Artist Ademola Olugebefola
He is an artist of the times. Many have come and gone in the arts, but he has remarkably
endured. The mentality of most new artists nowadays has become a cliche: produce work
that is marketable for quick fame and money, oh and also try to make some sort of
statement.
Being an artist today seems to mean conforming to people's personal tastes,
creating kitsch to adorn the blank walls so their home will look pretty.
Ademola is a model for the artists many seek
to be, but won't become for years to come; if they even last that long.
Ademola is always keeping in the moment, creating and playing through his art. In the 60's he painted
and was involved in various prominent social organizations, reflecting the turmoil and great
burst of creativity from that era. In the 70's and 80's he continued to cultivate his work
against the flow of the glamourization of art and the SoHo scene. In the 90's he is still
producing and adding work to personal collections and museums nationally and internationally.
But on looking back to move forward now, he is hopeful for the future, (he says we've made
leaps and bounds) but is bored with contemporary art. I met with him in Brooklyn's Botanic
Garden on one of the last few days of blissful weather to ask him one question: Why?
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Heather: Why are you bored with contemporary art?
Ademola: It appears
to me as if the artist is concerned more with
craft, and really without content. And I realize
in the post modernism period there is an intellectualizing
of arts objective. It seems that to have an
objective in art is, what I call, intellectual
masturbation. Of course, I love to masturbate,
but I don't intellectualize; I fantasize.
So much of art, this post modern visual discourse,
tends heavily on explaining what the art means. For
writers and critics this is heaven.
H: Is it just artists? Are we underestimating the
intelligence of our audiences?
A: I think post modernists engage the audience. I
don't think it's underestimation. The problem is not
with the audience, it's the content in which the art
is created. A lot of art is sterile, devoid of
feeling. In some ways its a hybrid of minimalism 30
years too late.
H: A hybrid?
A: Well, the premise of minimalism was that you reduce
an object to it's most primitive form. And give the
viewer a sense of space, and place basic objects in
relationship to the space in a new way.
H: Is there any exceptional art out there?
A: There is work that is being produced that I like,
and it's exciting. But it appears to me that there is
a generation of artists that possess craft but have no
intellectual weight. And ultimately have no real
relationship to humanity.
H: What do you attribute that lack of relationship to?
A: Pop art is a movement. Abstract impressionist
art was a movement. There the objective was to protest imperialism.
It was an attempt for those artists to get away from the norm. Glamorization
has affected a lot of younger artists. They want the glamour but
there is no zeal to change the world. They are fitting in. Fitting
into the formula of success.
H: What is originality today?
A: Well that is the central question. We're talking
about the real world. I am very concerned , in terms
of my own career, with knowing what younger artists
are doing. Knowing what the trends are but staying
within the circle of originality.
H: What do you do to stay in that circle and maintain
perspective?
A: I have been blessed with many experiences
from singing doo wop, playing in bands...You have to keep an openness
that keeps you open to new ideas. I believe Einstein, one of the
great thinkers of the 20th century, opened up possibilities of muti-dimensionalism...and
my exposure and experience in the Yoruba belief system..
H: Does faith play on people's perspective
in art?
A: It is a belief system, an understanding. It keeps
the mind open to all the possibilities. That's why
the Orgy turns me on. They're is an existing body of
minds that are action oriented, analytical, socially
conscious, and working towards evolutionary change.
And it's reassuring that there is this generation,
this body that exists.
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