1 Introduction
The photographic estate1 of the art patron and linguist Ulli Beier (1922–2011) and his wife, the artist Georgina Beier (1938–2021), came to the Iwalewahaus at the University of Bayreuth in Germany from their residence in Sydney, Australia, in 2012, after Ulli’s death in 2011. This private collection of about 40,000 pieces contains not only photographs and negatives (which form the largest part), but also slides, scans, publications, flyers, posters, letters, handwritten notes and further documents, such as recordings and films (in short, images in their various materiality) (Figure 8.1). The material had been mainly accumulated and organized by Ulli Beier, who also took most of the photographs, documenting his surroundings and positioning himself in a new environment. It contributes to the Beiers’ visual memory of the respective places they lived in but also adds to a narrative that the couple built up over the years, about their cultural work, their collective strategies and political agenda.
Various black and white photographs of Yoruba carvings on paper
© CBCIU & IWALEWAHAUS. PHOTO BY LENA NAUMANN
Most of the collection is from Nigeria, particularly the Southwest, with a focus on Osogbo, where the Beiers lived for several years. But other places of residence, such as Papua New Guinea, Australia and Germany, are also documented. The estate arrived packed in boxes, partly organized, partly mixed up, showing previous organizational traces of the collection’s growth over the years and its relocation every time the Beiers moved house. Repeated transport caused some damage, which, together with the effects of the respective climates, left traces on the material.
With its arrival in Bayreuth, the material underwent yet another level of organization. Boxes were unpacked and files were arranged in order to be digitized. The digital process itself not only challenged the material in transforming it to digital copy but also revealed its potential. The organization, its inherent structures and the personal attachment of the researchers handling
Furthermore, the estate added to the existing art collection that the Beiers had brought to Bayreuth in 1981, when they opened the Iwalewahaus there, thus augmenting the African studies course at the university. It seemed that gaps were being closed, as information about artists appeared and collecting strategies became more evident. The photographic estate also revived interest in the art collection and its history. With it came privileges (for the authors of this chapter, on the one hand, and for the team of the Iwalewahaus, on the other, who had unhindered access to a history that was not their own and was to a large extent constructed). It also brought a new responsibility in how to treat, how to (re)think and how to open (in a physical and metaphorical sense) the archive, to question established opinions and stories, perceptions and access. It was and is a constant unlearning of the institutional past, with its enforced ideologies and power relations and modes of thinking, by actively listening to
The term “archive”, which entails not only the strategy of collection but also the emotion of accumulating excess, is used here in two ways: firstly, to mean the material manifestation (the classified and accessible archival objects); secondly, to refer to the condensation of material and mental images that are arranged rhizomatically and differently depending on individual perceptions. The archive includes the estate and the art collection.
This chapter explores the change in attitude towards the newly arrived material; the necessity and the possibilities of collaborative and sensual work as critical interventions in the whole of the material (the estate and the art collection) and therefore in the Iwalewahaus; the accessibility and downfalls of digitization; and the final relocation of the estate to the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding (CBCIU) in Osogbo in 2020, as one way of equalizing a partnership and reconfiguring the global North–South relationship. It describes, in particular, the practical and workable handling of an estate, its immanent structures and the challenges of shared responsibility among the institutions in which both authors are involved. These negotiations of cooperation are not complete but continue to be a process, the successful implementation of which, according to the formulated goals, is still subject to constant exchange.
2 Established Narratives: the Construction of an Insider
This essay does not reproduce established narratives around the art patron, collector and art lover Ulli Beier and the artist Georgina Beier (Figure 8.2). However, a short introduction into the Beiers’ cultural work and their understanding of modern art is necessary, in order to recognize the system within the art collection at the Iwalewahaus today and Ulli Beier’s drive to document his environment, strengthening and manifesting his role as in insider and expert.
