“Don’t wait until conditions are flawless” — Dr Osa, Curator, USA Art Exhibition
By Chris Onuoha
Tourists Club International, TCI, in partnership with Vanguard Newspapers, launched the inaugural Uncle Sam Art Exhibition, the USA Art Exhibition, titled “The Beginning”. It was named after its Grand Patron, Uncle Sam Amuka, the publisher of Vanguard Newspapers. The exhibition, rated as the best art event of 2025 in terms of conceptual underpinning, opened Tuesday, December 16, 2025 at Alexis Galleries (282 Akin Olugbade Street, off Idowu Martins, Victoria Island, Lagos) and ended Saturday, December 20, 2025. As it was pitched, “Christmas came early at Alexis Galleries with the Uncle Sam Art Exhibition.” The exhibition was conceived as an international art exhibition, and that was what emerged: A vibrant showcase of Nigerian and United States-based artists that participated in the exhibition. TCI Magazine had a chat with the Curator of the exhibition, the man who conceived the idea from nothing and made it into something, Dr. Osa Mbonu-Amadi, Arts Editor and Deputy Editorial Board Chairman of Vanguard. Below are excerpts from his revelations on the making of the USA Exhibition:
Uncle Sam Amuka, a trailblazing journalist and passionate art collector, revolutionised Nigerian media by championing cartoons and cartoonists. According to Emeritus Professor Dele Jegede, the erudite US-based Art historian and painter who also participated in the exhibition, Uncle Sam pioneered the bringing of cartoons and cartoonists into the Nigerian newspapers. Prof. Dele Jegede also wrote the Preface of the catalogue of USA Exhibition.
This art exhibition transcended aesthetics, it told a story of perseverance from imperfection to excellence. The most innovative idea at the exhibition was the juxtaposition of Vanguard’s first-ever published edition with copy of the day’s opening date. “That idea – the idea of even showing the first published copy of Vanguard – was almost shot down by someone in the exhibition planning Committee, but I vigorously resisted it. You saw how the First Published Copy of Vanguard Newspaper which Arise TV’s Rufai Oseni called “Vanguard Red Book”, became the toast of the exhibition, to the extent that it almost eclipsed all other artworks brought to the exhibition,” the Curator said.
He continues: “As soon as the idea of showcasing the First Published Copy of Vanguard Newspaper, and of juxtapositing it with the day’s copy, occurred to me, I knew I had hit on something that had not been done before in art exhibitions. I also decided that I was going to allow viewers flip through those ancient pages of Vanguard Newspaper published 41 years ago, on June 3, 1984. Normally, people are not allowed to touch artworks and archival materials at exhibitions, but as the Curator, I deliberately broke that rule and tradition. That’s why you saw those dignitaries flipping through the pages of the only surviving original copy of what has now become the “Vanguard Red Book”.
The theme of the exhibition, “The Beginning” has two interpretations: One, the beginning of what we know today as Vanguard Newspaper and the corresponding message from the Curator: If you wait for all the conditions to be perfect, you will never begin. If Uncle Sam had waited for all the conditions to be perfect, we wouldn’t have had the Vanguard we have today.
Second, “The Beginning” is also a metaphor for the beginning of what we now know as the “USA Exhibition”, the Uncle Sam Art Exhibition. “It was actually God that put that acronym into my head during one of the brainstorming sessions we had at TCI meeting,” Dr. Osa reveals. “It came to me as Uncle Sam Amuka Art Exhibition, USA Art Exhibition. After fighting to shoot it down on account of it making the exhibition to be too much about him, and I resisting him, Uncle Sam edited it to “Uncle Sam Art Exhibition”, removing Amuka from it. Luckily for us, ‘Uncle Sam Art Exhibition’ still corresponded to USA Exhibition. But we had to reprint many things we had already printed which bore the name, “Amuka”.
So, “The Beginning” as a metaphor for the beginning of USA Exhibition mirrors the Titanic challenges, the epic struggles, and ‘intemperate weather conditions’ we had to brace and surmount to get to where we are today. Still, the battle is not yet over. But let’s reserve all that story for another day and for the appropriate time.
“So, the key message and take-home from the just concluded inaugural edition of Uncle Sam Art Exhibition is this: “Don’t wait until conditions are flawless. Begin your journey, for art, like life, is not a final destination but an eternal voyage.”
Question has been asked about how many artworks that were sold at the USA Exhibition. Those who think only in terms of naira and dollars in art and art exhibitions miss the point.
“Permit me to quote copiously from a letter of appreciation I wrote to an anonymous participant in the exhibition whom I’ve come to love and respect so much,” the Curator said:
“The highly successful inaugural exhibition set the media and art community abuzz since it opened on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, and sadly, closed on Saturday, December 20, 2025. The good news, however, is that it will return richer and more glamourous next year and the subsequent years, if God wants it to continue.
“For an artwork to be bought in an exhibition is good, but the primary function of an artwork is to emanate its beauty and tell its story. It is when artworks are showcased to the public in an exhibition that they best fulfil their primary purpose of existence.
“An artwork that doesn’t come out to an exhibition is like a beautiful woman permanently locked inside a room. But so long as a beautiful maiden continues to appear in public, one day a suitor will ask for her hands in marriage.
“The artworks that came to the USA Exhibition have been vigorously publicised and exposed to members of the public, art lovers and art collectors. Art collectors and other prospective buyers have our contacts. The unsold artworks might find a buyer before our next exhibition. If they don’t, we would be glad to show them again when the USA Exhibition returns.
“Art preserves memory, culture, identity, and heritage across generations while nurturing future masters like Leonardo da Vinci and Pablo Picasso.”
The curated displays at the USA Exhibition unfolded in segments: rare artifacts tied to Uncle Sam, including his first and latest Vanguard editions, evocative photographs, and cherished pieces from his collection published in the exhibition catalogue. It progressed to works by artists who collaborated with him in the media, culminating in contemporary creations selected and vetted by a group of Arts journalists across the media invited by the Curator.
To put the record straight, TCI pioneered the treatment of printed newspapers as artworks. This is significant, especially as hard copies of newspapers wane in influence amid digital shifts. It’s on record that the slogan, “We Sell Artworks, Not Newspapers”, was blazed by TCI in 2009.
When a copy of newspaper becomes time-tarnished, it turns into a relic, blending archival value with artistic merit, ensuring newspapers endure as treasures. This treatment of newspapers as artworks and showcasing of them as priceless archival materials is one of the greatest innovations that has been made in art and the newspaper industry. “I believe the idea will become as significant as the Gutenberg printing press, the mid-15th-century invention by Johannes Gutenberg, which revolutionised books and newspaper production,” The Curator of USA Exhibition, Dr. Osa Mbonu-Amadi, said.
