WHAT ARE THE BENIN BRONZES?

The extraordinary Benin Bronzes are products of unnamed and unsung artistic geniuses who flourished under the patronage of the Benin royal court between the 13th and 19th centuries. Each Benin Bronze is meticulously crafted with iconography that defines its purpose in either sacred or secular contexts. They served varied roles: as conduits to facilitate dialogue with the Oba's (King's) ancestors and divine entities, vehicles for the Oba's interplanetary travel, portraits in honor of royal predecessors, visual records of significant events, and much more.

The Benin Bronzes not only showcase the unparalleled artistic brilliance of their creators but also bear witness to a colonial chapter in Benin's history. In 1897, the British Empire launched a military invasion of Benin Kingdom aiming to establish colonial control over the region and exploit its abundant natural resources, particularly the lucrative palm oil industry. This invasion culminated in the pillage of approximately 4,000 exquisitely carved ivory objects, metal casts in-the-round and relief, coral beaded jewelry, wood carvings, terracotta sculptures and a range of artifacts from Oba Ovonramwen's palaces, shrines and other communal spaces. Following this mass pillage, the artifacts were exported to England and auctioned to various private collectors and institutions. As a result, 160 Western cultural institutions have become custodians of the looted artifacts, collectively known as the Benin Bronzes.

WHAT IS IGÙN AI?

The 1897 invasion had a devastating impact on Benin's artistic landscape. British imperial soldiers razed the royal palace - a cultural complex that housed artist studios, residencies and repositories for imported art materials including the kingdom's bronze reserves. Amidst the chaos, Oba Ovonramwen—the Kingdom’s sole patron of the arts, was dethroned and exiled. The Oba’s exile prompted an exodus of artists from Benin city to satellite towns, where they forsook their artistic pursuits to engage in subsistence farming. This forced economic migration ushered in a 17-year (1897-1914) artistic recession — a period which lacks visual/archival records. Igùn is my attempt to answer a question about this dearth in documentation: What artifacts might have been produced during the 17-year artistic recession?

REFERENCES

1. Atairu, M. (2024). Reimagining Benin Bronzes using generative adversarial networks. AI & SOCIETY, 39(1), 91-102.