Georgina and Ulli Beier at the Berlin Theatre Festival in 1964
© CBCIU & IWALEWAHAUS. PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN
There is no doubt that the influence of European art patrons and collectors was considerable during the period of independence declarations in Africa. They initiated the founding of schools, galleries and collections of traditional artifacts and modern and contemporary art (Fall and Pivin 2002; Förster and Kasfir 2013; Kasfir 1999; Probst 2011; Okeke-Agulu 2015; Savage 2014). With regard to the Beiers, their collecting activities (in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Germany) were particularly connected to Nigeria, where they spent a particularly long time of their lives in the 1950s and 1960s, during the independence movement. Their kind of art patronage was thus a phenomenon that was practised by other privileged Western immigrants in various African countries
Ulli and Georgina Beier came to Nigeria as self-declared outsiders, as people who did not fit into the European cultural scene.2 In Nigeria, they found
On November 27, 1981, the Beiers founded a house for art and science in Bayreuth at the invitation of the university. It was anticipated as a self-critical museum, as a space for encountering works and artists with a strong connection to Africa. Both shaped its profile in the first years, which included the artist’s residency programme, a way to invite extended families, friends and artists mainly from Nigeria and Papua New Guinea to Bayreuth to change the narratives, albeit carefully curated by the Beiers themselves (Ogundele 2003; Mutumba 2012; Greven 2021). They gave the museum for modern and contemporary art its programmatic name, Iwalewahaus.3
The Beiers’ collecting activities started in 1950, when Ulli and his first wife, Susanne Wenger,4 lived in Nigeria and worked with the inpatients of the Lantoro Mental Home in Abeokuta, whom they later declared to be artists (U. Beier 1959).5 This beginning informed their cultural activities and collecting
According to the Beiers, the “modern artist” in Nigeria and, later, in Papua New Guinea should work with new materials and be socially distanced from traditional materials, which often had and have a clear social use. Further, they should not follow academic or cultural rules but should be aware of them, and should relate to themselves and their intuition, mixing reality and fantasy (U. Beier 1960; G. Beier 1977; Okeke-Agulu 2013, 2015). All the Beiers’ activities in Ibadan, and especially in the workshops in Osogbo in the early 1960s, aimed to support emerging “modern artists”. The Mbari Clubs promoted the “modern artist” from an academic background in Ibadan, who, however, worked against the academic curriculum, and “outsider artists” in Osogbo, who were untainted by any academic influence. Two museums in Osogbo accompanied that idea: the Museum of Popular Art showed mostly “academically untrained” artists who fitted their definition of the “modern artist”, and the Museum of Antiquities displayed a nostalgic view of the past, creating a necessary distance from traditional forms, which were used as inspiration. The Beiers’ understanding of the “modern artist” influenced not only the selection of artists for their collaborations but also the body of works in their art collection, which they built up over the years.
Here we want to show how African art has developed through interchanges with – as well as in opposition to – European art forms and artists. More
U. BEIER 1982: 4than political manifestos the arts of Africa reveal the African fight for independence, the reevaluation of tradition, the conflict with European ideas and the search for identity.
Beier wanted to bring the periphery – from a Eurocentric point of view – into the centre (Riesz 2002). This was a positioning or even canonization counter to the established narratives of the West, which regarded and marketed traditional images in many ethnographic museums as the only authentic ones: “He had for long decried museums as mausoleums and, even though this one was not to be a museum of antiquities (of which there were far too many in Germany, all full of stolen object), he did not like the idea” (Ogundele 2003: 214).
One way to avoid this and to promote a supposedly permanent and equal exchange between different actors, in the sense of a contact zone (Clifford 1997), was to present a rich programme of events where people, ideas and concepts could meet. This ideal, developed from the perspective of the global North, had good intentions but was often impossible to execute: “The center [the Global North] constantly generalizes, constantly summarizes, constantly standardizes” (Boast 2011: 65). In the Iwalewahaus, a dialogue seemed possible at first. Artists went in and out and were always in close contact with the Beiers. The university combined artistic and academic practice and thus opened the door, at least theoretically, to an interdisciplinary and international discourse. At the same time, it seemed challenged by the presence of artists and researchers from the global South, who visited Bayreuth to (re)build their own narratives. In fact, it primarily reflected the Beiers’ very personal view of non-Western cultures (with a focus on Nigeria), therefore manifesting a hierarchization of knowledge (see Ramugondo in chapter 2, this volume, on the challenges to truly decolonize African studies).
