Issa Nyaphaga: “Barackuda: Post Election Cartoon Show”

By Lida Geh

(Soft piece on a unique personality in the arts & non-profit sector –  Cameroonian artist-performance artist-activist Issa Nyaphaga)

This entertaining yet thoughtful show just closed in Artbreak Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – a showcase for Cameroonian artist Issa Nyaphaga & his seemingly paradoxical twin obsessions – politics & humour – a feat he manages to carry off with panache.

Nyaphaga’s art explodes off the canvas with exuberance, expressed in a visually striking though perhaps at times stylistically incoherent manner. But borrowing from elements of many different types of art, both high & low (protest/activist art, graffiti art, street art, graphic or comics art & political cartoons), he mashes it all up into something palatable, fun & judging from the strong turn-out, resonant to the urban, youth-oriented, visually literate audience of Williamsburg, aka hipster hide-out of Brooklyn.

See for example his hilarious hand-signals piece “Signs in the Urban World”, which light-heartedly lends anthropological legitimacy to invented ghetto-style hand gestures from all over the world (US, Africa, France): what do you think is the sign for “Gangsta playboy”, or “Cuckolded man”, or “Don’t leave alone, honey!” or “Not today I have my period” or “Where to buy marijuana?”! – It’s an infinitely useful, uniquely hip-hop approach to internationalism!

Done (impossibly) within a quick, 3 month period (which may explain an element of haste to the works), it was the time during which Nyaphaga did a residency in the Harlem Studio Fellowship – away from his usual homes in North Carolina, Paris & Cameroon. In that short time, this astoundingly prolific artist covered all the walls of Artbreak Gallery (the Brooklyn “wing” of the Carlton Arms Hotel – the funkiest hotel in Manhattan as each of their hotel rooms doubles as a sort of metamorphosing art gallery).

“Barackuda” contains witty, engaging murals & paintings – more often than not using cartoon images to humorously address (but without belittling) such complex, potentially incendiary subject-matter as Islamic terrorism, the Afghanistan-Iraq war, the bias of world order governments & Barack Obama’s seemingly Herculean tasks ahead.

Nyaphaga starts by addressing socio-anthropological matters or snippets of life in the “noughts” decade (such as iPod- & cellphone-addicted people going to AA meetings) & goes on to treat with a funny but slightly suspect humor the transition from Bush to Obama administration: in “Hey W”, Obama & Michelle exhort Bush JR to vacate the White House, if necessary with dynamite!

Another large format canvas, “In The Mind of Barack Obama”, depicts all the trials that Obama surpassed in order to become the presidential candidate: the caucuses, the fight against Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, the nomination & finally Sarah Palin.

The largest work & centerpiece (occupying pride of place at the gallery entrance) was “Guernika Today” modelled on Picasso’s seminal condemnation of war, painted during the Spanish Civil War. Nyaphaga’s Guernika is arresting in black & white, charcoal & paint on a 17 foot wide by 12 foot tall canvas. It addresses the last 8 years in political history – with some mischievous turns suggesting an impish outlook:

Bin Laden is appreciating Condoleeza Rice’s derriere (perhaps by satellite TV) from his home in the Afghan hills, the Iraq war is omnipresent, you see the collapse of the Taliban regime, Saddam Hussein hung (“victim of axis of evil” – a role reversal), Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist watching all these events with the emblematic shoes (which he threw against Bush Jr); Rumsfeld & Cheney are the bull or symbol of war-aggressors, the Madoff scandal, the economic crisis, Barack Obama (with a Hitler moustache) flashes a “V” sign, & an African tribal mask hung on the lintel of the White House!

Subversiveness is blatant in this piece, so I ask Nyaphaga what people in Cameroon thought about September 11 expecting perhaps some tactfully watered-down Islamic apologism, but he said:

“We think it was very bad, we were quite shocked because in my culture, growing up as a kid, people teach me that life is a most important thing, we don’t think (what the terrorists did on Sept 11) helps anyone. In my country, people are very desperate, just to eat & survive, so to kill people like that is senseless.”

A little about his background:

Nyaphaga’s father was an animist before he converted to Islam (Issa is the Quranic form of Jesus). Nyaphaga Sr. was a calligrapher, botanist & herbal healer; Issa turned away from his stern rule when only 14, so he could go to a larger town & study under a painter who became his mentor. His father had forbidden him to draw cartoons or any human or animal figures because depicting any real-life form is forbidden in Islam (according to Islam, Allah created these forms & noone can rival Allah).

When little, Issa also went to a Catholic primary school every morning. He now professes to be more Buddhist than anything else, but he loves to say that he has four religions (animism, Islam, Catholicism & Buddhism).

This pantheistic approach is reflected in his work as many paintings portray Obama as: Jesus on a cross, Che Guevara, the Dalai Lama, Bob Marley, a basketball star, even the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen. Clearly meant as commentary on how society is placing Obama on a pedestal, perhaps dangerously high.

Additionally the image of Obama as all these people of different ethnic backgrounds emphasizes the US President’s multiculturalism, surely one of his greatest political assets in this time.

Other poster-like paintings with tribal design of Gandhi, Martin Luther King & Malcolm X made another parallel that the more ethnically diverse parts of the US & probably some of the world at large, see Obama as some emerging civil-rights icon & a great African-American leader.

