ART X Lagos 2021: West Africa's Premier Art Fair Returns

ABOUDIA | ALEXIS PESKINE | ARABA OPOKU | BARRY YUSUFU | BUNMI AGUSTO DIMITRI FAGBOHOUN | DOMINIQUE ZINKPE | J.D. 'OKHAI OJEIKERE JOANA CHOUMALI | LULAMA WOLF | MOUS LAMRABAT | OWANTO | SOLY CISSÉ UCHE OKEKE |WOSENE WORKE KOSROF | ZANELI MUHOLI & MORE

Wednesday 22 September: ART X Lagos will return to The Federal Palace in Victoria Island, Lagos this November with a physical/digital hybrid event celebrating artistic excellence from Africa and its Diaspora across a range of media including painting, photography, sculpture, and more.

For its sixth edition – and its largest fair to-date – ART X Lagos will bring together 30 leading international galleries from 15 countries around the world to present work both online and in-person: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Martinique, Morocco, Nigeria, Sénégal, South Africa, Spain, Uganda, United Kingdom, and USA. Together, they will showcase 110 artists from over 30 countries, from Angola to Zimbabwe, Morocco to Martinique, and Egypt to South Africa. Of the 30 exhibitors, 15 join ART X Lagos for the first time.

Those visiting Lagos in person will be able to attend the fair from 4-7 November at The Federal Palace while international audiences will be able to view works online from 4-21 November on ARTXLAGOS.COM and Artsy.

Since its debut in 2016, ART X Lagos has become known for its ambitious program, which includes ART X Talks - a lively panel discussion series curated by Aude Mgba; ART X Live! - a one-of-a-kind showcase featuring collaborations between some of the fastest-rising artists and musicians on the African continent, curated by Lanre Masha, Faridah Folawiyo and Ayo Lawson; as well as specially curated presentations and interactive projects. These programs have featured an array of emerging and established artists from the continent and diaspora, including Wangechi Mutu, Njideka Akunyili-Crosby, Yinka Shonibare CBE, El Anatsui, and Hank Willis Thomas.

This year’s Curated Projects take the theme “The restful ones are not yet born” and include work by Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú, David Alabo and Kelani Abass, centred on the (re)imagination of the future of the African continent. Each project reflects on the current challenges experienced in Africa, including the aftermaths of colonisation and slavery, along with the consequences of political regimes that contribute to inequality and sociopolitical exclusion. The projects take inspiration from archives in the past and experiences in the present to imagine diverse possibilities for the future of Africa.

We Are Here is this year's Interactive Project. Curated by A Whitespace Creative Agency, We Are Here brings together two artist collectives in film and music - the Kaduna-based film collective The Critics and the Lagos-based sound collective The Village Sound System - and teams them up with ART X Lagos’s daily visitors to produce a dynamic short film.

The Access Bank ART X Prize – Nigeria’s leading award for emerging visual artists – also returns after a hiatus due to Covid-19. The 2019 winner, documentary photographer Etinosa Yvonne will present a solo exhibition at the fair in November, curated by Wura-Natasha Ogunji with the 2021 winner to be announced shortly.

Tokini Peterside, ART X Collective Founder & CEO said: “It is with great excitement that we look forward to returning to The Federal Palace in November for the first in-person edition of ART X Lagos since the pandemic struck. We are delighted to present a full programme encompassing 30 of the leading galleries who share our commitment to showcasing the best in African art, along with a powerful and provocative series of solo exhibitions, talks and vibrant group projects that speak to the state of affairs on the African continent and our projected hopes for its future. My heartfelt gratitude goes to our galleries and sponsors for their resilience and their unwavering support of our vision.”

Further details about the fair:

ART X Lagos 2021 Exhibitors

Physical Fair: 4-7 November at Federal Palace in Lagos

DADA Gallery (Nigeria) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Kó (Nigeria)

Nike Art Gallery (Nigeria)

Pacers Gallery (Nigeria) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

SMO Contemporary Art (Nigeria)

Afriart Gallery (Uganda)

Galerie Atiss Dakar (Sénégal)

Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Côte d'Ivoire, Sénégal, France)

Galerie MAM (Cameroon)

Gallery 1957 (Ghana)

Kanbi Projects (United Kingdom)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery (Côte d’Ivoire)

OOA Gallery (Spain)

SEPTIEME Gallery (France)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Online Fair: 4-21 November via ARTXLAGOS.COM and Artsy

Afriart Gallery (Uganda)

Circle Art Gallery (Kenya)

DADA Gallery (Nigeria) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Eclectica Contemporary (South Africa) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Ed Cross Fine Art (United Kingdom)

ELA - Espaco Luanda Arte (Angola)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

espace d’art contemporain 14N 61W (Martinique) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Galerie Atiss Dakar (Sénégal)

Galerie Carole Kvasnevski (France)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Côte d'Ivoire, Sénégal, France)

Galerie MAM (Cameroon)