Certainly, Ulli Beier’s self-dramatization as an outsider, as a connoisseur of the artists, did not allow for democratic dialogue.7 Even if one accepts the agency of the artists, who pursued their own agendas under the circumstances (an invitation to the Iwalewahaus, marketing their own works, the reunion of old friends), it was Ulli Beier who, in consultation with Georgina, decided who to invite, which seminars to offer and which exhibitions to show. “Thus, always, the contact zone is an asymmetric space where the periphery comes to win
Today the Iwalewahaus is a collection of modern and contemporary art from Africa and the diaspora. It includes a variety of artworks as well as popular culture and a small number of ethnographic objects, from African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, South Africa and Kenya, and from Australia, India and Papua New Guinea. The Iwalewahaus has gone through some major conceptual changes in the last three decades mainly due to its directors and its directional teams, but its foundation and therefore its main legitimacy lies in the Beiers’ collection of modern African art and Ulli Beier’s documentation (especially the photographs) of his and his wife’s surroundings. Unfortunately, the recognition of Georgina Beier as one of the founders of the Iwalewahaus took place only after her death in July 2021 and shows how persistent the patriarchy (of her husband) was with its inscribed narratives.
3 Owning Responsibility: Opening the Archive
When the photographic estate arrived in 2012, the boxes were unpacked in a small office at the Münzgasse, the former address of the Iwalewahaus, where the Beiers had lived during their stay in Bayreuth. Here, the digitization process started (unfortunately with few resources). Initially, the importance of the material and the possibilities it offered for (self-)reflection within the institution and for reinforcing or questioning established narratives were not recognized. Access was open to only a limited number of people, who started the digitization. There were many reactions from the predominantly German team, ranging from establishing a stronger bond with the Beiers and the potential for the institution to reflect on its history, to being overwhelmed by the huge amount of material and the goal to produce a comprehensive digital overview (Bounakoff and Greven 2015). The Beiers had sold the photographic estate in 2007 to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to be included into the CBCIU8 under the umbrella of UNESCO, a clear recognition and awareness
[…] we regard the estate as a site where diverse forms of knowledge are created and negotiated as well as a field where historical and contemporary agency emerges. As a resource, it does not only consist of the various physical documents but also of all the entangled agents and stories involved in its emergence. Hereby we refer to the concept of archives as networks, and every object in the photographic archive is thus understood as part of a cluster with potentially infinite possibilities of relations.
GREVEN ET AL. 2018: 149
Files in the Beiers’ photographic estate, showing envelopes with handwritten notes
© CBCIU & IWALEWAHAUS. PHOTO BY LENA NAUMANN
While working on the transformation of the estate from analogue to digital, the Iwalewahaus changed its address in 2014. The move to the new building and the long process of wrapping and packing each and every object of the art collection and the photographic estate in foil and cardboard raised the question of who may actually access the archive and therefore its connected knowledge (Figure 8.4).
Packed objects from the art collection at the Mash Up Festival in 2013
© KATHARINA GREVEN
At the same time, the project “Mashup the Archive”9 took place (2013–2015) at the Iwalewahaus, between the old and the new buildings and inside the unpacked and packed archive. It incorporated two mini-festivals, exhibitions and roundtables and explored issues of access to and narration of the archive, working with a series of artist’s residencies and exploring practice-driven research. Mashup was understood as a curatorial intervention, an unlearning experience, artistic praxis and emerging sensibility (Hopkins and Siegert 2017). It incorporated working with and on actual pieces of the art collection and the photographic estate, transforming them into 3D copies, wearing them as headpieces, collaging them into prints and videos and music performances. “Our idea was to recombine elements of the archive, to establish new connections between the objects, to disturb relationships between the objects and its index, to produce the archive anew” (Hopkins and Siegert 2017: 12).
