Curator Oyinkansola Dada agrees, describing how the hype around Afrobeats spread to the visual arts. “With Lagos Fashion Week, Art Week, and Design Week, a lot of people are visiting now to take in everything that’s going on. But this movement has been years in the making.” Alongside other creative highlights like the Lagos International Theatre Festival, these events form a seminal moment for Lagos’ cultural calendar. The opportunity to experience cross-creative activity and structured access to African talent is an increasingly powerful draw for visitors.
A Steady Stream of Newcomers
I speak with Oyinkansola as she’s preparing for the launch of her own gallery space in Ikoyi, which took place last month. “We’ll be working with emerging and established artists, exploring themes from identity and sexuality to repatriation,” she tells me. “So it definitely won’t be static.” Brand new openings like these demonstrate the confidence younger generations of international Nigerians have in Lagos as a global art center, now that its art market has crystallized. “It’s heartwarming to see that there are many more galleries than when I started,” Aderenle tells me. “They each bring something different, and African artists deserve a multi-faceted platform.”
I see this variety across the city’s galleries. Most newcomers are independently-run, intimate spaces, though there are roomier venues too, like the Nike Art Gallery, which sprawls across multiple storeys. The visual styles and languages are also expanding beyond paint and clay. At Rele, I see collage portraits made from Ankara (local colorful wax print) by Marcellia Akpojotor, and expressive metalwork charting the highs and lows of a romantic relationship by Ugo Ahiakwo.
There’s clear enthusiasm for emerging artists, but a reverence for pioneers too. At Kó, another gallery establishing Ikoyi as one of Lagos’ art quarters, I attend the opening of a show commemorating the visionary Osogbo Art School (a 1960s movement drawing on Yorùbá mythology that helped define modern Nigerian art). I’m greeted by the thunderous chorus of Yorùbá drummers dressed in Àdìrẹ (Yorùbá dyed textiles) before heading upstairs to join a cross-border crowd in admiring the works. The effervescent atmosphere speaks to the lively cultural exchange fostered by Lagos’ art institutions. Kó was founded in 2020 by Kavita Chellaram, following on from her pioneering auction house Arthouse Contemporary. “We needed to showcase African modernism as it truly is,” she tells me. Kavita explains how auctions were an important precursor in establishing Lagos as a key conductor for the global African art market, leading to more local galleries, before milestones like the first Nigerian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017, culminating in the movement we have now. “I hear there are around 45 galleries in Lagos now—it’s grown exponentially.”
Making an International Impact
With the growth of institutions in Lagos harnessing and showcasing African creativity, more international industry players are drawn to the city, identifying it as a destination to discover and trade in work by African and diasporic artists. “Since we built a platform to go out and show Nigerian art to the world, we’ve had so much interest from art institutions all over, from Britain to the US,” Kavita tells me. Lagos-founded art institutions also now have stronger representation abroad, often with a presence in one or two other important art cities.
