ACCESS BANK ART X PRIZE 2021: MEET THE Jurors and CURATOR
Words by The ART X Editorial Team
March 2021
We are pleased to introduce to you the jurors for the 2021 Access Bank ART X Prize. They are ruby onyinyechi amanze, artist and curator; Dexter Wimberly, Director, Gasworks & Triangle Network; Marie-Ann Yemsi, art consultant and curator; Ugoma Adegoke, gallerist and curator; Alessio Antoniolli, curator; and Ndidi Dike, visual artist. This year’s Prize is curated by Wura Natasha-Ogunji, artist and curator.
ruby onyinyechi amanze creates drawings on paper. Using a non-linear narrative, she explores architecture, dance (such as the movement language of Gaga), play, and design.
amanze has exhibited at The Drawing Center, Queens Museum, The Jewish Museum and The Studio Museum in Harlem. She earned a B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 2012-13, amanze was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship in Drawing to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Born in Port-Harcourt, amanze lives and works between Philadelphia and New York.
amanze has exhibited at The Drawing Center, Queens Museum, The Jewish Museum and The Studio Museum in Harlem. She earned a B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 2012-13, amanze was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship in Drawing to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Born in Port-Harcourt, amanze lives and works between Philadelphia and New York.
Dexter Wimberly is an American curator, based in Japan, who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world including A Fast, Moving Sky at The Third Line in Dubai, UAE; Derrick Adams: Sanctuary at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; Kenneth Victor Young: Continuum at American University Museum in Washington, DC; Coffee, Rhum, Sugar & Gold: A Postcolonial Paradox at The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, CA; and Vision & Spirit: African American Art | Works From The Bank Of America Collection at The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, NC. Wimberly’s exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum, and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Kinkade Family Foundation. He is the co-founder of the financial literacy platforms Art World Conference and Art World Learning. Wimberly is also a Senior Critic at the New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan.
Marie-Ann Yemsi is an independent curator and contemporary art consultant. A graduate in political science, she is the founder and director of Agent Créatif(s), a Paris-based agency, which has developed renowned expertise in cultural production and art consulting with a focus on contemporary artists from Africa and its Diaspora. Artistic Director of the 11th edition of the Rencontres de Bamako - African Biennale of Photography in 2017, she has been the curator at several international exhibitions for public or private institutions, in France and abroad. She is the guest curator of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris for a group show scheduled for the fall of 2021.
Ugoma Adegoke is an entrepreneur and trained financial analyst with a career spanning several sectors including hospitality, film, fashion and design, and the arts.
Adegoke is the gallerist and curator of BLOOM Art, a portfolio gallery and private art salon set in the heart of Victoria Island. In her capacity as founding director and chief curator at BLOOM Art, Adegoke has curated and produced art exhibitions with exciting and accomplished modern and contemporary artists including Muraina Oyelami, Tam Fiofori, Marcia Kure, Uchay Joel Chima, Lemi Ghariokwu, Gbenga Offo, Victor Ehikhamenor, Angela Isiuwe, Rom Isichei, Olu Ajayi and Tega Akpokona to name a few.
In the space of seven short years, Ugoma has become a sought-after counselor for players in Nigeria’s secondary art market on account of her eye for good art, ability to spot fresh trends, and what many consider a firm handle on the nexus between art and finance.
Adegoke has curated numerous art and culture projects for corporates and individuals, some of whom include Constant Capital, First Bank, Microsoft, Stanbic IBTC, Rand Merchant Bank, Helios Investment Partners, Heritage Bank, McKinsey & Coronation Bank.
In February 2021, despite the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic and sluggish global economy Ugoma and Bloom Art originated, advised, and executed the biggest private secondary market art sale and placement yet in Nigeria; the sale of an early 1960s painting by Ben Enwonwu MBE, valued at approximately $1,000,000, thus making her the first Nigerian curator and dealer to successfully sell and place a modern art piece of such repute and value - a feat only previously achieved by international auction houses.
Adegoke is the gallerist and curator of BLOOM Art, a portfolio gallery and private art salon set in the heart of Victoria Island. In her capacity as founding director and chief curator at BLOOM Art, Adegoke has curated and produced art exhibitions with exciting and accomplished modern and contemporary artists including Muraina Oyelami, Tam Fiofori, Marcia Kure, Uchay Joel Chima, Lemi Ghariokwu, Gbenga Offo, Victor Ehikhamenor, Angela Isiuwe, Rom Isichei, Olu Ajayi and Tega Akpokona to name a few.
In the space of seven short years, Ugoma has become a sought-after counselor for players in Nigeria’s secondary art market on account of her eye for good art, ability to spot fresh trends, and what many consider a firm handle on the nexus between art and finance.