The experience was transformative for the institution. It became evident that unpacking the collection and the overall archive, in a literal and metaphorical sense, removed many supposedly personal rights and attachment to the material (including those of the authors of this chapter). It became increasingly clear that collaborative and creative work on the material could reconfigure personal narratives and established views, since the archive and
Installation by Sam Hopkins and Simon Rittmeier, Mashup exhibition, 2015, Iwalewahaus
© SIEGRUN SALMANIAN
Délio Jasse was one of the few artists who worked exclusively with the photographic estate. He used photographs of Brazilian houses in Nigeria, mainly in Osogbo and Ibadan, and portraits of the Yoruba community, all taken by Ulli Beier. Jasse’s large print series, The Kings, 1–8 and The Face of the Gods II, 1–3 (2017) are the result of combining these portraits with the images of the Brazilian houses (Figure 8.6).
Installation by Délio Jasse, Mashup exhibition, 2015, Iwalewahaus
© KATHARINA GREVEN
This methodical and considered technique merged images with analogue and digital methods. The actual origin became secondary but was still respected and deconstructed an embedded truth. Even though the project faced some institutional and political challenges, such as accessibility of the
With the help of digitization, new archival objects were invented – for example, 3D prints and digital collages – and new histories were written as the original and social function disappeared or was not even important anymore. These practices (with)in the archive were decolonial statements by the artists. They ignored the epistemology that comes with the naming, defining and categorization of African cultural practices by European institutions and questioned colonial and Western structures of order and the “truthfulness” of archival material, which is just as subject to specific discourses. The digitization also pointed to a future way of dealing with archives, with images and with one’s own thinking. The digital object can create a free space “[…] that is no longer defined by categorization or ownership” (Al-Badri and Nelles 2018: 67), and thus becomes another place of knowledge production. The digital can be a decolonial practice, but one has to be careful because it is also linked to
With the critical intervention of Mashup, the change in attitude of the institution itself and the physical and digital presence of the material, several projects were launched and the photographic estate of the Beiers as well as the Iwalewahaus art collection increasingly became a resource for collective academic and artistic research from different disciplines and perspectives. The research project “African Art History and the Formation of a Modern Aesthetic: African Modernism in Institutional Art Collections Related to German Collecting Activities” examined three collections that host particularly rich examples of African Modernism, one of them at the Iwalewahaus, with a focus on the single artworks, the artists and the collector or patron him/herself. The researchers, who saw the collections as networks involving several agents, examined collecting strategies and the estate itself as an object, which also revealed “processes of selecting, collecting and representing the artworks” (Greven et al. 2018: 141).
To ensure a transcultural perspective and to reflect on and question the role of the researchers based in the global North, a series of exchanges and workshops brought together international scholars, museum professionals and art practitioners from Germany, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, the UK and the USA, who worked collaboratively across their respective areas of specialization. These included art, art history, art studies, curatorial work, museum and archive studies and anthropology. This combination allowed for the cross-pollination of concepts and research agendas in an international and transdisciplinary setting.
One of the most important projects for the team was the “Icon Lab”, developed as part of the “Revolution 3.0” project (2012–2018) at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies and designed to focus on and discuss images that had been selected by invited research fellows with the overarching theme of “revolution”, digitally projected onto a wall. Later, this method was introduced at the Iwalewahaus for PhD students and researchers, and although the material component was missing, an attempt was made to perceive images holistically: the room was dark, the images were enlarged and everyone was invited to share their thoughts. The individual and associative experiences of images in “Icon Lab” sessions often allowed established perceptions to be challenged and the obvious to be questioned. This enabled the researchers to perceive and experience images outside of their own encodings, preventing their mere reproduction. Though the digital seemed to miss out on the haptic experience, it provided an opportunity to share knowledge from researchers across the globe in a digital space, which needs to be further explored.
