ARTSPLIT AUCTIONS: Pieces from Abayomi Barber and Peju Alatise are up for Grabs

Its 2023 and ARTSPLIT is kicking the new year off with the auction of two artworks by two very well-known contemporary African artists. ARTSPLIT as a platform has onboarded some of Africa’s biggest names in the art scene and with these two auctions in question, it shows that 2023 is on track to see bigger names listing on the ARTSPLIT platform.

First, we have an Artwork by Abayomi Barber. This is not Abayomi’s first listing on the ARTSPLIT platform, as the artist already has five of his masterpieces already trading on the marketplace, which all collectively have a market capitalization of $80,000.

This is a unique opportunity for those who missed out on buying his works before, to acquire a new listing on the marketplace. Then we have a new list from a new artist, who is listing her masterpiece on the platform for the first time. Peju Alatise’s “See Me (I),” is also up for grabs on the ARTSPLIT marketplace. This is Peju’s first appearance and listing on ARTSPLIT, and it shows that the platform is poised to usher in new artist to grow their reach using the platform. Let’s dive into why you should own works from these Artists;

Abayomi Barber

Abayomi Barber is a surrealist painter, sculptor and teacher. He is regarded as one of the most influential contemporary artists in Nigeria. He has a strong reputation in the African art scene and has over the years thought and influenced a generation of Nigerian artists.

Barber first made center stage as he was recruited by The Yoruba Historical society, on the recommendation of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the then Premier of Western Nigeria. The society would eventually send him to the UK on a scholarship that seemed tailored to his restless spirit. The scholarship allowed him to get an art education in the UK through a process of cultural assimilation rather than a strict university education. He was also to create a large sculpture of Chief Awolowo for the Government of the Western region.

Barber returned to Nigeria in 1971 to teach art at the University of Lagos. Many of his students would follow his surrealist leaning. He then created an informal afro-surrealist school of art, known as the Abayomi Barber School of Art. The school is widely known, especially for debunking the idea of tagging art as “African,” because of the demeaning expectations by Europeans.

Barber’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from $1,463 to $10,847, depending on the size and medium of the artwork. Since 2008 the record price for this artist at auction is $10,847 for ALAGADA, sold at Arthouse Contemporary Limited in 2009. In MutualArt’s artist press archive, Abayomi Barber is featured in Arthouse Auction Consolidates Its Lead on African Market, a piece from South African Art Times in May 2015.

Peju Alatise

Peju Alatise is an interdisciplinary artist, architect and author of two novels. She started her professional career as an architect while running a private art studio. She is a leading voice in contemporary art on the African continent. Her practice is relentlessly experimental and labor-intensive. She produces works across a variety of mediums, techniques and materials, including but not limited to paintings, film, installations, sculptures. Her work is also pointedly political, often asking damning questions of, and provoking reflections about the times, the state of affairs at home and abroad. Alatise has explored exploitative labor practices in Nigeria, child rights with a focus on young girls, state-sanctioned violence against citizens, migration and the policies that ensure that many die at sea, seeking a better life. Alatise produces through the lens of spirituality, Yoruba cosmology, leaning into ancient storytelling traditions and crafting alternative social imageries

In 2020, Alatise was selected as an exhibiting artist for the Venice Architecture Biennale by curator, Hashim Sarkis. In 2018, she founded the Alter-Native Artists Initiative, an incubator artist collective that offers training programs, residencies to young, emerging artists. In 2017, she also was selected as one of the exhibiting artists at Nigeria’s debut pavilion at the Venice Art Biennial, where she showed, “Flying Girls,” an installation of eight life-size sculptures, of little girls amidst a flurry of birds and leaves, with wings on their backs, dreaming of a brighter future, exhibited with a sound installation of little girls playing. Also, in 2017, she was announced as the winner of the prestigious FNB Art Prize and her installation, “O is the New Cross,” a commentary on episodes of “jungle justice,” in Nigeria, was the central solo exhibition of the FNB Johannesburg Art Fair that year.

Alatise is a fellow at the National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Her work has been collected by the likes of the Smithsonian institute amongst others. Her debut novel “Orita Meta,” chronicling the interwoven path of three women, was nominated for the ANA/Flora Nwapa Prize for Women’s Writing in 2006. Her artworks are going for as high as €42,000.

Conclusion

The auctions for these two pieces end on the 16th of January 2023. They can be purchased on the ARTSPLIT application. Start the new year right with sound art investments.

ARTSPLIT is an art trading technology company driven by one common goal; enhancing the investment status of African art by allowing users to co-own rare and valuable artworks on a platform that guarantees price discovery and market liquidity. ​

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