IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 22, Issue 2, Ver. I (Feb. 2017) PP 05-12 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2202010512 www.iosrjournals.org 5 | Page Novelty, historical Consciousness and the Spectacle of Interpretation Graves, Nelson P, Ph.D Department of Fine and Applied ArtsIgnatius Ajuru University of EducationRumuolumeni, Port Harcourt Abstract :- Reflecting on the seminal theme of Biography as a provisional means of accessing artistic substance, this study dares a reading of the metamorphosis of the artistry of the Dakorois artists Victor Ehikhamenor and Youseff Limoud. Utilising an empirical analysis, principal art works of these masters are examined. However, a hermeneutic investigation is engaged to aid an unraveling of the tooling mechanisms and the art making traditions that the artists deployed in their engagement with the natural synthesis cognomen in affecting the postmodernist paradigm. The works of Victor Ehikhamenor are discussed with a hermeneutic detailing that draws attention to the peculiarities of his artistry as emblematic in the growth and development of the ethos of the reincarnation of the past in postmodernist creativity enabled by the break from the Negritude ethos of the 1960s. However, a similar investigation revealed (I) that the artist Youseff Limoud in upholstering his artistic feats diligently sourced his devises on mimetic reinstatements of the canons of academe; but introduced consceptual schemes culled from the art forms of the Congolese artist, Body Isek Kingelez; and his Swiss/Egyptian art world, specifically inspirations from the Swiss duo, Peter Fischel and David Weiss,; while (II) Ehikhamenor toed the intellectually subtle repositioning of subject matter and picture-making devices, declaiming the prime Dakarois’ narratives but implanting a language of pictorial codes that deter the dearth of symbols. KEY WORDS: biography, provisional, metamorphosis, hermeneutic, paradigm shift, upholster, deceptive silence of stolen voices Specific Dak’Art 2016 images offer nuanced commentaries on the disentanglement from the Dakarois modernist ideology and the dissolution of its Negritude foundations in authenticity, universalistic and emotional expressive paradigm. With picture making tooling mechanisms and the story-telling traditions commonplace in Nigeria’s art world, and in re-calibrations of imageries, the diverse paintings of Victor Ehikhamenor declaim the Universalist dicta of Dakarois negritude, instead inflects the Revue Noire, and NKA inspired breakup of its 1960s paradigm. In fact, both journals , aiming at the widest possible international art world, its media and the “tourist gaze”, affected discourses of cultural identity on the African art world; the framing of the African body, urban sites and the dynamics between African aesthetics and the Western outlook (Achille Mbembe, 2015). However, Youseff Limoud’s works while in sync with the same spirit engage the versed, poetic and political language of the sculpture and cardboard architecture of the Congolese, Body Isek Kingelez; and the “fun cities” of Peter Fischli & David Weiss. Tapping the debacle and ruin of the Syrian crisis as metaphor for the character of today’s troubled times, Limoud adapts that sensitivity to steer a narr ative (Youseff Limoud, 2016). That discourse, writes Elsa Guily (2016), raises questions of socio-political circumstances while speaking about geological facts and passages of time in a chaotic world, in constant motion. Both artists, exemplars of the cultural turn and the fever of independence (Kwame Nkrumah, 1965), reflect ways of being African in singular expressions that make a distinction between Africa and Africans, between identity and nationality; between expression and politics (Simon Njami,2016). Becoming explicitly African, therefore, these artists make existential choices by grasping an assemblage of personal puzzles in the recalibration of personal expressions in language and imageries that inflect individual spiritual ties to ancestry and the actual world. It is, however, prudent to recognise that artistic vectors may not be sufficient scaffolding for the transcription of the world of sensations, usually in constant motion, and ever fleeting in their very essences. Images and representations put forth by these artists deserve attention and publicity for they reveal insightful, informative, intellectually stimulating and mentally fulfilling ways of reading contemporary art. Hence, these demand comprehensive narratives that discuss African artists’ works as the overarching accessory of change that ingrained the reality of the break from the erstwhile Dakarois canon. Symbolically it is important to reflect upon the notions of power that these images inflect (Michel Foucault, 1982). This paper, therefore, attempts (I) an empirical analysis of principal art works of Victor Ehikhamenor and Youseff Limoud to reveal the picture making mechanisms the artists have engaged, and (II) a deconstruction of the art works. engaging Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis (1910) as grounding.