4 Shift of Access: the Return of the Photographic Estate
In November 2019, the estate left Iwalewahaus and made its way to the CBCIU in Osogbo. After several months, the material reached its destination. In February 2020, the photographic estate was ceremoniously and officially handed over by the staff of the Iwalewahaus to Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, and his team. Of importance was also the handover of the digital copies, carried on a hard disk and given to the responsible persons on site. The ceremony was framed by a symposium and an exhibition with the title “Existential Fantasies – The Monkey On Your Shoulder” (Figure 8.7), which had been shown at the Iwalewahaus in 2016. The exhibition gave an insight into the fragmented archive and into the Beiers’ excessive gathering and production of images not only as testimony to their artistic and political agenda but also to their personal search for a “new home”: a place of belonging and existence, where they could live out their fantasies and fulfil their desires (Greven 2021).
Installation, “Existential Phantasies – The Monkey on your Shoulder”, at the CBCIU, Osogbo, Nigeria, 2020
© LENA NAUMANN
The handover was preceded by a year of preparations, starting from the selection of the transport company to the planning of the presentations at the symposium. In spring 2019, Iwalewahaus and the CBCIU cooperated in the design and implementation of training for archivists and the proper handling of archival materials. Iwalewahaus invited two colleagues from the CBCIU – an archivist and an IT technology specialist – to participate in the training programme for six weeks, learning how to handle the material contained in the estate. The Iwalewahaus staff, mainly involved with collection custody and the digital database, led several sessions. First, the colleagues were introduced to preservation guidelines, restoration, the handling and packing of
Although the visit was advertised as training and thus carried the claim of teaching and learning, all participants were aware that cooperation would be successful only if all the employees involved met each other face to face. In the process, understandings of teachers and learners had to be overcome and negotiated. The exchange was always mutual, however, because it was clear,
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the proposed handling of the archival material was shaped and defined by a Western idea of preservation, maintenance and protection of the material, which the employees of the German institution had partly learned in their scientific training. Behind these ideas are hidden clear requirements and guidelines. The idea of absolute protection of the archive and its materials also contains aspects of privileged situations (which include constant, reliable climatic conditions, financial security and prospective planning possibilities). Neither Iwalewahaus as an institution, nor the CBCIU, fully met standardized requirements for the preservation of archival materials, which may have had several reasons: lack of space and of human, financial and technical resources. However, from the very beginning, the common goal, which was at the forefront of the cooperation, was the complete digitization of the estate to ensure its accessibility to international researchers. This refers above all to the digital space, which enormously, but not completely, increases the possibilities of accessibility in a transnational context, one big step that needs to be taken in the process of decolonizing Western institutions, with all its challenges when it comes to issues like copyright, technical mishaps and the curated decisions of the respective institutions not to show certain files online.
Up until now, it has not been possible to implement a jointly shared database for the estate, but the cooperation between the two institutions has borne fruit in other ways. Especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, collaboration was strengthened and expressed in the form of joint online events, such as book presentations, readings and smaller conferences. There was a lively exchange between the researchers of both institutions, on the specific research fields of the participants and on the overall institutional context. For example, papers that related to common research interests were shared for mutual proofreading, research was conducted in the collections of both institutions to gather information, and symposia were jointly hosted. In June 2021, for example, the Iwalewahaus and the CBCIU hosted an online symposium on the Nigerian artist Twins Seven Seven, an important artist and pioneer of modern art in
These collaborative events have not only strengthened the cooperation between the two institutions but contributed significantly to the development of a network from which the researchers of both institutions can benefit. These include field and dissertation research, publications on art-related topics linked to the content of the institutions, and the conception of exhibitions or advanced training programmes, bringing multiple voices together.