Gallery 1957 (Ghana)

Kanbi Projects (United Kingdom) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Kó (Nigeria)

Loft Art Gallery (Morocco)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery (Côte d’Ivoire)

MAGNIN-A (France) - new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Nike Art Gallery (Nigeria)

Nubuke Foundation (Ghana)

October Gallery (United Kingdom)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

OOA Gallery (Spain)

Pacers Gallery (Nigeria)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Sakhile&Me (Germany)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

SEPTIEME Gallery (France)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Skoto Gallery (USA)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

SMO Contemporary Art (Nigeria)

Stevenson (South Africa)

THK Gallery (South Africa)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

Tiwani Contemporary (United Kingdom)

WORLDART (South Africa)- new to ART X Lagos in 2021

The Curated Projects

Each year, ART X Lagos includes a series of Curated Projects that highlight some of today’s most experimental mediums and showcase some of the multidisciplinary artists working in them.

FUTURE AFRICA

Future Africa is a project that presents newly produced and commissioned artworks by David Alabo and Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú that respond to the conceptual framework of the theme: The restful ones are not yet born. Future Africa, sponsored by Africa No Filter, is an exploration of the current challenges that arise when thinking about the future state of the African continent. In his work, One Africa, Three Futures – an interactive and immersive display showcasing three unique representations of Africa in the future – David Alabo addresses the limiting ideas of growth in Africa by incorporating socio-cultural, human well-being and environmental concerns, through the themes of traditional knowledge, pan-Africanism and isolation. In ÌYÁBỌ̀ : a re-BIRTH story, Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú explores through allegory the idea of re-Birthing of the Self. Her work, composed of a three-channel video, delves into chaos, catastrophe, destruction as a tool of evolution and a productive act. It employs folklore and myths that assemble diverse bodies, things, affects and sensibilities to create a non-linear interpretation of pre-birth to maturation processes. Additionally, it seeks to explore the notion of the past, present, and future as not just dots in the line of time, but rather interpenetrating planes.

UNFOLDING LAYERS OF TIME

Through a multilayered immersive installation composed of paintings, sculptures, and photographs in the work Unfolding Layers of Time, the Nigerian artist Kelani Abass proposes the possibility of multiple narratives and histories, taking from the examination of his family archives in response to the questions: How can we imagine an African community and therefore a collective memory for today and tomorrow? And - How can personal archives contribute to the making of that collective memory?

Unfolding Layers of Time questions our choices and desires to accumulate wealth and scramble for political offices. It plays as an invitation to look - for instance - at the place of women in history making, probing the fragility of human existence through vanishing images. Flanked with a performative and interactive piece in a letterpress printing atmosphere, the ART X Lagos audience will be saddled with the responsibility of striking an impression on letterpress printing machines, which invariably determines each participant's tolerance to tyranny.

The Interactive Projects

We Are Here is this year's ART X Lagos Interactive Project, curated by A Whitespace Creative Agency bringing together two artist collectives in film and music: the Kaduna-based film collective The Critics and the Lagos-based sound collective The Village Sound System, teaming them up with ART X Lagos’ daily audience.

We Are Here looks at the avenues of reinvention and reimagination through collective action and creation, and will provide an interactive narrative space in which, over the four days of the ART X Lagos fair, the daily audience will employ sound, objects and green screens to create a 3-minute film. We Are Here is about our acknowledgement that active collective participation in our present is the only way to activate and envision our future transformation.

ART X Talks

ART X Talks explores a range of themes pertinent to the state and evolution of contemporary art in Africa. With key stakeholders in contemporary art, and an emphasis on those with a compelling interest in the African continent or its Diaspora, the Talks reiterate the theme of this year's fair by contemplating the past to imagine new possibilities for the future. Further details on the ART X Talks programme to be announced in October.

ART X Live!

The hope-turned-tragedy of the End Sars movement created a bruised yet defiant generation of young Nigerians, with an increased understanding of their roles as engaged citizens and activists, navigating their presents and trying to become active instigators in the creation of their futures. The artists taking part in this year’s fusion of music and visual art have been selected by curators Lanre Masha, Faridah Folawiyo and Ayo Lawson to create new work that reckons with these issues and considers all influences - local and foreign, current and historical.

The show - produced by LMBSKN and Remy Baggins - and themed Forward Ever, invites artists including AMKMQ, whose work deals with her own utopic state of being to create a multi-media work from the perspective of her “hybrid, sub-cultured self” and also Fez, whose work deals with collage and piecing together varying visual references to create a video that speaks to these themes of hybrid utopias. Focusing on the concept of radical optimism, both artists will create art that speaks to their ideal contexts.

ART X Lagos 2021 Sponsors

Gold Sponsor: Access Bank

Silver Sponsors: Tangerine, Stanbic IBTC Pensions, 7UP

Bronze Sponsors: Africa No Filter, Anap Jets, Chapel Hill Denham, Flutterwave