
‘Nigerian Modernism’ at Tate Modern: how a nation rewrote the rules of art
09 Oct 2025
Stepping into Tate Modern, the proposition is immediate: modernism is plural and Nigeria is one of its centres. ‘Nigerian Modernism’ opens as a conversation, not a line. Media and generations collide. Ceramics answer painting. Print meets sculpture. Osei Bonsu and Bilal Akkouche curate with a choreography that mirrors the experimental drive of the work itself. Opening tomorrow, the exhibition brings together more than 250 works by over 50 artists, spanning the 1940s through to the late 20th century. What emerges is not a tidy lineage but a restless dialogue – a testing ground for freedom, imagination, and struggle.
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