Nevertheless, these relationships are primarily linked to personal and friendly connections among the researchers and staff of the institutions. Through various research visits, the relationships were intensified. In addition, informal communication on social media, via WhatsApp, for example, enables a direct connection, which may be about inquiries or arrangements concerning the physical material of the estate. In exhibition productions of the Iwalewahaus, queries and information were repeatedly clarified in this way.
The advantage of short, direct communication is obvious, but still bears the risk that this contact could flatten out following the departure of employees in the institutions. Until now, a Memorandum of Understanding officially defines the contents of the cooperation between the Iwalewahaus and the CBCIU, but this is not manifested in the institutional structures. The cooperation remains tied to the interpersonal relationships among the employees on both sides and runs the risk of being interrupted by structural fluctuations. In addition, this approach to communication carries the risk that information will again be subject to exclusive access to the material, whether physical or digital. If there is no publicly accessible database, only those who know about the material and its content can thus make concrete inquiries about research content, a problem that not only Iwalewahaus as an institution has to actively address and push forward. Doing away with this exclusivity must be a top priority in the coming years of cooperation in order to fulfil the demands of shared responsibility, towards the material and especially towards an international community within academia and the public, in order to guarantee access to this unique material.
In the projects we have listed, in connection with the photographic estate, the art collection of the Iwalewahaus (which is based on the Beiers’ collecting activities) and the concept of the archive in general, the immanent institutionalized structures that pose challenges to scholarly and artistic explorations and their underlying possibilities and restrictions of accessibility are repeatedly evident. In the course of the processes, it has become clear that only a collaborative approach will make it possible to pose questions from different perspectives that examine the Beiers’ legacies critically. Accordingly, decolonizing is here understood as a practice to critically question given structures, to challenge inherent colonial, patriarchal and, in this case, European knowledge systems, their production and their connected material manifestation. It is also about constantly questioning one’s own role within the whole process – in the authors’ case, being white female researchers within a European institution, who benefit from privileged and structural positions. We understand a decolonizing approach as a collaborative, collective process that can open structures to different demands, perspectives and intentions and reflectively look at existing, sometimes unquestioned, structures and power imbalances.
The institution of the Iwalewahaus today is based on structures and ideas that were implemented by the Beiers. Ulli Beier’s documentation especially fills knowledge gaps within the structure of their art collection, in particular through the photographic estate and the countless publications that he published during his career. The estate has developed into a conglomerate of scholarly and artistic sources that are invaluable for many research projects and contain information especially on artistic developments in Nigeria after its independence in 1960. But one must always keep in mind that these manifestations are not neutral productions – the structures and ideologies of the Beiers are inherent. These are still discussed and partly implemented in the work and ideas of the Iwalewahaus – for example, in the residency programme and, in general, the close collaboration with artists and researchers from all over the world. By examining and questioning the Beiers’ legacy, the Iwalewahaus opens its doors (metaphorically and physically) to share knowledge and experiences, reflecting on its position in the global North and facilitating corrections along the way.
Revisiting the art collection of the Iwalewahaus, the photographic estate and the archive in general should not undermine the Beiers’ enormous contribution to “African Modernisms” and their cultural work in several countries. The Iwalewahaus today exists because of Ulli and Georgina Beier. But to constantly open up the discourse of questioning one’s own role, access to the
Regarding the physical archive of the Beiers’ photographic estate, it makes sense to locate it on the African continent with their owners and thus reverse the conditions for research, since, even in postcolonial times, African researchers still have to travel to the North to visit relevant archives and collections (most of them stolen or acquired under questionable circumstances). Reversing research conditions and power relations is a particularly important step in reconfiguring and decolonizing African studies, unlearning inherent power structures. The goal of a collaborative shared database, implemented by the CBCIU and the Iwalewahaus, will enable researchers from the global South and the global North to participate in collective knowledge production around the photographic estate.
