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Wednesday 29 September: It was an evening of excitement when art, business, music and media industry luminaries gathered to launch the sixth edition of ART X Lagos. Hosted at EbonyLife Place, Victoria Island, new features and innovations for the 2021 fair were revealed, alongside the winner of this year’s Access Bank ART X Prize. The art fair returns from 4-7 November at The Federal Palace, Victoria Island, while national and international audiences will be able to view works online from 4-21 November on ARTXLAGOS.COM. Tokini Peterside, ART X Collective Founder & CEO revealed that for its largest fair to date, ART X Lagos will bring together 110 artists from 25 countries represented by 30 galleries – 15 of which are new to ART X Lagos. The galleries representing artists in both the physical and online fairs include Afriart Gallery (Kampala, Uganda), DADA Gallery (Lagos, Nigeria and London, United Kingdom), Galerie Atiss Dakar (Dakar, Senegal), Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Dakar, Sénégal; and Paris, France), Galerie MAM (Douala, Cameroon), Gallery 1957 (Accra, Ghana and London, United Kingdom), Kanbi Projects (London, United Kingdom), LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire), Nike Art Gallery (Lagos, Nigeria), OOA Gallery (Barcelona, Spain), Pacers Gallery (Lagos, Nigeria), SEPTIEME Gallery (Paris, France), and SMO Contemporary Art (Lagos, Nigeria). kó (Lagos, Nigeria) will also unveil a special presentation dedicated to the late pioneer, Yusuf Grillo. Other galleries showing online on ARTXLAGOS.COM are Circle Art Gallery (Nairobi, Kenya), Eclectica Contemporary (Cape Town, South Africa), Ed Cross Fine Art (London, United Kingdom), espace d’art contemporain 14N 61W (Fort-de-France, Martinique), ELA – Espaco Luanda Arte (Luanda, Angola), Galerie Carole Kvasnevski (Paris, France), Loft Art Gallery (Casablanca, Morocco), MAGNIN-A (Paris, France), Nubuke Foundation (Accra, Ghana), October Gallery (London, United Kingdom), Sakhile&Me (Frankfurt, Germany), Skoto Gallery (New York, United States), STEVENSON (Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa; and Amsterdam, The Netherlands), THK Gallery (Cape Town, South Africa), Tiwani Contemporary (London, United Kingdom) and WORLDART (Cape Town, South Africa). This year, the fair’s curatorial theme “the restful ones are not yet born” presents an opportunity to challenge projected images and clichés about the African continent with reinvented modalities of our presence in the world. Since its debut in 2016, ART X Lagos has become known for its ambitious program and this year presents four special projects namely Future Africa – an exploration of the challenges that arise when thinking about the future state of the continent by David Alabo and Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú; Unfolding Layers of Time – award-winning artist Kelani Abass’ direct response to our curatorial theme; We Are Here which brings together the Kaduna-based film collective The Critics, and the Lagos-based sound collective The Village Sound System, teaming up with ART X Lagos’ daily audience to develop an interactive narrative space to produce a dynamic short film and the NFT Studio with leading digital artists from the continent ART X Live! curated by Lanre Masha, Faridah Folawiyo and Ayo Lawson combine the best of last year’s blockbuster performance film with an intimate music showcase by Dami Oniru, Lojay, Aylo alongside visual artists Fez and AMKMQ. These artists will be invited to think about the various ways in which their work has been subjected to a combination of influences, as they subvert Western art forms and make them their own. By taking inspiration from archives of the past and our experiences in the present, the fair’s special projects and speakers at ART X Talks this year will share ideas that contribute to creating a more collective and diverse possibility for the future.

Chigozie Obi Access Bank ART X Prize Winner Poster Chigozie Obi also emerged as the 2021 winner of the Access Bank ART X Prize – Nigeria’s leading award for emerging visual artists. She walks away with a N1,800,000 grant towards a solo exhibition at ART X Lagos, tailored mentorship support, and a residency at Gasworks in London. The 2019 winner, documentary photographer Etinosa Yvonne will present a solo exhibition at the fair in November, curated by Wura-Natasha Ogunji. Tokini Peterside, ART X Collective Founder & CEO said:

“It is with great excitement that we look forward to returning to The Federal Palace in November for the first in-person edition of ART X Lagos since the pandemic struck. We are delighted to present a full programme encompassing 30 of the leading galleries who share our commitment to showcasing the best in African art, along with a powerful and provocative series of solo exhibitions, talks and vibrant group projects that speak to the state of affairs on the African continent and our projected hopes for its future. My heartfelt gratitude goes to our galleries and sponsors for their resilience and their unwavering support of our vision.”

ART X Lagos 2021 Sponsors include Access Bank, Tangerine, Stanbic IBTC Pensions, Africa No Filter, Anap Jets, Macallan and Zircon Marine. Beat FM, DSTV, Smooth FM, and Trace are its Media Sponsors. Featured Image Source: ART X Lagos

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