first before establishing a permanent space.

Pearl Lam: In Nigeria there are a lot of artists that are so poor that they don’t have this way of using these digital or communications. so how are these artists being recognized? There are not even enough galleries. How do you think that these artists careers will grow? I saw very good artists in the market but there’s no way that they can show it on Instagram. How do you think that that will be developed?

Alayo Akinkugbe: Well, I think unfortunately it is the case that a lot of artists need to have an Instagram page because it’s Visual and it also opens them to an audience that is not just based in Nigeria or based in Africa but is international. Unfortunately, a lot of people say the Nigerian dream is to leave Nigeria, like everyone wants recognition beyond Nigeria, beyond Africa. I suppose there are artists in Nigeria who do sell their work in the market.

Pearl Lam: I see the work in the market and the work is very good. But then a lot of them doesn’t even have an Instagram page yeah or they don’t they don’t know how to market themselves and are there not enough galleries? I mean the Market’s like a flea market.

Alayo Akinkugbe: there aren’t many galleries come to think of it in Lagos. But I do think that there are beginning to be more and more. But I think that the approach that people tend to take is sort of finding perhaps recent graduates or people who have some sort of presence online it’s quite difficult.

Pearl Lam: so what you’re saying is the gallery’s

physical role is still as important in Africa than your digital promotion?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I feel like because the infrastructure there is not the same other international cities, I think this is actually a really tricky question.

Pearl Lam: So how do you curate your Instagram Pages, your channel Pages? How do you find these artists?

Alayo Akinkugbe: It’s a different goal with the page. It’s not like a gallery, I’m not trying to sell the art, it’s purely just to show the diversity, to celebrate the diversity but my main aim with the page is to keep it diverse. So, show sculpture abstract work conceptual art and try and switch up the mediums that I’m showing. You see a lot of painting on Instagram because it translates very well onto a digital screen. You don’t see as much sort of installation or anything like that so trying to keep it diverse in that sense and trying to choose from is choose from like select works from various time periods. For me I’m particularly fascinated by like the juxtaposition of having something from sort of the 18th century next to something from now um and so yeah there’s not that much logic to it. I think the whole point is that it’s meant to be everything; I don’t want people to see the same thing twice and sort of think this is what it is like this is black art this is Africa now or anything like that. I don’t want people to go on the page and be like ah like it’s this is she’s presenting to us what a black history is.

Pearl Lam: You know I always say that art is not about a passport it’s not about the colours and I have refused to join any art fair if their name has something to do with Asia or China. You are talking a lot about black culture. Don’t you think that art is not about your colour, it’s not about passports, it’s about whether you have that gift or talent or not. Of course, you know the black artist has been disregarded, and now you’re putting it back in back in an important role, but what do you think? Are colour or nationality or passports so important?

Alayo Akinkugbe: do you know what it’s not and I actually wish that I didn’t have to do this work but it feels like something I must do simply because I cannot believe that in 2018 19 20 like that we did not think we did not touch the work of a black artist on a Cambridge art history degree I find that insane so if that can happen like this in like that was what three years ago now, if that can be the case then it shows me that there’s obviously a big problem. I mean things have changed a lot especially since 2020 but there’s a gap and it needs to be filled and I think that’s kind of what propels me to keep doing this. Having said that it’s through like colour passport whatever race these things don’t affect your ability to create art but I think the reason why I do focus on black artists will always be because of trying to fill that Gap and trying to make sure that like we stay part of the conversation after this trend because we have to admit that there has been a trend.

Pearl Lam: Do you think it’s a trend or would it be of permanence that African art will be always celebrated?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I hope it will always be celebrated but I think in the way that it has been so proliferated in the past three years. I feel like that has been crazy like that’s a boom like you can say that this is like a we’ve reached this kind of peak. I don’t know if that interest will stay. I don’t think the interest will stay this strong, but anyone who works in African art space obviously is going to keep doing what they’re doing, and it will stay relevant to certain people and of course things come and go, different um their trends for different things at different points.

