Nigeria Content Online

A sculptor with Universal Studio of Arts,
Iganmu, Lagos, Patrick Agose, on Monday urged government to establish
more galleries in the country.

Mr. Agose told the News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that such institutions would promote and
encourage visual artists to take their works to the grassroots.

He urged policy makers to encourage
visual art by ensuring that every state government build galleries for
the collection and preservation of visual art works.

“We seem to pay so much attention to
other sectors of the economy to the detriment of areas such as visual
arts, which could generate revenue if given equal opportunity,” he said.

Mr. Agose, who is in charge of training
students on industrial attachment in the studio, said it would be a
disservice to an artist if he had no gallery to showcase his work.

“A gallery is a place where visual art
works, which are self-expression and intellectual properties, are
displayed and appreciated. It is at the galleries that such works
attract patronage and promote cultural exchange”, he said.

According to him, the few available
galleries are owned by private individuals who make a fortune from the
sale of visual art works.

“There is an urgent need for the
government to revisit the art sector because this is one avenue of
promoting our culture as well as a source of revenue for national
development.

“In other countries, the economy is
driven by arts, especially visual arts, as super models of automobiles
being produced and driven around the world are all products of the
visual artists,” Agose said.

He argued that visual arts appreciate
faster than shares, as an art work acquired currently at N70, 000 could
sell for as much as N500, 000 a few years later.

He noted that with the economic meltdown, many investors were currently investing in visual arts, rather than buying shares.