Rele Gallery is a contemporary art space and gallery in Lagos, Nigeria. It is on Military Street, Onikan Lagos and on Victoria Island, Lagos. [1] [2]
Rele Gallery is a contemporary art space and gallery in Lagos, Nigeria. It is on Military Street, Onikan Lagos and on Victoria Island, Lagos. [1] [2]
Rele was founded by Adenrele Sonariwo, art curator and former accountant, former employee of PricewaterhouseCoopers. [3]
The gallery is part of the Rele Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organisation. [4]
In 2021, the gallery opened a location in Los Angeles, California. It is the first African gallery to open in Los Angeles. [5] [6]
Rele Gallery has featured a number of Nigerian-based international artists including Victor Ehikhamenor and Kelechi Amadi-Obi. [7]
In 2022, Neec Nonso was featured as a member of Rele's Young Contemporary. [8]
The gallery also participated in Art Hamptons Fair (July 2013). [17] [18]
The Nigerian National Museum is a national museum of Nigeria, located in the city of Lagos. The museum has a notable collection of Nigerian art, including pieces of statuary, carvings also archaeological and ethnographic exhibits. Of note is a terracotta human head known as the Jemaa Head, part of the Nok culture. The piece is named after Jema'a, the village where it was discovered. The museum is located at Onikan, Lagos Island, Lagos State. The museum is administered by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
Aisha Augie-Kuta is a Nigerian photographer and filmmaker based in Abuja. She is a Hausa from Argungu Local Government Area in northern Nigeria. She won the award for Creative Artist of the year at the 2011 The Future Awards. Her work spans across documentary, fashion and aerial photography. She uses juxtaposition in her work as her way of pushing the idea that there are always two sides of a story; this comes from her background in photojournalism and Mass Communication. Her personal projects explore issues of gender and identity influenced by her experiences as a female, mixed race and mixed tribe individual who struggled to fit in earlier in life.
Felabration is an annual music festival conceived in 1998 by Yeni Anikulapo-Kuti in memory and celebration of her father Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician and human rights activist known for pioneering the afrobeat genre of music. The one-week-long event which is held annually at the New Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, attracts visitors from different countries and has thus been considered as an official tourist destination by the Lagos State Government.
Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian visual artist, writer, and photographer known for his expansive works that engage with multinational cultural heritage and postcolonial socioeconomics of contemporary black lives. In 2017, he was selected to represent Nigeria at the Venice Biennale, the first time Nigeria would be represented in the event. His work has been described as representing "a symbol of resistance" to colonialism.
Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon is a prince of Ake in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. He hails from the Sogbulu and Ogunfayo lineage of the Laarun ruling house of Ake in Egbaland.
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Oyasaf is an art foundation that holds a large private art collection in Nigeria.
Olusegun Adejumo is a Nigerian visual artist, known for his female figure drawings and paintings. He is the director of One Draw Gallery and currently the president of the Guild of Professional Fine Artists Nigeria.
Peju Layiwola, is an art Historian and visual artist from Nigeria who works in a variety of media and genre. She is listed as a "21st Century Avant-Garde" in the book Art Cities of the Future published by Phaidon Press. She is currently a Professor of Art and Art history at the University of Lagos and has been described as a "multi-talented artist." Her works can be found in the collection of Microsoft Lagos, Yemisi Shyllon Museum, Pan Atlantic, Lagos and homes of private collectors such as JP and Ebun Clark and the Obi of Onitsha.
Emmanuel Iduma is a Nigerian writer and art critic. He is the author of A Stranger's Pose (2018) and Farad (2012). In 2016, Farad was republished in North America as The Sound of Things to Come. He was awarded the inaugural Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism by the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, USA. He teaches in the MFA Art Writing Program at the School of Visual Arts, New York City.
Adenrele Sonariwo is a Nigerian entrepreneur and art curator. She is the founder of the Rele Art Gallery on Military Street, Onikan, Lagos Island, Lagos, Nigeria as well as the Rele Art Gallery on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, California. Rele Gallery is the first African contemporary art gallery to establish an outpost in Los Angeles. Sonariwo was the lead curator of the first Nigerian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Alongside the Rele Art Gallery, Sonariwo is also the founding director of the Rele Arts Foundation. The foundation's projects include the annual young Contemporaries programme, which offers grants, mentorship, residences and training to a small group of emerging artists, an opportunity that results in an exhibition hosted at the gallery.
ART X Lagos is an art fair in Lagos, Nigeria. It is the leading international art fair in West Africa, founded and launched in 2016, and eight editions have been held so far. The ninth edition of the fair will take place between October 31 - November 3 2024.
Ken Nwadiogbu is a Nigerian-born London-based multidisciplinary artist. He calls his method contemporealism – a fusion that is primarily centred on hyper-realism and contemporary art. In 2019, He was awarded the prestigious The Future Awards Africa and was named by Guardian Life as one of the most "Outstanding Personalities of 2019".
Isaac Emokpae is a Nigerian visual artist, painter, and photographer. His work is defined by duality and is known for its expressionist and surrealist features.
Kelechi Amadi-Obi is a Nigerian creative photographer, painter, artist and the publisher of Mania Magazine. His work in photography and visual art has earned him international renown featuring in many international exhibitions including Snap Judgment: New Position in contemporary African Photography, International center of photography New York (2006) He has been described as one of Nigeria's groundbreaking celebrity photographers who has "helped put Nigerian photography on the world map.". Vogue calls him "a major force in the creative scene in Nigeria."
Ayobola Kekere-Ekun is a Nigerian contemporary visual artist.
Sejiro Avoseh is a visual artist from Nigeria who resides in Canterbury, England. A painter best known for his signature fusion of abstracted human figures and automobile parts using painting and collaging techniques, Sejiro makes his painted montages from cut-out magazines and newspapers. Sejiro's works are autobiographical, lending critical voices on the poor fate of the indigent underclass in his society, and on the highhandedness and abuse of power by public servants and elected officials. In 2018, he was featured in the Financial Times as one of Nigeria's promising artists.
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