Aṣọ-Òkè: The Cloth We Inherit
I am standing before a portrait in Nigerian Modernism, the survey at Tate Modern. It is Akinola Lasekan’s 1957 oil of Justus D. Akeredolu. Lasekan and Akeredolu were both first-generation Nigerian modernists who once shared a studio in Lagos, and Akeredolu is remembered as the pioneer of Yoruba thorn carving, so the painter here is […]
Gustavo Nazareno Has Nothing to Explain
Afro-Brazilian painter Gustavo Nazareno on Exu, Candomblé, and a practice that asks to be encountered rather than decoded — ahead of his 2026 Opera Gallery Paris show.
Inside the Most Compelling African Pavilions at the 2026 Venice Biennale
For a long time, Africa’s presence at the Venice Biennale has felt slightly out of place. Even as African artists helped shape contemporary art globally, the continent itself often seemed pushed to the margins, present but not always fully seen, its stories and forms framed through a Western lens or treated as something separate from […]
La Vie Est Belle
Makhan Sakho is twenty-six, Guinean and Malian and Congolese by heritage, Parisian by address. He has worked as a model, stylist, producer, and creative director, but the camera is where his vision sits most fully. “I like when the photos speak for themselves,” he says. “The compositions, the colors, the textures — they allow us […]
Novo Atlantico
Tansi Makele is a Franco-Congolese filmmaker who grew up in the Paris suburbs and started making short documentaries at 19. His early work was mostly about dance and movement. Since then he has worked across fashion films, fiction, and experimental video. He cites Khalil Joseph, Terrence Malick, and Spike Lee as reference points, along with […]
Sanjo Lawal: Artsman the Traveler
Sanjo Lawal works between photography, creative editing, and digital painting. He renders skin in near-charcoal tones so the colors around it can sing harder. Born in Lagos in 1997 and raised in Ijebu Ode, he draws on Yoruba ceremony, the Ojude Oba festival, and the layered textiles of his mother’s wardrobe. His Artsman the Traveler […]
Cultural Alphabet
Cultural Alphabet is creative director Dani Larbi’s own life mapped onto twenty-six letters. Each one stands in for a piece of Afro-European experience — the inheritance of being among the first generation born in Europe to African parents. Coexistence, contrast, and fusion become words; words become images; images become collectible cards. Larbi treats the project […]