Lamidi Olonade Fakeye: A Retrospective Exhibition and Autobiography

LAMIDI OLONADE FAKEYE A Retrospective Exhibition and Autobiography

Lamidi Olonade Fakeye and Bruce M. Haight with David H. Curl

Hope College, Holland, Michigan, 1996. 230 pp., 109 b/w & 9 color photos, 3 maps. $20 softcover.

In 1972, encouraged by a conversation with Alex Haley, the Nigerian sculptor Lamidi Fakeye came to the conclusion that despite his lack of academic qualifications, no one was better qualified to write about himself than he was. This autobiography, published in conjunction with last fall's exhibition "Lamidi Olonade Fakeye: A Retrospective Exhibition" (reviewed in this issue, p. 79), represents the culmination of this project. Descriptive and elliptical, it has something of the character of Yoruba praise poetry rather than the selfreflective and discursive qualities of Western autobiography. One of the book's most pleasing aspects is the clarity of the author's voice. Chronicling family history as well as personal history and achievements, Fakeye tells his story in his own way-thus adding to the small number of autobiographical narratives by African artists, such as Nike Davies's story that forms the basis of Kim Marie Vaz's The Woman with the Artistic Brush (1994) or Lawrence Ajanaku's monologue included in my own work From the Hands of Lawrence Ajanaku (Borgatti 1979). Co-author Bruce Haight assisted Fakeye in organizing the data into a linear and chronological format (Haight, personal communication, 1996), but clearly was very careful not to impinge on the artist's voice.

Fakeye opens his book with a discussion of the Fakeye family, their migration from Ilole Ekiti in Ondo...