Exhibitions
in the making of contemporary art in Nigeria
Public Lecture by Iheanyi Onwuegbucha (Curator, Centre for Contemporary
Art, Lagos)
Moderation: Nora Sternfeld (/ecm-director team, Vienna)
Nigeria’s
art exhibition history significantly shaped the way its contemporary art is currently designed. Unfortunately, in contrast
to the Western contemporary art tradition which is primarily woven from the fabrics of its exhibition milestones, exhibition
history has had a rather poor reflection in the framing of critical discourse of contemporary African art. In the context
of the current interest in contemporary art from Africa, a compelling question remains how to reconstruct the landscape of
contemporary art through the clearer prism of exhibition history? In this public Lecture, Iheanyi Onwuegbucha will discuss
the key moments in the history of modern and contemporary art in Nigeria and review seminal exhibitions in the four decades
following Nigeria’s independence from Britain (1960–1990). He will use his current co-curated project “Layers” at Labanque
museum, France as a point of departure to discuss the reconfiguration of Nigerian exhibition history within an international
contemporary art discourse, taking into account the ecosystem within which this history is shaped.
