In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu focuses on the calligraphic figuration of Ibrahim El Salahi (b. 1930), the country’s leading modernist and onetime political prisoner.
Slade Lecture Series 2023: Prison Drawing: Ibrahim El Salahi in Al Nimeiry’s Sudan, 1970s
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Two years after its political independence from Egypt and Britain in 1956, Sudan witnessed the first of many military coups that have been a recurring feature of the country’s postcolonial history. In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu focuses on the calligraphic figuration of Ibrahim El Salahi (b. 1930), the country’s leading modernist and onetime political prisoner. Okeke-Agulu shows how the sophisticated formalism of Salahi’s drawings constituted a meditative critique of General Jaafar Al Nimeiry’s dictatorship (1969-1985), which survived multiple coups d’état, by stoking religious and ethnic crises, and systematic suppression of all political opposition.
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The Slade Lectures, which were founded in pursuance of the will of Felix Slade in 1869, focused on art historical topics, as they continue to do so today. John Ruskin delivered his first lecture as the Slade Professor of Fine Art in 1870. The Slade Professorship in conjunction with the University's museums, libraries and college collections helped to foster a wider interest in the history of art. Find out more about past Slade Lectures on the History of Art Department homepage:...