Who Will Gather Under the Baobab Tree at Art X Lagos 2022?

The fair is returning to the Nigerian capital with its largest number of exhibitors to date.

Art X Lagos will host 31 galleries at the Federal Palace on Victoria Island from 4 to 6 November.

New participants include local galleries such as Affinity Art Gallery, Art Pantheon and Alexis Galleries, alongside galleries from other parts of Africa such as THK Gallery (Cape Town), Selebe Yoon (Dakar) and African Arty (Casablanca).

Exhibitors are also coming from farther afield, including Madrid gallery Sabrina Amrani who will present works by Portuguese-Angolan diaspora filmmaker Mónica de Miranda, Benin photographer Ishola Akpo, and Paris and Malagasy mixed-media artist Joël Andrianomearisoa.

Presenting for the first time at the fair, Amrani said 'we are sure we will strengthen our ties with the local scene and further our artists' visibility in the region.'

Luxembourg and Dubai-based Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery will also join for the first time, along with French galleries Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, and AFIKARIS. The latter also took part in 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London earlier this month, along with several other galleries now travelling to Lagos.

Explaining the draw of Lagos for participating galleries, the fair's founder Tokini Peterside-Schwebig said, 'the collector base in Nigeria is growing very rapidly, as is the number of international collectors and patrons who fly into Lagos each year to experience our fair.'

This coming together is captured in the theme of this year's fair, 'Who Will Gather Under the Baobab Tree?'

Commonly known as the tree of life, the Baobab traditionally served as a gathering place for communities in the African savannah. The trees can live for up to 5,000 years in harsh, arid climates, and are said to provide shelter, nutrition, and knowledge to all kinds of life forms.

'Our invitation to our audiences this year is to gather with us, to [engage in] dialogue and contemplate Africa's past, the continent's centuries-old wisdoms, histories, philosophies, and more,' said Peterside-Schwebig.

The fair, she said, will 'navigate and grapple with the vast challenges being experienced across Nigeria, Africa and the world currently' while also facing the future.

In addition to gallery presentations, Art X Lagos will present a series of special projects in and around the Palace.

These include an artificial intelligence installation by Senegalese artist Linda Dounia that contemplates the impacts of climate change, and a work by Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor that uses bronze and rosary beads to evoke artefacts from the Benin Kingdom. —[O]