With more than 250 works by over 50 artists, Tate Modern's Nigerian Modernism exhibition in London explores the dynamic evolution of modern art in Nigeria over 65 years. This enormous showcase could be better described as an experience than an exhibition.
Spanning eight rooms, it traces Nigerian history and artistic evolution, starting in the years leading up to the country's independence, through the volatility of civil war and rebirth up to the turn of the 21st century and the dawn of a new era. The story is told not with words but through paint and charcoal, wood and ceramic, with each piece of art a relic of Nigeria's lived history and the long shadow it casts. From the 1920s to the 1990s, the artists' works shift in style and medium, but their pursuit of freedom is a constant and a common thread.
The exhibition begins with a series of pre-independence oil paintings that display features of the European-style art education that its artists received. Aina Onabulu's 1922 Sisi Nurse depicts philanthropist and women's rights activist Charlotte Olajumoke Obasa in a style that is reminiscent of Art Deco.