ART X Lagos, West Africa’s premier and largest art fair, opened its 11th edition from November 5–8 at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island, drawing thousands of visitors, collectors and curators to Nigeria’s annual art week. On the fair’s third day, visitors moved through 15 partitioned exhibition spaces featuring installations, music, discussions and film screenings, while galleries and museums across Lagos hosted satellite shows. Under the theme 'A New Chapter, A New Decade', the programme examines cultural erosion, migration and belonging and reveals a cultural side of Lagos that extends beyond commerce, traffic and relentless hustle.
Key Takeaways: ART X Lagos is holding its 11th edition from November 5–8 at the Federal Palace Hotel, with 15 exhibition spaces and a citywide programme across Lagos. The fair’s theme, 'A New Chapter, A New Decade', draws on Nigeria’s pioneering modernist generation and explores memory, migration and heritage. A central installation by Ndidi Dike, 'Residues of Past Encounters II', links the transatlantic slave trade with contemporary migration through a suspended canoe, Badagry sand and ocean sound.
Now in its second decade, ART X Lagos has grown from a single fair into a broader cultural platform that positions Lagos as a global art destination. This year’s edition looks back at the artists, architects, educators and thinkers who shaped Nigerian modernism, while asking how their legacy can inform new work. Installations address cultural erosion, displacement and belonging, reflecting on how art can preserve collective memory and reconnect people with heritage. The fair and satellite exhibitions also reveal a sophisticated creative economy beyond Lagos’s reputation for commerce and congestion.
A standout is Ndidi Dike’s 'Residues of Past Encounters II', a multimedia installation featuring a wooden canoe suspended above a glass surface, sand arranged around its edges and Adire fabric bearing silhouettes of tightly packed people. The sound of waves from Badagry, a historic transit point for enslaved West Africans, plays softly in the background. 'The sound of the waves makes you contemplate, makes you think deeper, and then you begin to imagine, perhaps, how those who have left our shores under various circumstances must have been feeling mentally,' Dike told Al Jazeera. She added that there is a correlation between slavery and contemporary migration, noting that many young Africans still undertake dangerous journeys to Europe across the Sahara and Mediterranean, with some dying or facing exploitation and trafficking. ART X founder Tokini Peterside said the presentations show that histories are living sources of knowledge, not simply things to preserve or look back upon.
The fair is also celebrating the legacy of Nigerian potter and ceramicist Ladi Kwali in an exhibition titled 'Beyond the Vessel', where her handcrafted pots are displayed beside a large photograph of her at work. ART X Lagos is scheduled to close on November 8, with organisers expecting collectors, curators and cultural institutions to continue visiting satellite exhibitions across Lagos during the remaining days of art week. For many participants, the edition is less a retrospective than a launchpad: a signal that Nigerian and West African artists are entering a new decade with greater institutional confidence and international attention.
Source: www.aljazeera.com