Best of Art 2025

For decades, African art occupied a provisional space in global institutions—collected but rarely centered, exhibited but seldom historicized on its own
Nuits Balnéaires Awarded Second Latitudes Grant from Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Ivorian artist Nuits Balnéaires has been named the 2025 laureate of Latitudes, an international photography programme from
A Decade of Art X Lagos

Since its inception, Art X Lagos has done more than host an art fair—it has built a thriving ecosystem for Nigerian and West
Ancestry on Skin: The 28-Year-Old Behind the World’s Next Art Movement

The paint beneath Oscar Korbla Mawuli Awuku’s fingernails is permanent. On a humid October morning in his Osu studio
Nthabiseng Kekana’s Sankofa: How a Sangoma’s Practice Shapes Contemporary African Art

Nthabiseng Kekana’s Sankofa: How a Sangoma’s Practice Shapes Contemporary African Art Nthabisneg Kekana At 26, Nthabiseng Kekana is building a practice that refuses the boundaries between art and spiritual work, between contemporary expression and ancestral knowledge. Fresh from her debut solo show Sankofa: A Call to Remembrance at FNB Art Joburg this September—where Lagos-based Wunika […]
Anthony Azekwoh is The Nigerian Artist Building His Own Cinematic Universe

When Anthony Azekwoh began drawing, he could hardly imagine how far that impulse would carry him. His trajectory—from writer to digital painter to sculptor and curator—speaks to a restless creativity and a conviction that has positioned him as one of the continent’s most successful digital artists. Born in Lagos, Anthony describes his childhood as formative. […]
Not Every Lot Sells: What Bonhams’ African Art Auction Really Reveals

When Bonhams launched the auction for Modern & Contemporary African Art in London, it added yet another chapter to the evolving story of how African and diaspora art is being valued and revalued on the global stage. Now scheduled for 8 October 2025, it will arrive with all the usual signals of a market-watching moment: […]
Inside Ifebuche Madu’s Exhibition of Nigerian Textile and Traditional Dye

Ifebuche Madu believes fashion storytelling must move beyond surface optics, and it’s what led her deeper into curating “In the Beginning, There Was Cloth”—a textile exhibition that brings this truth to the fore, tracing the layered narratives woven into Adire, Akwete, and Uli. “It is a journey that takes us back to our ancient times […]
African Art and Creativity: What Inspires Artists Across the Continent

In a small Lagos studio, a painter dips her brush in red paint. Her canvas bursts with market colors: yellow mangoes, blue headscarves, green leaves. She grew up in a noisy neighborhood where money was scarce, but the buzz of traders and kids playing gave her ideas. In a London apartment, a musician strums his […]
Labor Day 2025: William Matlala’s Lens on Labour and Documenting the Dignity of Black Workers in South Africa

When William Matlala picked up his mother’s camera in the early 1980s, he began what would become one of South Africa’s most quietly powerful photographic projects: a visually dense archive of factory floors, miners, families, and community life that refused the narrow images of Black existence under apartheid. Even after decades, his work continues to […]