Tajudeen Sowole writes:
Artists’ worries over the shrinking art exhibition spaces in Lagos may soon be over, so suggest an increase in new outlets during 2013.
From Peju Alatise’s 'Wrapture: A Story of Cloths' at Art Twenty One
For about a decade, Nigerian artists were becoming more aggressive in contents output of their art, but relocation and renovation of some of the art galleries and other art event spaces, ironically, shrunk the art scene. In fact, within a spate of few years, major venues such as the French Cultural Centre, located on Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, Nimbus Gallery, Falomo, Didi Museum, Victoria Island, and Goethe Institute, on Ozumba Mbadiwe were lost.
And when each of these venues returned, the art exhibition spaces they provided had shrunk in sizes. Return of Nimbus, Goethe Institut and Didi Museum were typical examples of how visual arts had lost huge space to movement and renovations.
However, in 2013, about six new spaces emerged, each, quite interesting came with distinct focus. for example, Art Twenty One, located inside the complex of Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island came with a focus on making Lagos a art hub in Africa. Also, design items shop, Temple Muse, Victoria Island brought art into non-traditional art gallery space; Goethe Institut’s gallery at Federal Government Press Building on Broad, Street, Lagos Island, opened with a an all inclusive art activities; the youngest of them, Red Door Gallery, Bishop Oluwole, Victoria Island hoped to add professionalism to artist-gallery relationship...[continue reading]
