Vigilant Things: On Thieves, Yoruba Anti-Aesthetics, and The Strange Fates of Ordinary Objects in Nigeria

Acknowledgments

xiii Acknowledgments I hear that first-time authors are traditionally given absolution, or at least a special dispensation, for writing lengthy acknowledgments. Well, then, here goes. Vigilant Things would not have happened without the generous support of many institutions and individuals in the United States and Nigeria, and one or two in England as well. To them, I am grateful in more ways than I can count—and I can count quite high. Before anything, family. And first among family, the names of those who have moved on, but who have been with me at every turn along the way. Mo júbà àwọn Eégún mi: Ausfresser, Cohen, Doria, Gruber, Ignolia, Judenfreund, Krashinsky, Lisdofsky, Paterno, Skulnick, Turteltaub . . . To Melissa Ifátoyin Armstrong Doris, my wife, and to Marcella Armstrong Doris, our daughter: Thank you for your strength, your smarts, your love, your beauty, your music, all the laughs, and most of the smells. And thanks too for reminding me that there are limits to how far one can push one’s obsession without missing out on other, more important things. Like life, for example. To my parents, Arlene and Martin Doris—without you, nothing; Martha and Thomas Armstrong, for your generosity and excellence of spirit; Donna and Robert, Zachary, Samuel and Shayna DelVecchio—where even to begin; and Adam W. Miller and Glenn Adamson, as ever and always my brothers. Words are insufficient to express my gratitude, respect, and affection for my teacher, Robert Farris Thompson, the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University. A gesture, then: Mo dòbál� fún Ẹ, bàbá mi �w�n, bàbá mi dáadáa. xiv Acknowledgments Not everyone gets to have Raymond A. Silverman as a mentor, a colleague, and a friend. But I do. I’m so grateful for that, you wouldn’t believe. Without the assistance of Ṣọlá George Ajíbádé—travelling companion, translator, and friend—the following pages would be blank. Mo dúpé ti A pàdé, àbúrò mi. When I first met Diane Mark-Walker, she seemed every inch the wispy, bookish editor. Turns out she was a Wolf, and my guardian angel. With bodhisattva-like calm, she has guided this manuscript, its author, and, indeed, herself through all sorts of kicking, screaming transitions. Bless you, Diane. Producing a book from inception to publication requires heaps of cash, most of which—in the case of academic books, at least—will never be seen again as cash. Institutional support, then, comes as both a gift and a show of faith, with returns both uncertain and abstract. For the very real support I received for the writing and publication of this book, I am deeply in abstract debt to several venerable institutions. Likewise, I am grateful to the directors, boards, deans, curators, fellows, staff, and several guards at those institutions for providing the psychic and physical space in which I could struggle with issues that often brought me far from what might reasonably be recognized as art history: The U.S. Department of State and the Institute of International Education supported my research in Nigeria (March 1998 to March 1999) with a Fulbright Award, which they graciously allowed me to extend. Yale University’s Council for International and Area Studies, Department of African Studies, and Department of the History of Art sponsored my first journeys to Nigeria in 1995 and 1996. Between them, they opened doors to funding from the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad, the U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (flas), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Robert J. Lehman Fund, and then some. And in 2002 Yale also gave me a Ph.D, which has been quite useful. The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., provided a two-year Ittleson Fellowship (1999–2001), which softened the blow of returning to the U.S. from Nigeria. It also allowed me to write and very nearly complete an “earlier iteration of this book”—a term that publishers seem to prefer to “Ph.D dissertation,” though, let’s face it, the secret’s out. A Smithsonian Institution Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the National Museum of African Art (2002–3) gave me a moment to catch my breath, find a job, Acknowledgments xv head back to Nigeria, and set about...