Highlights of the month
A selection of this month’s stories, articles, events, and news about African Contemporary Art that you can’t miss.
Highlighted Interview
WAAU Events:
Ed Cross is delighted to present Jápa, a solo exhibition by Professor Jerry Buhari. This series is a meditation on migration and endurance, set against the backdrop of Buhari’s reflections on his personal history, the future of his family, and a national zeitgeist of movement in post-colonial Nigeria.
WAAU Events:
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Southern Guild makes its debut at Frieze New York this May with a group presentation of sculpture, painting, tapestries and photographic work by Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Alex Hedison, Bonolo Kavula, Roméo Mivekannin, Zanele Muholi, Zizipho Poswa and Dominique Zinkpè.
WAAU Events:
AKKA Project is a contemporary art gallery and project space dedicated to promoting artists of African backgrounds. With locations in Dubai (est. 2016), Venice (est. 2019), and Lugano (est. 2024), the gallery provides a platform for diverse artistic voices, fostering engagement through carefully curated exhibitions across multiple mediums.
WAAU Events:
Filafriques is a Black woman-owned gallery dedicated to promoting contemporary African art in Switzerland. Founded in response to the evolving discourse on cultural identity in an increasingly cosmopolitan world, the gallery was born out of an urgent need to amplify African artistic voices on the global stage.
WAAU Events:
Frieze New York is a leading international art fair that launched in 2012. Christine Messineo is the Director of Frieze New York and Frieze Los Angeles.
WAAU Events:
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is pleased to announce the return of 1-54 New York, taking place from 8–11 May 2025 at Halo, 28 Liberty Street, with a VIP Preview on 8 May.
WAAU Events:
Starting from a new scenario for an exhibition of the Portuguese Contemporary Art Collection at the National Museum of Ethnology, we seek to present latent narratives and to begin a reflection on the politics of representation and processes of under-representation, with an eye to the change in museums and collections towards greater openness to critical dialogue about the colonial past.
WAAU Features:
Born in 1968 in Ibadan, Nigeria, Ebenezer Samuel Akinola is a leading voice in contemporary African art. He graduated at the top of his class with a Bachelor’s degree in painting from the University of Benin in 1989. Akinola’s work challenges stereotypical narratives about Africa and Black culture, using his art to engage with and critique notions of race, gender, beauty, spirituality, identity, and the political landscape of modern Africa.
WAAU Events:
Artist Abdelkader Laâraj will be exhibiting for the first time at L’Atelier 21 art gallery in Casablanca, from April 15 to May 17, 2025, in a solo exhibition titled The Passion of Colors.
WAAU Events:
For 60 years, Consuelo Kanaga (American, 1894–1978) used her camera to confront urgent social issues of her time, from urban poverty to labor rights to racial terror and inequality. Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit charts the artist’s groundbreaking work and life story, shedding light on this critical yet overlooked figure in modern photography.
WAAU Events:
Géraldine Tobe (b. 1992, Kinshasa, DRC) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice interrogates trauma, ancestral spirituality, and the lingering legacies of colonialism.
WAAU Events:
Art Brussels returns for its 41st edition from 24 to 27 April 2025, bringing together 165 galleries from 35 countries in five curated sections - Prime, Solo, '68 Forward, Discovery and Invited. In addition to showcasing more than 800 artists, the fair introduces a curated and compelling selection of artistic projects that expands its programme and brings all forms of contemporary art into focus.
WAAU Events:
Water is boundless. It echoes continuity and the vastness of existence. It distorts, reflects, and reveals. In Tides of Being, Sungi Mlengeya explores the fluid relationship between body and water—between expanse and closeness, stillness and motion.
WAAU Events:
The group exhibition FOUNDATIONS brings together works by 15 international artists. Painting, photography, sculpture, video, mixed media and installations are on display. African-diasporic and African-American positions are highlighted in order to create space for inclusive perspectives on conceptual particularities in content, medium and genre and for an examination of different perspectives.
WAAU Events:
Ed Cross is delighted to present ACCRA - Memories are we are stories, a solo exhibition of works by Ermias Ekube, presented in collaboration with dot.ateliers residency in Accra, Ghana, which will benefit from 10% of the proceeds from sales - donated jointly by the artist and gallery.
WAAU Events:
Join us for the opening of Strand by Strand, a duo photography exhibition by Kamogelo Machaba and Hazel Mphande.
WAAU Events:
Featuring 42 textile works and oil paintings, Madalena Santos Reinbolt: A Head Full of Planets is the first comprehensive survey of Santos Reinbolt’s art ever presented and marks the first-ever solo museum exhibition for the artist organized outside her native Brazil.
WAAU Events:
This major solo exhibition of collectible design, sculpture and functional objects marks the US solo debut of Cheick Diallo, a pioneering and influential presence on the continent. Taama, meaning "voyage" in the West African language of Malinké, will showcase the full scope of the Malian designer and architect's oeuvre.
WAAU Events:
In their work, Zanele Muholi, a visual activist and artist from South Africa, portrays the lives and experiences of Black LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Agender, Asexual) individuals from their home country and elsewhere in the world.
Highlighted event
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Southern Guild makes its debut at Frieze New York this May with a group presentation of sculpture, painting, tapestries and photographic work by Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Alex Hedison, Bonolo Kavula, Roméo Mivekannin, Zanele Muholi, Zizipho Poswa and Dominique Zinkpè.
Highlight interview
Born in 1968 in Ibadan, Nigeria, Ebenezer Samuel Akinola is a leading voice in contemporary African art. He graduated at the top of his class with a Bachelor’s degree in painting from the University of Benin in 1989. Akinola’s work challenges stereotypical narratives about Africa and Black culture, using his art to engage with and critique notions of race, gender, beauty, spirituality, identity, and the political landscape of modern Africa.
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