OTOBONG NKANGA

Otobong Nkanga (b. 1974, Kano, Nigeria) is a visual and performance artist based in Antwerp, Belgium. Nkanga studied at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria; the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris; and DasArts, Amsterdam. She has been artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and DAAD in Berlin.

Nkanga is the recipient of the Nasher Prize (2025); the Flemish Cultural Award for Visual Arts, the Peter Weiss Prize, the Sharjah Biennial Award, the Special Mention Award of the 58th Venice Biennale, and the inaugural Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award (all 2019); the Belgian Art Prize (2017); and the Yanghyun Prize (2015).

She has held solo exhibitions at IVAM Centro Julio González, Valencia (2024), SintJanshospitaal Bruges (2023), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2022), Henie Onstad Museum, Oslo (2020), Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2020), Tate St. Ives (2019/2020), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018), Tate Modern (2017), and M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2015).

Nkanga has exhibited in international venues including the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Centre Pompidou, Moderna Museet, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa; and at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), documenta 14 (2017), 31st Bienal de São Paulo, 8th Berlin Biennale (2014), and the Sharjah Biennial (2019, 2013, 2005). In 2017, the artist initiated the Carved to Flow project as part of documenta 14, establishing the Carved to Flow Foundation, an organic farm in Akwa-Ibom, Nigeria, and supporting the Akwa Ibom nonprofit art space in Athens, Greece.