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 Features:
Nnena Kalu has won the 2025 Turner Prize, presented last night in a ceremony in Bradford, this year’s U.K. City of Culture.
WAAU Events:
THE DELUSION combines satire and absurd humour with cooperative gaming and participatory theatre to explore the real-world impacts of societal division.
WAAU Events:
During its first two days of opening, the exhibition ‘ECHO DELAY REVERB: American Art, Francophone Thought’ will be open to the public on free admission on 22 October (from 12 p.m to 10 p.m.) and 23 October (from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.).
WAAU Features:
Okoye Chukwuemeka John studied art at the University of Uyo, Uyo Akwa Ibom State Nigeria, and trained under the realist master Dennis Ani. Chukwuemeka John sees his art as a voice for himself and all those who can’t voice how they feel.
WAAU Events:
Can a photographic portrait inspire political imagination? Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination examines how photographers and their sitters contributed to the proliferation of Pan-African solidarity during the mid-20th century.
WAAU Events:
For its first participation in Art Antwerp, AFIKARIS Gallery is thrilled to present a solo show by Saïdou Dicko.
WAAU Features:
The Eskenazi School of Art Architecture + Design at Indiana University Bloomington invites applications for the 2028 McKinney International Art and Design Residency. An established artist or designer will be selected whose primary country of residence is outside the United States.
WAAU Events:
NG announces the first Moroccan exhibition of Meriem Bennani: Life on the CAPS Trilogy.
WAAU Events:
Roberts Projects is pleased to return to Art Basel Miami Beach, where the gallery will present a curated selection of new and recent works by Luke Agada, Amoako Boafo, Daniel Crews-Chubb, Lenz Geerk, Suchitra Mattai, Mia Middleton, Wendy Red Star, Betye Saar and Kehinde Wiley.
WAAU Events:
Gallery 1957 is thrilled to present Ashanti Blues, a solo exhibition by Kelvin Haizel at Untitled Art, Miami 2025. As part of the inaugural Artist Spotlight sector curated by interdisciplinary artist Petra Cortright, this immersive new body of work translates rhythm, memory, and cultural heritage into visual form—where paint, clay, and thread converge in a layered dialogue between sound and material.
WAAU Events:
Exhibiting Artists: Sungi Mlengeya, Sanaa Gateja, Richard Atugonza, Charlene Komuntale, Kaleab Abate, Fiker Solomon, Henry Mzili Mujunga.
WAAU Events:
Galerie Cécile Fakhoury is pleased to participate for the first time in the Art Basel Miami fair, which will take place from December 3 to 5, 2025, with a selection of new works by the following artists:
WAAU Events:
Prizm Edition XIII is an offering.
A blueprint.
A remembering.
A turning toward light we have not yet fully allowed ourselves to see.
WAAU Events:
Southern Guild makes its debut at Art Basel Miami Beach with a presentation of sculpture, assemblage, photography and paintings, marking a defining moment in the gallery’s expanding international programme.
WAAU Features:
Mickalene Thomas is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists working today, celebrated for a practice that has transformed contemporary visual culture. Born and raised in New Jersey and now based in New York, she has developed a distinctive and instantly recognisable aesthetic that spans mixed media painting, photography, film and installation.
WAAU Events:
Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to present Once upon a midnight dreary, a solo exhibition of new works by French-artist Djabril Boukhenaïssi. This show marks the artist first solo presentation in the United States, and the first with the gallery.
WAAU Events:
The fourth edition of Africa Foto Fair is taking place in Grand Bassam and Abidjan, bringing together photographers from more than thirty countries in a wide ranging celebration of contemporary image making.
WAAU Events:
Bringing together works of art, videos, musical pieces and several documents, complexo brasil proposes a journey through the Brazilian culture, while problematising the centuries-old relations between Brazil and Portugal and promoting a dialogue between the two countries.
WAAU Events:
Recursions: a cartography of unfinished grounds centres on the dialogue between the work of Kiluanji Kia Henda and three Angolan artists—Flávio Cardoso, Lilianne Kiame and Raul Jorge Gourgel—, in order to reflect on the promises, failures, and ruins of modernity.
WAAU Features:
Taking place in Luanda, the NESR Art Foundation's residency program is open to all emerging artists from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea - Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé e Príncipe and the selection is made by the foundation's Artistic Committee following an open call for applications.
WAAU Events:
The Warburg Institute presents Black Atlas, a major new exhibition by multidisciplinary artist and founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective Edward George.
WAAU Events:
Our relationship with old family photos and photo albums is very emotional. When we browse through old photos, dear and precious memories come to mind, but sometimes also painful questions.
WAAU Events:
For his fourth consecutive solo presentation at Abu Dhabi Art, Abdus Salaam, with THK Gallery, presents ينْ ُح ُرو ُف ا ْل َع(Hurūf al-ʿAyn), translated as Letters of Essence.
WAAU Events:
For its first participation at Abu Dhabi Art, AFIKARIS proposes a project reuniting three artists — Nasreddine Bennacer, Ange Dakouo, and Ernest Duku — whose works converge in their profound interrogation of societal structures, cultural identity, and the dynamics of human relationships.
WAAU Events:
The Smart Museum of Art presents Theaster Gates's first solo museum exhibition in his hometown of Chicago.
A self-designated “keeper of objects,” the artist Theaster Gates investigates the value of things and their potential to hold layered meanings.
Highlighted event
THE DELUSION combines satire and absurd humour with cooperative gaming and participatory theatre to explore the real-world impacts of societal division.
Highlight interview
Nnena Kalu has won the 2025 Turner Prize, presented last night in a ceremony in Bradford, this year’s U.K. City of Culture.
Art and ideas
in your inbox.
Receive in your email the latest news on African Contemporary Art, notably exhibitions, festivals, institutions, artists, collectors and academia.
