An art festival moves with quiet authority through Lagos’s December frenzy, turning four venues into arenas where African art asserts its audacity and enduring allure. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke reports
Alarger-than-life Dotun Popoola metal-scrap sculpture—a 180-inch bust of a Native American warrior crowned with a feathered headdress—holds court at the centre of the open-air venue, flanked by two wooden canoes dense with carved motifs, their oars propped beside plastic gasoline kegs. Eccentric yet absorbing, the paired canoe installation, “The Root” I and II, is the work of Badagry-based Kamal Atiku, a collision of past and present where craftsmanship nudges audacious imagination. The venue, tucked away from a busy thoroughfare in leafy, upmarket Victoria Island, Lagos, is Space 1699, one of four sites—alongside Babalakin and Co., Pier Harbour by SRS, and The Lagos Motor Boat Club—hosting the month-long ARTFrikanity Art Festival from December 1 to 28.
The festival steps into the season’s frenzy without fireworks or fuss, arriving as Lagos, almost legendary for its appetite for spectacle, leans into Detty December, a choreography of lights, sounds, and fleeting pleasures that linger long after the spotlight has moved on. Anticipation thickens the air, traffic develops its own rhythm, and everyone seems headed somewhere that matters—even if they can’t say where—setting an ideal stage for ARTFrikanity, which coaxingly asks art lovers to slow down, look properly, and shed a few lazy assumptions. Here, African art is not novelty or favour; it is seasoned, resilient, and resolutely unwilling to be underestimated.
ARTFrikanity is not the kind of festival that announces itself from the rooftops, and it doesn’t need to. Organised by OM234, it understands that real authority rarely raises its voice. What it offers instead is a month-long soft launch that feels deliberate, measured, quietly assured—the cultural equivalent of arriving impeccably dressed just as the conversation begins to get interesting—its pulse driven by the sheer range of voices gathered under one banner.
And that range matters. Rather than a tidy chorus, the festival releases a polyphony of styles, temperaments, and preoccupations—a roll call of contemporary African creativity in all its unruly glory. Consider Dotun Popoola’s 114-inch bust of coiled dreadlocks doubling as a crown: a warrior assembled from metal scraps and wood, its coarse dynamism finding counterpoint in Ifeanyi Anene’s balletic oils—“Effigy in Magenta” (2025), “No. 2 on Lake Yellow” (2024), and “Tiffany Blue” (2024)—floating figures that soften muscularity with colour, poise, and measured calm.
Fidelis Odogwu’s welded-metal “The Synergy of the Sea” (2024) introduces restless complexity: an octopus whose tentacles curl tightly around a rimless wheel, only to yield to Bunmi Babatunde’s “Aremo” (2022), an 82-inch ebony wood sculpture whose simplicity is less austere than assured. These works refuse easy harmony, preferring friction that keeps the festival alert, alive, and insistently contemporary.
The conversation widens. Eguasa Omodamwen’s “In the Wild” (2023), a 72-inch iroko sculpture, asserts grotesque conceptuality, obtrusive and insistent, as though negotiating its exit from the forest. Nearby, Edosa Ogiugo’s “Equestrian Spirit” (2021), oil on canvas, 60 by 84 inches, exudes controlled energy, poised motion revealing draughtsmanship that commands attention. Tosin Toromade’s acrylics—“Peace Offering” (2025) and “My Strength” (2025)—offer a measured pause, balancing spectacle and introspection. The equestrian narrative begun in the former, where a figure clutches a red balloon, finds quiet denouement in the latter: a solitary balloon-holder beside a tired horse, performance ended, emotional residue lingering.
Olisa Nwadiogbu’s “Okeifie” (2025), a monumental disc of upcycled aluminium cans and car paint, seduces with sheen before revealing accumulated labour beneath. At the opposite end, “Idejiogwugwu” (2025), his towering totem pole of engraved plastic, drums, metals, bells, and copper wire, its wooden base embedded with coins, reads like a ledger rewritten for a restless present. Scale shifts again in Kamal Atiku’s “Minopo Drum” I and II (2023), twin wood sculptures standing 72 inches tall, their ritual presence extending his interest in objects as vessels of memory rather than mere form—a quieter counterweight to Nwadiogbu’s visual excess.
Luke Osaro’s bronzes deepen the historical current. “The Woman King” (2024) rises 80 inches, resolute and unflinching, while “Mangbetu Bride” (2024) and “The Queen Mother (Queen Idia)” (2025) command reverence rather than court it. By contrast, Emeka Udemba’s “Fraternity of Hope” (2024), an expansive acrylic and mixed-media canvas, is firmly anchored in the present. Resembling a family photograph, it seethes with symbolism, hinting at political yearning and collective memory just beneath the surface.
Taken together, these works make Space 1699 feel less like a venue than a living argument—about history and reinvention, weight and grace, noise and restraint. Nothing here strains for harmony; the interest lies in the frictions, and ARTFrikanity lets them stand. The festival becomes impossible to ignore once aficionados take in other names in its roster: Abiodun Olaku, Boma Joe-Jim, Chima Olugbenga Enwezor, Chinze Ojobo, Duke Asidere, Edgar Imomoh, Enotie Ogbebor, Eric Tomnyuy, Ezekiel Osifeso, Francis Tchiakpe, Freda Kesa, Gerry Nnubia, Ibrahim Cisse, Jerry Buhari, John Madu, King Kolaiah, Luke Osaro, Marius Dansou, Mary-Jane Ohobu, Onyinye Ezennia, Orlu Ozangeobuoma, Peter Elungat, Rafiy Okefolahan, Sam Ovraiti, Sara Jacobs Majekodunmi, Simhle Plaatjies, Steve Ekpenisi, Tony Jagas, Tony Nsofor, Uchay Joel Chima—and the towering presence of guest artist Bruce Onobrakpeya.
ARTFrikanity unfolds across four distinct moods. Babalakin and Co. exudes elegance and credibility, framing African art as serious, investable, and culturally weighty. Space 1699 roots visitors in tradition, showing forms, symbols, and materials as living languages shaping contemporary creativity. Pier Harbour by SRS opens the floor to modern expressions, from intimate storytelling to bold, monumental statements. The Lagos Motor Boat Club completes the circuit, turning the festival into a social stage where collectors, enthusiasts, and visitors converge—reminding all that art thrives in presence as much as on walls.
Its achievement lies as much in what ARTFrikanity avoids. No frantic over-curation, no desperate explanations. Art is trusted to provoke, seduce, unsettle, and linger. The venues function less as containers than moods, inviting movement, double-takes, quiet arguments, fleeting love affairs with individual works, and hauntings that persist days later.
ARTFrikanity understands that art is not solitary. It thrives on proximity, conversation, and gentle friction. By stretching across formal and social spaces, it escapes the sterile hush of the white cube, replacing it with something porous, warm, alive—art to think about deeply and discuss over a drink without guilt.
Calling it a soft launch feels mischievous. What unfolds in December is both showcase and declaration. ARTFrikanity lays foundations, tests rhythms, and builds confidence—not just for artists and collectors but for audiences encountering these practices for the first time. It meets seasonal returnees and visitors with substance rather than spectacle, generous rather than performative.
By month’s end, ARTFrikanity will have done something quietly radical. It will have carved space—physical, intellectual, emotional—for African art on its own terms. No drumrolls, no borrowed gravitas. Just confidence, clarity, and the unmistakable sense that this is only the beginning.
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