Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Artlyst: Nigerian Modernism Explored - Tate Modern

My latest review for Artlyst is on Nigerian Modern at Tate Modern:

'... each room of the exhibition highlights different artists, societies and schools who carved independent visions for what modern art in Nigeria could be. The first of these, The Zaria Art Society understood the issues and challenges to a significant extent and developed the concept of ‘natural synthesis’ as a result. These artists, including Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke, Yusuf Grillo and Demas Nwoko, began, as Bonsu explains, calling “for the merging of the best of indigenous traditions and forms with useful Western ones”. The members of the group took the concept of ‘natural synthesis’ in many different directions over the course of their careers. Still, it, essentially, became the foundation for much of the work that has been brought together for this exhibition.

As a result, spirituality features strongly in the work of many of the artists and groups found here. Onobrakpeya, who is a practising Anglican although he worked for many years at a Catholic Boys School in Lagos, combined Biblical themes with the visual and oral traditions of the Urhobo and Yoruba peoples. At the request of Fr Carroll, he created a set of prints of the Stations of the Cross which reimagines the stories set in Nigerian contexts. Later, he recreated these in his signature plastograph style as surrounds to a central image of The Last Supper. This plastograph image plus a set of the Stations of the Cross prints form an arresting group of works in the room dedicated to the Zaria Art Society.'

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Jide Chord - Another Level.
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