The US starts to be idealized too – in another piece Obama is introduced as “father from Kenya, mother from Kansas, the story that can only happen in the USA”. When I ask him what he thought the difference was between the European & American mentality, he answered:

“In two ways there are differences: in one, the size of the coffee, & two, the way you consume it. In America the coffee is big, not like in France where it’s tiny. Here, when you buy the coffee you take it with you in a paper cup, so you can continue to work or do whatever. In France they have to sit down with a newspaper & be served at a table by a garcon (waiter) with a glass of water: the French, they would never drink coffee walking, or in a paper cup!”

This analogy, I reply, is a great way of saying that Europe can be bound too much by tradition while Americans are workaholics.

Nyaphaga claims when Obama apparently “came out of nowhere” on the world stage, he was instantly transfixed by the Democratic nominee’s story & started to have a strong hunch about him & his trajectorial career, hence his interest in Obama.

“Barack Obama is nothing & he is everything. He is something to everyone, for example someone votes for him because he’s young like Obama, another person votes for him because he’s successful like Obama, another likes basketball like Obama, another because he’s black like Obama, another because he’s white like Obama, & so on… so you see, everyone is trying to hold him (as one of their own), he is a universal logo!”

How about the title of his show, “Barackuda”, I ask. Is it because he’s skinny & effective, ie. has “teeth”? He laughs & nods, adding that Obama’s character is politically very strong, he “eats all the other fish”. He continues,

“I think he’s a very smart person (with) a higher strategy that goes beyond politics, look at how he beat Clinton & Palin, & remember Jeremiah Wright? Everyone thought he was finished! But he has something more than politics, you can see it in his body, (he’s) a confident guy who knows himself well. In French there’s a saying, je suis bien dans mes botes, “I am good in my skin (or literally boots).”

I ask him if maybe he envies Obama?

“Oh no not at all! It’s the last thing I would like to be – the end of the list!”

“I can never be a politician because I don’t want anyone to hate me! That’s why I’m just an artist, (as an artist, I) can say anything & noone cares. That’s why my symbol in my paintings is a frog.” (If you look at many of his paintings, there’s a frog with speech balloons, passing commentary on what’s going on in the painting.)

“My frog is easily ignored & doesn’t influence anyone, he’s in a position of weakness, that’s what I say about artists, we are saying the truth but noone listens, I am the joker!”

On one hand you could say Barackuda was a low-brow but fun affair – attracting a gaggle of artsy teenage girls who gravitated toward him as to a father figure. Yet on the other hand there is a certain verve in his work that is more than meets the average art-reviewer’s eye.

Nyaphaga is an internationally known, mostly self-taught fine artist, portraitist & cartoonist, an acclaimed performance artist, as well as a political refugee & activist who has been given asylum & permanent residence by France (& recently the US) because he had been repeatedly imprisoned & tortured for his opposition to the Paul Biya-headed government in Cameroon during the mid- to late-90s.

He opposed the government through a unique “newspaper” which he had helped found with another cartoonist with the pen name of Popoli. The paper was called “Le Messager Popoli” (“the voice of the people”) & was political, weekly (now bi-weekly) commentary told completely in cartoons! The reason for the use of this unusual medium was because even though Cameroon has a population of 20 million, over 60% of its people are semi-illiterate.

This unusual magazine commented on life in Cameroon, along with the goings-on of the government told in a bodacious Cameroonian humour, stirring up sympathy & a newfound taste for politics among the populace. It became something of a national phenomenon, its audience growing to 5 million within 4 years.

This led to censorship & curtailment of the paper’s power by the government which obligated the paper to send in copies to the Justice Ministry & the Administration for review before publication. Before the general elections in 1996 however Nyaphaga & Popoli were determined not to send in review copies – since they went by their noms de plume or pen-names, their identities were disguised in print, so they thought they could escape detection. However someone revealed Issa’s identity & as a result he was imprisoned & tortured (for the names of his colleagues at the paper) over a period of 10 months.

Ironically during his sentence, he became so popular with the prison director & his wardens, that they allowed him to hold an exhibition inside the New Bell Prison.

Yet when he was released, courageously or recklessly, he described his ordeal in Le Messager Populi. For the government, this was the last straw, his life was now really in danger. Having been warned ahead of time, Issa fled the country with the aid of an uncle working in immigration. Fleeing to France, he immediately filed for political asylum which allowed him to remain there so long as he did not return to his homeland, thus he was exiled from his motherland for almost 12 years.

Working with Parisian art photographer, Jacqueline Hyde (former assistant to Man Ray), Issa gained valuable connections in the art world, eventually doing illustrations for books, co-authoring “Political Asylum in France”, a book criticizing French treatment of migrants, & also teaching – at universities, social institutes as well as leading therapeutic workshops for at-risk children & teens. A high profile political refugee now, he was chosen to give a keynote speech at the French National Assembly (or congress) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions.

He also founded or co-founded no less than four successful not-for-profit organizations which are still in existence: JAAFE (African Journalists in Exile) which defends and protects journalists in danger, Sphere Sud by which he contributes to the development of rural areas in Cameroon, HITIP (Hope International for Tikar People) which contributes to the development of rural areas in Cameroon as well as looking after his own tribal people, especially in cultural exchange, health and education sectors, & lastly Free Dimensional, an international network that advances social justice by hosting activists in art spaces & using cultural resources to strengthen their work.

As artist though, his deftness & lightness of touch in the face of our recent modern tragedies, is an essential in art: Nyaphaga as the joker induces our curiosity, arouses our laughter & thus enables much-needed new perspective in politics & society.

Sources:
http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?lang=en&id=72
French Wikipedia