By Peace Udugba -The Daily Torch Media
The exhibition will explore Nigeria’s political history, freedom, migration, memory and identity through more than three decades of the Nigerian artist’s work.
The Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA) at Pan-Atlantic University, in partnership with SMO Contemporary Art, is set to host Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird, a major retrospective exhibition celebrating more than three decades of the Nigerian artist’s work.
The exhibition will run from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027, at YSMA, Pan-Atlantic University, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
Curated by Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, with Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago as associate curator, the exhibition will feature paintings, drawings and sculptures, alongside selected poems, diary entries, photographs and archival materials documenting the intellectual, political and personal experiences that have shaped Okeke-Agulu’s artistic practice.
Titled Freedom Bird, the exhibition examines themes of political freedom, civic responsibility, migration, displacement, memory and belonging through the work of one of Nigeria’s prominent contemporary artists and art scholars.
Exhibition Explores Nigeria’s Political History
According to the organisers, the exhibition offers audiences an opportunity to engage with Okeke-Agulu primarily as an artist, whose studio practice has developed alongside his influential contributions to the study and interpretation of African art.
His artistic journey began amid the political turbulence of military rule in Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s. His works have explored repression, civic life, democratic struggles and the responsibilities of artists and intellectuals in a changing society.
His subsequent migration to the United States introduced further themes of exile, displacement, memory and belonging into his artistic vocabulary.
Through works spanning the late 1980s to the present, Freedom Bird traces the evolution of his artistic expression while examining Nigeria’s postcolonial experience, from military dictatorship and democratic aspirations to civic challenges and the continuing search for opportunities beyond the country’s borders.
Since the early 1990s, Okeke-Agulu’s works have featured in solo, collaborative and group exhibitions across Nigeria, the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia.
These include exhibitions at the National Museum in Lagos, Goethe-Institut Lagos, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, the first Johannesburg Biennale and the Newark Museum, among others.
YSMA Highlights Educational Mission
The choice of YSMA as the exhibition venue reflects the museum’s commitment to connecting art with education, research, critical inquiry and public engagement.
The exhibition brings together artistic practice and scholarship, reflecting Okeke-Agulu’s longstanding contributions to both fields.
An artist, art historian, critic, curator, poet and educator, Okeke-Agulu is the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, where he also directs the Africa World Initiative.
He has taught extensively on modern and contemporary African art and its historiography, curated major international exhibitions, and authored or co-authored influential studies of artists, including El Anatsui, Yusuf Grillo and Obiora Udechukwu.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2022 and served as Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford in 2023.
The organisers said the exhibition would provide students, researchers, artists, educators and members of the public with an opportunity to examine the historical and intellectual questions underpinning his work.
Speaking on the exhibition, the Director of YSMA, Dr Jess Castellote, said the project aligned with the museum’s educational philosophy.
“YSMA was conceived as a museum where art is not simply seen, but studied, questioned and understood,” Castellote said.
He noted that Okeke-Agulu’s artistic practice and intellectual contributions were closely connected to important conversations about Nigerian and African art.
According to him, hosting Freedom Bird would allow the museum to bring the artist, his works and the historical circumstances that shaped them into conversation with students, researchers and the wider public.
He added that the exhibition demonstrated the contribution an educational museum could make to Nigeria’s cultural life.
Curator Describes Exhibition as Homecoming
The exhibition also marks a reunion between YSMA and its curator, Onwuegbucha, who was a guest curator for the museum’s inaugural exhibitions in 2019.
Onwuegbucha is currently an Assistant Professor of African and Caribbean Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Cambridge.
His academic and curatorial work has focused extensively on African modern and contemporary art, including the Nsukka School, which formed the subject of his doctoral research at Princeton University.
He has also curated and co-curated exhibitions in Nigeria, Europe and the United States, including Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Explaining the significance of Freedom Bird, Onwuegbucha said the exhibition emerged from his sustained engagement with Okeke-Agulu’s work and the historical questions surrounding artists shaped by the Nsukka School and Nigeria’s turbulent postcolonial history.
He said the exhibition would offer audiences an opportunity to encounter Okeke-Agulu through his artistic work, rather than solely through his celebrated contributions to art scholarship.
Onwuegbucha added that presenting the exhibition at YSMA was particularly meaningful because of the museum’s commitment to research, education and public discourse.
He also described the exhibition as a homecoming for the artist.
SMO Contemporary Art Emphasises Freedom and Social Justice
SMO Contemporary Art, the exhibition’s co-presenter, brings experience in curating and presenting modern and contemporary African art to local and international audiences, with an emphasis on expanding access to art.
The organisation has contributed to the development of institutional art collections and, between 2021 and 2024, conserved and curated more than 80 large-scale modernist artworks at the refurbished National Theatre.
It also created an archive of important historical objects dating back to FESTAC ’77.
Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago, founder and creative director of SMO Contemporary Art, said the exhibition was designed to encourage deeper reflection on individual and collective responsibility for building a more equitable society.
She said Okeke-Agulu’s decades-long journey as an artist and social critic was particularly relevant to contemporary discussions about leadership, civic responsibility, freedom and social justice.
Mbanefo-Obiago added that the historical artworks documenting Nigeria’s political experiences would provide important context for audiences examining the country’s identity, history and future.
She described Freedom Bird as a significant contemporary art exhibition for Nigeria.
Public Programme to Accompany Exhibition
The exhibition is supported by several sponsors, including TEMPLARS, a leading African law firm.
In addition to the artworks, a specially curated public programme will feature conversations on Nigeria’s political and cultural history and the role of artists as witnesses to, and participants in, public life.
The organisers said the programme would provide further opportunities for audiences to explore the relationship between art, history, politics and society.
Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird will be open to the public at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027.
Tags: Chika Okeke-Agulu, Freedom Bird, YSMA, SMO Contemporary Art, Nigerian Art, African Contemporary Art, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos
