ART X Lagos marks its second decade with “A New Chapter, A New Decade”, celebrating African heritage and modern artwork. Among this 12 months’s highlights is a tribute to the late Nigerian potter, Ladi Kwali. Yinka Olatunbosun stories
Beginning with an unique Collectors’ Preview, the long-anticipated Art X Lagos united world curators, worldwide patrons, and outstanding African artwork collectors for a non-public viewing on Thursday November 5 forward of its public run.
Centering on the overarching theme “A New Chapter, A New Decade”, this 12 months’s preview highlighted the honest’s decade-long legacy of positioning modern African artwork on the world stage. Attendees have been supplied an intimate take a look at compelling works introduced by main galleries throughout Africa and its diaspora, alongside main curated exhibitions celebrating foundational and trendy artists. Notable shows ranged from high-concept installations to intimate retrospective showcases, drawing robust curiosity from personal consumers and institutional reps desperate to safe primary-market items.
The founder, Art X Lagos, Tokini Peterside-Schwebig engaged visitors in dialog, reflecting on the ecosystem’s speedy progress and the vital function collectors play in elevating regional practices. The night seamlessly bridged business visible arts with cultural dialogue, providing curated walkthroughs earlier than setting the tone for the honest’s public weekend of panels, cinema, and dwell performances.
While receiving worldwide guests, Peterside-Schwebig welcomed attendees, underscoring how cross-border dialogues and institutional engagements—corresponding to these with Tate—proceed to increase world publicity for African creative practices. The night fostered high-level business transactions alongside vital trade, setting an bold tone for the multi-day program of exhibitions, panels, and dwell performances.
So far, Art X Lagos has been a dialogue between heritage and modern reinvention, highlighted by the centrepiece exhibition titled ‘Ladi Kwali: Beyond the Vessel.’ Curated by Dr. Jareh Das, the particular showcase honours the pioneering Nigerian potter alongside generations of ladies ceramicists who expanded the medium.
Ladi Kwali: Beyond the Vessel showcase is an assemblage of a variety of ceramics and archival supplies regarding Ladi Dosei Kwali (1925–1984). Loaned from the assortment of the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos, and from personal lenders, the story of Ladi Kwali is being retold in a most dignifying method: to revive visibility to matrilineal legacy. It additionally marks a seminal shift for African modern artwork tradition because it reframes indigenous craftsmanship, repositioning historic mastery at the centre of trendy observe.
Born in the village of Kwali in northern Nigeria, she learnt pottery from her aunt, mastering the hand-building and coiling strategies central to Gbari matrilineal traditions. She turned Nigeria’s most internationally recognised potter of the interval, bringing the data of Gbari pottery traditions to a brand new community of manufacturing, exhibition and circulation.
This exhibition, sponsored by Zenith Bank, returns consideration to the objects and networks of Gbari ladies’s pottery traditions from which they emerged. Alongside ceramics by Kwali are works by two ladies potters from the neighborhood who labored alongside and after Kwali, together with Kande Ushafa and Asibi Ido, and conventional pottery made by Gbari, Nupe and Bida potters.
For a long time, Western artwork canons categorised African ceramics and hand-built pottery as “indigenous craft” or utilitarian commerce slightly than fantastic artwork. Centering Ladi Kwali at West Africa’s premier worldwide artwork honest dismantles that hierarchy. It asserts that her hand-coiled, sgraffito-etched stoneware—which hybridized conventional Gbari motifs with studio glaze strategies—stands as foundational modernism.
While Kwali’s face is immortalised on the N20 notice and her work reached world audiences in the mid-Twentieth century, her story has usually been contextualized by way of her British supervisor, Michael Cardew. Beyond the Vessel re-anchors the narrative round her company and the ecosystem of Northern Nigerian ladies potters who labored alongside and after her—artists like Kande Ushafa and Asibi Ido. It honours clay as a web site of collective feminine data handed down by way of generations.
Beyond clay, the honest transforms Victoria Island right into a dynamic multidisciplinary area. Its expanded roster options modern gallery displays, curated installations, the vibrant sonic and visible fusion of ART X Live!, insightful panels at ART X Talks, and transferring picture showcases by way of ART X Cinema.
Also, this 12 months’s version of Art Across Borders asks the place worth lies past what’s historically validated by the artwork market. The 2026 cohort includes 5 artists from throughout the continent whose studios additionally perform as workshops, incubators, faculties and residencies. This 12 months’s version options Kaloki Nyamai (Kenya); Kamene Cultural Centre, Georgina Maxim (Zimbabwe) – Village Unhu; Ghizlane Sahli (Morocco) – work with feminine artisans; Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola) – KinoYetu and Fuckin’ Globo; Victor Ehikhamenor (Nigeria) – Angels & Muse and Black Muse Festival.
The title is taken from Julie Mehretu’s portray, Walkers with the Dawn and Morning, which in 2023 set a milestone document at public sale for any African artist. Here, “Walkers with the Dawn” represents artists who see into new horizons and suppose boldly about who they’ll invite to stroll alongside them.
ART X Cinema will shift focus to at least one of the greatest Northern Nigerian tales, Mothers of Chibok. Presented alongside a dialog with its director, Emmy-winning filmmaker Joel ‘Kachi Benson, the film screening represents a type of artivism through which artistic expression, ethical readability and neighborhood care meet.
All eyes fastened on the display for the screening of Ed Keazor’s documentary, ‘Who Holds the Camera? 100 Years of Nigerian Cinema.’ The mission grappled with a poignant milestone: a century since Palaver (1926), the first function movie shot in Nigeria by way of an imperious colonial gaze. Through a wealthy tapestry of archived footage and historic interviews, Keazor traced cinema’s evolution from these early restricted portrayals to the explosive, self-determined period of Nollywood. Frame by body, the documentary interrogated who managed the lens, capturing how Nigerian storytellers reclaimed their narrative rights to movie their very own lives and desires.
During a gap tour, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu recommended the honest’s influence on cultural tourism and the state’s artistic economic system.
“Lagos remains the indisputable creative heartbeat of Africa,” Governor Sanwo-Olu said whereas participating with gallery administrators and artists. “Events like ART X Lagos not only elevate our rich artistic heritage onto the global stage, but they also drive real economic growth, inspire our youth, and showcase the immense talent embedded within our state.”
Since its founding in 2016, the honest has expanded the continent’s cultural ecosystem by offering direct worldwide publicity for African artists.
Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, Founder and CEO of ART X Lagos, emphasised that the platform’s imaginative and prescient enters a transformative new period because it steps into its second decade.
“As we launch into our second decade, we are thinking deeply about what it means to move forward while remaining connected to our rich histories and knowledge,” mentioned Peterside-Schwebig. “When vision meets commitment, creativity becomes a powerful force that reshapes how the world sees us. Our hope is that visitors leave with a renewed sense of possibility for African art.”
Running by way of November 8, the multi-day honest continues to attract worldwide patrons, collectors, and curators to Nigeria’s business capital.
