El Anatsui, Postcolonial Modernism and the Nsukka School

Talbot Rice Gallery is proud to present a keynote lecture on the work of El Anatsui by Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu, who specialises in indigenous, modern, and contemporary African and African Diaspora art history and theory. Okeke-Agulu co-curated the major survey exhibition El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019) with Okwui Enwezor (1963 – 2019), which travelled to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2019; and Kunstmuseum Bern, 2020.

5.30pm: Exhibition Private View
6pm: Lecture
7pm: Drinks Reception

Chika Okeke-Agulu, an artist, critic, and art historian, is Director of Africa World Initiative, and Robert Schirmer Professor of Art & Archaeology and African American Studies, Princeton University. He is co-editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and a Fellow of The British Academy. His books include El Anatsui. The Reinvention of Sculpture (Damiani, 2022); Yusuf Grillo: Painting. Lagos. Life (Skira, 2020); Obiora Udechukwu: Line, Image, Text (Skira, 2016); Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth Century Nigeria (Duke UP, 2015); and Contemporary African Art Since 1980 (Damiani, 2010). He was the Slade Professor of Fine Art, University of Oxford, and Chair of the International Jury for the Decolonial Memorial commission, Berlin (2023). In 2024, he served as a member of the International Jury, 60th Venice Biennale. His awards include The Melville J. Herskovits Prize for the most important scholarly work in African Studies published in English during the preceding year (ASA, 2016); and Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism (CAA, 2016).

Chika Okeke-Agulu Lecture