The curatorial practices and research in contemporary and modern African art have seen a notable improvement in recent years. Through the democratization of the art market and fostering a more collaborative point of view, curators are shaping and influencing the future of contemporary African art. Here is a list of five curators working across diverse disciplines as they make sense of the art scene across Africa.
Jumoke Sanwo
Jumoke Sanwo is a Lagos-based curator and storyteller. Her curatorial and artistic practice focuses on the intersection of technology, innovation, materiality, and art. She is the founder of Revolving Art Incubator Lagos. She will be curating this year’s Access Art X Prize, just as she did last year. With a background in diverse field experiences and a keen understanding of the connections between art, culture, and society, Sanwo questions public spaces and challenges norms aiming for inclusive urban development. Her artistic, curatorial, and cultural work has received international recognition, appearing in galleries, museums, and festivals in different countries across the world. Notable venues include the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the New Museum in New York; the 56th Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy; the International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Brunei Gallery in London; Koppel Project Hive in London; and the Revolving Art Incubator in Lagos, among others.
Joseph Awuah-Darko
Joseph Awuah-Darko is a curator and artist. He is the founder and director of the Noldor Artist Residency in Accra, Ghana, which is currently part of the Institute Museum of Ghana. His goal is to expand the visibility and global reach of contemporary art created throughout Africa and the African diaspora. Awuah-Darko’s artistic practice investigates identity and how we are constrained by certain social structures, as well as our perception of ourselves. He combines contemporary ideas with traditional techniques, as seen in his work with the cathartic Ghanaian kente weaving method of Ashanti origin, which has been practiced for decades. Awuah-Darko’s vibrant tapestries frequently portray Afro-futuristic creature-like ‘sentinels,’ a reoccurring element in his work.
Larry Osei-Mensah
Larry Ossei-Mensah is a curator, collector, and cultural critic of Ghanaian and American descent. He co-founded ARTNOIR, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote racial equity in the art world by focusing on creatives, curators, collectors, and communities of color. He has curated exhibitions and programs for artists such as Firelei Baez, Steve McQueen, Catherine Opie, Nick Cave, Guadalupe Maravilla, Ebony G. Patterson, Judy Chicago, and Stanley Whitney, to name a few. He’s also worked on Web3-related projects with artists including Derrick Adams x Jay-Z, Marco Brambilla, and Mikael Owunna.
Aindrea Emelife
Aindrea Emelife is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian who specializes in modern and contemporary art. Her work focuses on issues related to transnationalism, the politics of representation, and African colonial and decolonial histories. This year, she was appointed as the curator of The Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Benin City, a major museum site in Nigeria. She has produced highly acclaimed exhibitions for museums, galleries, and private collections internationally. Her recent exhibitions include ‘Black Venus,’ at Somerset House and ‘Know Who We Are,’ at Christie’s. Emelife will be curating Nigeria’s pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
Anelisa Mangcu
Based in Cape Town, Anelisa Mangcu is an interdisciplinary art practitioner and curator. Her work focuses on creating safe spaces for the exploration and celebration of intersectional African identities, as well as challenging established paradigms. She has curated booths for FNB Art Joburg, Investec Cape Town Art Fair, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (New York), and Latitudes Art Fair. She founded Under The Aegis, a curatorial and art advisory facilitating connections between artists, galleries, collectors, and institutional collections from the African continent and the diaspora. Mangcu currently serves on the advisory board of Art School Africa to focus on decentralizing and decolonizing the existing educational structures within the arts in South Africa. She was recently appointed as the Chief Curator of the Stellenbosch Outdoor Photography Exhibition.
Iyanuoluwa Adenle is a Nigerian art writer, essayist, and poet based in Lagos. She is currently the head writer at Omenai. Adenle has contributed to a number of art publications, including Tender Photo, Art News Africa, Pavillon 54, and Omenai.