Pearl Lam: I created a foundation called China Art Foundation in 2008. And at the time the whole mission of the China Art Foundation was to make a bridge between the west and the East because what I find out is uh when I was going through the Chinese art and art history or the contemporary art history, what I read in English was very different from what the artist is saying. So, I had a lot of missing links until I met a brilliant Professor who put all the links together. So, I was advised to set up a foundation to create a communication between the Western academics, Museum directors, curators with the academics, curators, and directors from China. So, we did start publishing books. At the time I was working with MIT press, so we were publishing books, we were supporting British Museum, VNA, doing lectures. So that was the way to create this communication whether it is a historical or contemporary because I believe that just with that communication it will be a better relationship between the west and China. So, I’m asking is whether it is in your thoughts that you will be trying to create a foundation or even just I was asking you about African art an archive would it be in what you’ll be thinking of doing?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I mean again I find it a little bit difficult to see how that could work simply because for instance a black artist Foundation or an African artist Foundation it’s still far too broad. Me as an African, but more specifically as a Nigerian, and then even more specifically as a Yoruba person like how to even put it into words it would be too broad to have something that, I guess it makes sense.

Pearl Lam: maybe because you’re one person, but if you meet someone and that’s the same and whole network yeah you could form absolutely and to sort of bridge what bridge the gap between the west and Africa and even between Africans.

Alayo Akinkugbe: yeah, and even between Africans and that I think is something important and something that I would love to see happening more because as we spoke about earlier um the kind of connection between African countries is so much weaker between specific African countries and the West so for instance Nigeria and the UK versus Nigeria and Kenya for instance. like it’s sad I think, and I think so much could be gained if there was more intra Africa dialogue and connections between art worlds and obviously everything else. But yeah, speaking from the art perspective it would be amazing to have more um yeah more dialogue between relationships. Yes, because everyone looks Out of Africa, I feel like from my perspective some people might disagree, but I feel like um or let’s say Nigeria in Nigeria we tend to look at international connections as or when we’re trying to appeal to an international audience we’re not thinking about Africa, even though of course we’re all different nations. We’re thinking about Europe or we’re thinking about perhaps Asia. I mean I can only speak for myself but yes, I think people tend to think about going beyond Africa rather than within Africa, so I think yeah that’s a really important point that you raise.

Pearl Lam: What is the art role in politics?

Alayo Akinkugbe:I think I would say from my perspective working within this space everything that is to do with black art or black artists is deemed political, even if it’s not political. And I remember interviewing this artist um for a magazine and um they asked me to ask her if her work is political and I really thought that I was like this person is not making political work she’s just making paintings of black women’s bodies. I didn’t I didn’t think of it as political and of course when I asked her, she was like Ugh everyone asks me this I know it’s not political, it’s got nothing to do with politics. I guess it’s made political because once you have a black body or a black figure somehow do you know what I mean like I know and it’s personal it seems personal as the artist, but I suppose once you put it out there it becomes politicized, and it feels like a statement. Any sort of black presence within the art spaces seems political.

Pearl Lam: you gained a lot of followings during covid, can you tell me the reason do you know the reason why it happened?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I think partly to do with the fact that of course with everyone being locked down a lot of attention was turned to the phones. But also, the most obvious reason is that there was the Resurgence of black lives matter and the real boom in followers came in June 2020 in sort of like the first couple of weeks after the murder of George Floyd and actually I would say that yeah everyone had kind of like shifted their attention towards blackness in all Industries Out World included of course. I think partly because the page wasn’t necessarily focused on black suffering or black pain or all the things that we were kind of thinking about then and it was a celebration of black cultural production. I think was an easy way in for people to kind of engage with Blackness but also yeah, the way the waves of followers started coming then from that point on it went from like I started it in February and then by the end of August I think I had 40 000 followers which is just crazy growth. The wave of followers came because Katie Hessel who runs the great women artists and wrote the book The Story of art without men. We had been chatting even before the Resurgence of Black Lives Matter. I followed her she followed me back because I was doing a very similar thing with black artists, as opposed to with women artists which is what she was doing. We had been chatting and then this happened and then I think everyone was sort of trying to figure out what to do to diversify, whatever it was that they did in whatever industry. So she decided to give her platform um which I think around that time had maybe like nearly 100 000 followers um she decided to give her platform to Black voices in the art industry black woman’s voices so I took over her page and then within a day from like I think I had like 300 followers it went to like 9 000 and then another wave came when someone made an infographic which I don’t know if you remember in 2020 there was so many infographics like people trying to explain like ways to understand Blackness, how to overcome like white privilege and like all of these kinds of things. And this infographic was about it was like eight black historians to follow now and my page was included on that and lots of people shared it and so it was actually hard for me to gauge where it was coming from but then the person who made the infographic could see because people would tag him when they would repost, and it was shared. I have no idea how many thousands of times. But it just kept growing at that point I think that I remember it went from maybe 15 to 30 000 within the space of a week doubled like and that was because everyone was suddenly interested. It wasn’t organic because the reaction by what was going on around and it had to be that specific context. I don’t think that the page would have gone into an audience this big if not for that. Definitely not this quickly, maybe over the years, but definitely not within a short time.

