ACCESS ART X PRIZE 2022: MEET THE Jurors and CURATOR
Words by The ART X Editorial Team
March 2021
The Access ART X Prize has opened for its 2022/3 edition. We are pleased to introduce to you our 2022 jurors and curator. They are Alessio Antoniolli, Director, Gasworks & Triangle Network; Victor Ehikhamenor, artist and writer; Bonaventure Ndikung, curator and author; Gabi Ngcobo, artist and curatorial director; Maria Varnava, Founder of Tiwani Contemporary; and Prof Peju Layiwola, artist and art historian. Jumoke Sanwo, artist and cultural producer, is this year’s Prize curator.
Alessio Antoniolli is the Director of Gasworks, London, where he leads a programme of exhibitions, international residencies and participatory events. He is also the Director of Triangle Network, a worldwide network of visual art organisations that work together to create artists’ exchanges and to share knowledge with each other. In 2022, he was appointed curator at Fondazione Memmo, Italy, where he programmes one exhibition each year, starting with a solo presentation by Wai Kin Sin, in 2023. He has lectured widely and has been part of many juries including the UK’s Turner Prize in 2019.
Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian multimedia artist, photographer and writer. He is recognized for his prolific abstract, symbolic and politically/historically motivated works. A 2020 National Artist in Residence at the Neon Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada, Ehikhamenor is also a 2016 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. He has held several solo exhibitions and his works have been included in numerous group exhibitions and biennales, including The 57th Venice Biennale as part of the Nigerian Pavilion (2017), the 5th Mediations Biennale in Poznan, Poland (2016), The 12th Dak’art Biennale in Dakar, Senegal (2016), Biennale Jogja XIII, Indonesia (2015).
As a writer, he has published fiction and critical essays in academic journals, magazines and newspapers worldwide including New York Times, Guernica Magazine, BBC, CNN Online, and Washington Post, among others.
Ehikhamenor is the founder of Angels and Muse, a thought laboratory dedicated to promoting and developing contemporary African art and literature in Lagos, Nigeria.
As a writer, he has published fiction and critical essays in academic journals, magazines and newspapers worldwide including New York Times, Guernica Magazine, BBC, CNN Online, and Washington Post, among others.
Ehikhamenor is the founder of Angels and Muse, a thought laboratory dedicated to promoting and developing contemporary African art and literature in Lagos, Nigeria.
Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung is a curator, author, and biotechnologist. He is the founder and artistic director of SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin and the artistic director of Sonsbeek 20–24. He is also the artistic director of the 13th Bamako Encounters, and a professor at the Spatial Strategies MA program, Weissensee Academy of Art, Berlin.
Gabi Ngcobo is an artist, educator and Curatorial Director of the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP). Since the early 2000s, Ngcobo has been engaged in collaborative artistic, curatorial, and educational projects in South Africa and on an international scope. Recent curatorial projects include The Show is Over (2022) at the South London Gallery, The ‘t’ is Silent (2022) at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, SCENORAMA (2022), Handle with Care (2021) both at Javett-UP, Mating Birds Vol.2 at the KZNSA Gallery, Durban (2019). In 2018 Ngcobo curatorially directed the 10th Berlin Biennale titled We don’t need another hero and was one of the co-curators of the 32nd Sao Paulo Bienal titled Incenteza Viva (2016). She is a founding member of the Johannesburg based collaborative platforms NGO – Nothing Gets Organised (since 2016) and the Center for Historical Reenactments (2010–14).
Ngcobo’s writings have been published in various publications including Shooting Down Babylon: The Tracey Rose Retrospective at Zeitz MoCCA, Cape Town, (2022) Uneven Bodies, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Aotearoa New Zealand (2021), The Stronger We Become the catalogue of the South African Pavillion, Venice (2019), We Are Many: Art, the Political and Multiple Truths and Texte Zur Kunst September 2017.
Ngcobo’s writings have been published in various publications including Shooting Down Babylon: The Tracey Rose Retrospective at Zeitz MoCCA, Cape Town, (2022) Uneven Bodies, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Aotearoa New Zealand (2021), The Stronger We Become the catalogue of the South African Pavillion, Venice (2019), We Are Many: Art, the Political and Multiple Truths and Texte Zur Kunst September 2017.
Peju Layiwola is an artist and art historian who combines research with an active artistic practice. Her research, writing and artistic engagements, have consistently engaged themes of artefact pillage, restitution, history, memory. She has published several articles both locally and internationally, some of which appear in notable journals and books.
Some of her solo exhibitions include Benin 1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question (2010); Whose Centenary? (2014); Return (2018) and Indigo Reimagined (2019), RESIST! The Art of Resistance, and I Miss You, both exhibitions at the Rautenstrauch Joest Museum, Koln, Germany (2021-22). She has received several awards and grants some of which include the Lagos Studies Association Distinguished Scholar’s Award, 2021; Tyson Scholar, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2019; Terra Foundation for American Art Grant, 2018 and Distinguished Researcher’s Award, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, 2007 to mention a few. She is also an alumnus of the CAA-Getty International Program, participating in 2013 (Los Angeles), 2018 (Los Angeles), and 2020 (Chicago).
