Van Gogh’s five Sunflowers united for first time, as Facebook breaks gallery stalemate
(2014) (international version of Fetters and Choices) (2014) .
Her writings address social and economic injustices in the Nigerian context. She was short-listed in 2004 for the NLNG prize for Literature, and was winner of the 2014 Nigerian Author’s Chevron Prize for Environment.
Nwoye has served as the Vice President of the Association of Nigerian Authors.
FLadi Opaluwa, on her part, is a creative writer with background in journalism. Her fiction has appeared most recently in Electric Literature and Litro Magazine, and has a story forthcoming in Overland Journal.
She was shortlisted for the Morland Writing Scholarship (fiction) in 2015, and is a 2017 MacDowell Fellow. She is based or art lovers, it would be something of a holy grail: five of Van Gogh’s Sunflower paintings exhibited together, for the first time.
In more than a century, no curator has managed to assemble them in the same room, with the sometimes fragile works scattered around the world and too important for galleries to lend.
To break that stalemate, and in acknowledgment that the paintings will likely never be united in real life, the National Gallery has announced the next best thing: a “virtual exhibition” on Facebook Live.
The gallery’s deputy director said it would likely be the only opportunity for people to see the paintings together in their lifetime, adding it was “absolutely unbeatably exciting”.
The five paintings are currently hanging in galleries across three continents, from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Neue Pinakothek in Munich and the Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art, Tokyo.
They will be exhibited on Facebook in live relay, with expert curators giving a 15 minute tour of each work before handing over to the next gallery.
Martin Bailey, Van Gogh expert, said the paintings had never been seen together since they left the artist’s family.
Van Gogh had been unable to sell any of the Sunflowers during his lifetime, with the paintings passing to his brother Theo after his in Abuja, where she is currently working on her debut novel.
She will read from one of her short stories and give a talk on her recent writing residency experience at MacDowell.
The evening’s entertainment will be provided by Seth Ogahi who plays rhythm guitar and percussion. A graduate of English Literature death and then to Theo’s wife Jo Bonger.
She in turn sold off four of the paintings from 1891 to 1924, keeping one, which is now at the Van Gogh Museum, in the family.
Bailey, author of The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece [Frances Lincoln], said: “The five Sunflowers in the Facebook presentation have never been exhibited together - and they never will. “There are two reasons. “First, they are fragile works, and for conservation reasons they either cannot travel at all or are only allowed to in very exceptional circumstances.
“Secondly, they are probably the most popular paintings in all the galleries that own from Benue State University, he started his music career fully in 2008 and by 2009 was the writer and performer of the theme song for the year’s National Youth Summit that gathered over 120, 000 people at Eagle Square, Abuja Nigeria.
In 2010 at Arise Nigeria Music and Talent Competition Season 2 where he won first prize, judges like TeeMac Iseli and Kelly Adams boldly projected that Seth has the potential to become one of the greatest musician of his time. Mrs Olando Owo, another judge made a startling remark that Seth reminds them, so the owning institutions are very reluctant to allow them to leave.”
Susan Foister, deputy director of the National Gallery, said: “To get them all together physically would be pretty challenging and might take quite a long time.
“The fact that you can actually bring them together digitally was a solution that really appealed to us, particularly just now with all the experimenting we’ve started to do with Facebook and virtual reality.
“In terms of exhibition organising, works by Van Gogh are always really difficult to obtain because they mean an awful lot to the visitors of a museum who often come thousands of miles to see them.
“That’s often the case with great works of art, particularly with works by Van Gogh, and Sunflowers above all.”
Asked whether the Facebook live is likely to be the only opportunity for members of the public to see all five works together in their her of legends such as Bob Marley and John Lennon with deep lyrics and hypnotic performance. And he truly left the audience at the theater of Lagos Television, Agidingbi with rich lyrics and lively performance that would always remain with them.
Ogahi has since been writing and performing, including appearances with international band,HOM COLORS,Pietro Tilli, Philipo as well as being engaged regularly by foreign missions in Nigeria.
He has two official singles to his credit: One Voice and Stand Up for Life. His driving force is the belief that music should mirror society and be a tool for positive transformation and development.
The Guest Writer Session, which also features a raffle-draw for books, runs from 4-7pm and is open to the public, is held at Nanet Suites, CBD, Abuja. lifetimes, she added: “Absolutely. This is why it’s such a tremendous event.”
The project, coordinated by the National Gallery, was inspired after a blockbuster exhibition in 2014 in which the Van Gogh Museum loaned its Sunflowers.
Realising the public appetite, the National Gallery launched a project to unite their Sunflower co-owners around the world. In addition to the live broadcast, it will also be hosting a virtual reality version of the gallery, in which digital visitors can see the five paintings hanging together in one room.
Willem van Gogh, the great-grandson of Theo, is narrating.
He said: “Rather like the ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Night Watch’, Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ are works of art that continue to intrigue and inspire, perhaps into eternity.
“Indeed, each generation forges a fresh, highly personal bind with them. The virtual gallery and live stream now provide a novel way for art lovers, young and old, to admire these magnificent masterpieces, from all corners of the globe. I think this is fantastic.”
The paintings were created in 1888/9 in Arles, in the South of France. Two other known versions of the Sunflowers will be missing from the show: one which was destroyed by fire in 1945, and another in a private collection which has not been exhibited since 1948.