The founder of the African Artists’ Foundation continues his search for ‘new forms of solidarity’, the kind, he told Artforum in January, in which we ‘move beyond the largely performative contemporary praxis of “decolonization”’. He celebrated the 15th edition of the Nigerian institution’s flagship Lagos Photo by announcing that the annual festival would henceforth become a biennial event, the new format signalling Nwagbogu’s intention ‘to allow for a deeper, more inclusive experience for both artists and audiences’. Under the theme of incarceration, this October’s exhibition of 50 artists and collectives, selected through an open call, spread beyond the AAF’s newly reopened premises in the Victoria Island neighbourhood to the Didi Museum, the nearby Nahous Gallery in the Federal Palace complex and Freedom Park. By casting the net wide for exhibitors, the festival embodies the ‘new forms of Pan-Africanism’ the curator holds dear, featuring artists from across the continent, as well as figures such as Shirin Neshat and Johis Alarcón, an artist of Andean and African descent from Ecuador.
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Power 100
Most influential people in 2025 in the contemporary artworld
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Azu Nwagbogu
Curator - African Artists’ Foundation founder and Lagos Photo director
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