This aim calls for stronger cooperation in these processes than practised at Iwalewahaus before, to enable a research situation where, in the best case, the digital document with its metadata can communicate a content that is very close to that of the physical original. In any case, the possibilities of neither the digital nor the physical material have been exhausted – the projects listed serve as examples but also as signposts for what can be possible. They are the first milestones in the process of dealing with the material, in digital and analogue form; they are foundation stones for the collaborations that in future will question the material even more critically and intensively in its historical, ideational and institutional contexts. These critiques will function as a breeding ground for creative artistic research and interventions and thus reinforce the far-reaching significance of the materials – regardless of the institutions that host them.
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Tröger, Adele. 2001. “A Short Biography of Georgina Beier”. In Georgina Beier, edited by Georgina Beier, 9–58. Nuremberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg.
Hereafter also referred to as “the estate”.
Their move to Africa seemed to be an escape from Western rationalism and the emerging cultural pessimism after World War II. Ulli’s loss of his home in 1933, the move to Tel Aviv and his resettlement in a camp as an enemy alien, arranged by the British, made him feel like an outsider. He took on this characteristic in Ibadan, on the one hand intentionally, when he did not want to identify with the lifestyle of his European colleagues, and on the other hand unintentionally, when he was not yet part of his new environment (Ogundele 2003). Georgina, especially in retrospect, never felt at home in England and went to Nigeria when she was 24 years old, ready to immerse herself in a new way of living and creating (Tröger 2001).
“Iwalewa” describes a Yoruba philosophical concept; it can be translated as “character is beauty”, where beauty means not only the purely physical appearance but the inner essence of every creature (Abiodun 2001, 2014; Lawal 2005): “Each creation, be it divinity, person or thing, possesses its own beauty as a necessary consequence of ìwà” (Abiodun 1983: 15). For Ulli, Iwalewa also stood for the complexity of non-European thinking.
Susanne Wenger (1915–2009) was an Austrian artist and co-founder of the Vienna Art Club. In 1950, together with Ulli Beier, she migrated to Nigeria, where she lived and worked until her death. Besides her artistic activities, Wenger was a high priestess within the Yoruba community. Her main artistic work, the restoration and construction of the shrines and sculptures in the Sacred Groves of Osogbo, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005. For in-depth research on Wenger and her artists’ collective, the New Sacred Art Movement, see Naumann (forthcoming).
For additional details regarding this material and its significance to the Iwalewahaus, see Böllinger (forthcoming). Böllinger focuses on disability, specifically exploring the creations of patients from the former Lantoro Mental Home in Abeokuta (now the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Aro Abeokuta).
Prof. Dr. Klaus Dieter Wolff (1935–2007), who was appointed the founding president of the University of Bayreuth in 1973, was one of the many people who supported Ulli Beier in his activities and is thus part of the founding history of the Iwalewahaus. It is quite interesting how many individuals took some kind of responsibility for the opening of this institution. See, among others, Riesz (2002).
Most exhibitions were accompanied by a publication produced in-house, which dealt more with the artist as a person than with the paintings themselves (Mutumba 2012). Here, personal contact was emphasized, and with it Ulli Beier’s unique selling point as the person who knew the artists so well and over so many years.
The Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding (CBCIU) was established in 2009 as a non-profit organization under the auspices of UNESCO and a hub for the preservation and promotion of intercultural dialogue and knowledge. Located in Osogbo, Nigeria, it offers a wide range of cultural events, such as conferences and educational programmes. The premises also house the Duro Ladipo Museum and archives of important Nigerian personalities involved in arts and culture (see Raheem 2019).
For detailed information see Hopkins and Siegert (2017).
Twins Seven Seven (born Omoba Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki, 1944–2011) is a well-known artist from Osogbo, partly because Ulli Beier published a lot about him and he was the prototype of the “modern artist” for the Beiers: “Seven Seven’s subjects are bizarre variations of Yoruba mythology and legend. They are interpreted by one who is no longer part of the culture, but who feels affected and sometimes threatened by the forces he has not learned to control” (U. Beier 1968: 114). For details on Twins Seven Seven’s life and work, see his autobiography (Seven Seven 1999).