Pearl Lam: Did it push you to work harder?

Alayo Akinkugbe: Yes, it really did, and I think back to then and I was like posting perhaps every day or every other day, and as the followers were growing I was just like okay suddenly there was this responsibility on me to put content out. But also, it was lock down; there wasn’t much going on. I remember I had my finals for my exams for second year as this was all happening. I’m really glad that I sort of kept

going with it at that point because I think it helped to kind of lay a foundation that has led to the career that I now have.

Pearl Lam: How do you break through to this elitism and establishment culture in the art world?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I think with the page I’m trying to kind of move away from the sort of intimidating an elitist nature of art institutions like museums and things and even about history, it’s a very elitist subject to study at university and it excludes a lot of people. But I think with the page, the language that I use I try to keep it very simple so it’s not like the kind of language that I would use in a like art historical essay, no kind of jargon, no stuffy language just trying to keep it relatable. Also, it’s on Instagram, I think most people aren’t going to read a very sort of heavy dense text on Instagram. So I think having this very accessible approach to art history has helped the page do so well.

Pearl Lam: it’s clearly not written for only people who are art history aficionados or other art historians has written for a general audience. Do you think movements like Black Lives Matter creates more division?

Alayo Akinkugbe: I don’t think so because I think a lot of people who aren’t willing to properly engage with the discussion might think how can how can you say black lives matter? Surely all lives matter? And that’s what people like to say, but the point is that if all people were being randomly murdered by the police randomly or excluded from art history for instance, then I guess that would be more equal. But the point is that black people are discriminated against and are disproportionately murdered by the police and all that kind of thing. Do I think it causes more division than Unity? No, because since Black Lives Matter, I have seen a shift in attitudes. I think people have been more willing to engage with the concept of racism and with the idea that we aren’t living in some kind of equal utopian society where everyone is treated the same and it’s colourblind and like all of that is not real and I think that black lives matter forced people to engage with the discussion in a more nuanced way. I think it’s harder for someone to just say the statement like ‘I’m colour blind I don’t see race like racism doesn’t exist now’ because it’s been so clearly exposed through that movement if that makes sense so I don’t think they cause more division. I think they do bring out the strongest aspects of people’s beliefs so I’m guessing I think that in the same way as I’ve seen developments and people are more willing to have discussions about racism.

Pearl Lam: The Chinese are saying how about us. Do they care about us? The same thing, you mean Chinese lives don’t matter.?

Alayo Akinkugbe: But that’s not the point, it’s like the second that Blackness is present everyone assumes that it’s like knocking out all the other things and it’s like no, the point is that it’s been excluded, and we need to talk about it and we need to bring in that awareness. I think it’s sad that so many people see it as a threat, people see the presence of Blackness as a threat to everything else, a threat to whiteness, threat to whatever or the focus on Blackness, it’s like how dare you. Because no one’s used to it.

Pearl Lam: However, today in the art world we are really dismissing if you are from diversity, if you are a woman, if you are non-white, you have a better opportunity than a white male. We were there, was a huge conversation going on everywhere we were talking about it.

Alayo Akinkugbe: About the art world, it’s like 60 percent women, isn’t it?

Pearl Lam: It is, but the problem is we are so focused on gender and so focused on colours. I mean I’d rather focus on each of the person’s talent and gifts. Instead, we are talking about colours, passport, gender because we need to categorize. Why should we categorize? What we should be looking at is their contribution.

Alayo Akinkugbe: I think also just quickly, a point that is often shoved aside is the elitism thing. In the art world, it’s like everyone’s happy to talk about gender or race or whatever but the fact that it’s you know that our world is so Elite and is um sort of an only accessible to people who can kind of afford the art World lifestyle. That’s something that also needs to be addressed.

Pearl Lam: So, which uh what is your next stage of Life? What are the things you are going to disrupt?

Alayo Akinkugbe: So, I think my next big project which we could call disruptive is my book that I’m working on with murky books which is Stormzy’s imprint of penguin, and it’s called reframing Blackness. it’s of course a very general title and that’s it doesn’t give the title doesn’t tell you what the book is. it doesn’t go into detail I suppose it’s not like a dissertation title, that’s very specific. But the point is the book looks at the relationship between Blackness and art history. It’s not trying to tell the black story about or to tell a black history. It’s doing something very specific.

Written by: The Producer, The Pearl Lam Podcast

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