Layiwola served as visiting professor and scholar at the University of Arkansas (2019-2020) and has been on several international residencies including the Residency for Artist and Writers (RAW), Arts of Africa and the Global South Research Programme, South Africa 2018; Goethe Institut Grantee, Artist-in-Residence, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany, 2017 and the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She is a Professor of Art history, University of Lagos; President of the Art Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), USA; a life member of the Lagos Studies Association and a member of the College Arts Association, USA. Layiwola runs two art-led initiatives; a non-profit, the Women and Youth Art Foundation and MasterArtClasses in Lagos. Her work has impacted several communities and has been largely supported by the US State Department in 2011 through the Hilary Clinton SmARTpower project, the US Lagos Consulate grant (2017) and US Exchange Alumni Award in 2018. She is listed in Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes, Phaidon Press, London, 2014 and the more recent Phaidon publication, African Artists From 1882 to now (2021).
Some of her solo exhibitions include Benin 1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question (2010); Whose Centenary? (2014); Return (2018) and Indigo Reimagined (2019), RESIST! The Art of Resistance, and I Miss You, both exhibitions at the Rautenstrauch Joest Museum, Koln, Germany (2021-22). She has received several awards and grants some of which include the Lagos Studies Association Distinguished Scholar’s Award, 2021; Tyson Scholar, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2019; Terra Foundation for American Art Grant, 2018 and Distinguished Researcher’s Award, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, 2007 to mention a few. She is also an alumnus of the CAA-Getty International Program, participating in 2013 (Los Angeles), 2018 (Los Angeles), and 2020 (Chicago).
Layiwola served as visiting professor and scholar at the University of Arkansas (2019-2020) and has been on several international residencies including the Residency for Artist and Writers (RAW), Arts of Africa and the Global South Research Programme, South Africa 2018; Goethe Institut Grantee, Artist-in-Residence, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany, 2017 and the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She is a Professor of Art history, University of Lagos; President of the Art Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), USA; a life member of the Lagos Studies Association and a member of the College Arts Association, USA. Layiwola runs two art-led initiatives; a non-profit, the Women and Youth Art Foundation and MasterArtClasses in Lagos. Her work has impacted several communities and has been largely supported by the US State Department in 2011 through the Hilary Clinton SmARTpower project, the US Lagos Consulate grant (2017) and US Exchange Alumni Award in 2018. She is listed in Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes, Phaidon Press, London, 2014 and the more recent Phaidon publication, African Artists From 1882 to now (2021).
Founded in London in 2011 by Maria Varnava, Tiwani Contemporary exhibits and represents 18 contemporary artists focusingon Africa and its international diaspora from the United States to Zimbabwe. In 2021, the gallery celebrated its 10th anniversary. In February 2022, the gallery opened its second space after London, UK in Lagos, Nigeria. Raised in Nigeria and based in London, the gallerist holds an MA in African Studies from SOAS in London.
Her recent profiles include Financial Times: All eyes on Lagos: an artistic homecoming and Frieze: The Power of the Pan-African Artistic.
Her recent profiles include Financial Times: All eyes on Lagos: an artistic homecoming and Frieze: The Power of the Pan-African Artistic.
Jumoke Sanwo is a 2D/3D lens-based storyteller, placemaker and cultural producer. Her works include photographs, video art and virtual reality film. She explores the complexities of postcolonial realism, on bodily, spatial, and temporal imaginaries in the city of Lagos, working through embodied and spatial memory to counter binary positions.
Her artistic, curatorial and cultural productions have been showcased at galleries, museums, and festivals in many regions across the world; including at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the New Museum, New York; the 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), Amsterdam, Netherlands; Brunei Gallery, London; Koppel Project Hive, London; and the Revolving Art Incubator, Lagos, amongst many others. She lives and works out of Lagos, Nigeria.
Her artistic, curatorial and cultural productions have been showcased at galleries, museums, and festivals in many regions across the world; including at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the New Museum, New York; the 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), Amsterdam, Netherlands; Brunei Gallery, London; Koppel Project Hive, London; and the Revolving Art Incubator, Lagos, amongst many others. She lives and works out of Lagos, Nigeria.
Ten finalists, five Nigerian applicants and five applicants from Africa /The Diaspora will then be selected by the jurors. The winners of the Access ART X Prize 2022 will be announced thereafter.
ART X believes that supporting emerging talent at this pivotal stage in their careers will ensure the continued growth of the visual art sector in Nigeria, and are proud to partner with Access Corporation, the parent company of Access Bank, Gasworks, and Yinka Shonibare’s GAS Foundation. Learn more here.
ART X believes that supporting emerging talent at this pivotal stage in their careers will ensure the continued growth of the visual art sector in Nigeria, and are proud to partner with Access Corporation, the parent company of Access Bank, Gasworks, and Yinka Shonibare’s GAS Foundation. Learn more here.