Adegoke has curated numerous art and culture projects for corporates and individuals, some of whom include Constant Capital, First Bank, Microsoft, Stanbic IBTC, Rand Merchant Bank, Helios Investment Partners, Heritage Bank, McKinsey & Coronation Bank.
In February 2021, despite the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic and sluggish global economy Ugoma and Bloom Art originated, advised, and executed the biggest private secondary market art sale and placement yet in Nigeria; the sale of an early 1960s painting by Ben Enwonwu MBE, valued at approximately $1,000,000, thus making her the first Nigerian curator and dealer to successfully sell and place a modern art piece of such repute and value - a feat only previously achieved by international auction houses.
Alessio Antoniolli is the Director of Gasworks, London, where he leads a program of artists’ residencies, exhibitions, and educational projects, working primarily with emerging UK and international artists. Alessio is also the Director of Triangle Network, a global network of artists and art organisations where he works with partners to support artists’ mobility, research, and training through exhibitions, residencies, and artists’ workshops. He has lectured widely and has been on many jury panels including the Turner Prize 2019.
Ndidi Dike is a British Nigerian sculptor and multidisciplinary artist born in London. She spent her early years in England. Dike studied painting, majoring in mixed media art at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where she obtained a BA degree in 1984. She works in a plethora of media including installation, sculpture, researching archives, mixed media painting, and more recently lens-based media. She has established herself as one of the leading contemporary artists working on the continent, with well over a decade of transgressive sculptural practice. Her professional methodology is to locate the appropriate artistic strategy that best suits the subject of contemplation at that moment. This results in rigorous and sustained periods of research, which have, to date, resulted in thematic explorations including pre and post-colonial history of the enslaved, consumerism, globalization, urbanism, Nigerian visual culture, cross border/country migration, multiculturalism, post/neo-colonial studies, the natural resource extractive industries, and contemporary politics. She runs a professional studio in Lagos and has exhibited widely in both Lagos and internationally.
Recent solo and group international exhibitions include Commodities of Consumption and sites of extraction in the Global South, installation. Alliance Francaise/ Mike Adenuga Centre. Lagos, Nigeria 2021; Prince/sses Of The City.Palais de Tokyo .2019 Lagos Biennial, Independence Building Lagos Island 2019: Exafrica exhibition (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil) 2017-2018, Belo Horizonte Brasil; Vanishing Voices special project 11th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre Brazil.2018; Dakart Biennale 2018 , Feedback:Art,Africa and the 1980s (Iwalewahaus Bayreuth, Germany) 2018; In The Guise of Resource Control (Villa Vasslieff, Paris) 2017; Constellations Floating Space, Motion and Remembrance (Iwalewahaus Bayreuth, Germany) 2017.
Recent solo and group international exhibitions include Commodities of Consumption and sites of extraction in the Global South, installation. Alliance Francaise/ Mike Adenuga Centre. Lagos, Nigeria 2021; Prince/sses Of The City.Palais de Tokyo .2019 Lagos Biennial, Independence Building Lagos Island 2019: Exafrica exhibition (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil) 2017-2018, Belo Horizonte Brasil; Vanishing Voices special project 11th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre Brazil.2018; Dakart Biennale 2018 , Feedback:Art,Africa and the 1980s (Iwalewahaus Bayreuth, Germany) 2018; In The Guise of Resource Control (Villa Vasslieff, Paris) 2017; Constellations Floating Space, Motion and Remembrance (Iwalewahaus Bayreuth, Germany) 2017.
Wura-Natasha Ogunji is a visual artist and performer. Her works include drawings hand-stitched into tracing paper, videos and public performances. Her work is deeply inspired by the daily interactions and frequencies that occur in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, from the epic to the intimate. Ogunji’s performances explore the presence of women in public space; these often include investigations of labour, leisure, freedom and frivolity. Recent exhibitions include the Stellenbosch Triennial’s Tomorrow There Will Be More of Us; Alpha Crucis at Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; and A stranger’s soul is a deep well at Fridman Gallery, New York. She was an Artist-Curator for the 33 rd São Paulo Bienal where her large-scale performance Days of Being Free premiered. She has also exhibited at the inaugural Lagos Biennial; Kochi-Muziris Biennale; 1:54, London & New York; Seattle Art Museum; Brooklyn Art Museum; and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. Ogunji is a recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and has received grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation; The Dallas Museum of Art; and the Idea Fund. She has a BA from Stanford University [1992, Anthropology] and an MFA from San Jose State University [1998, Photography]. She currently resides in Lagos where she is founder/curator of the experimental art space The Treehouse.
The jurors will screen applications submitted and select 5 finalists who will partake in The Finalist Forum, a two-day series of workshops designed to support artists in their creative practice. The workshops will be facilitated by a dynamic group of Nigerian creatives including writer Maryam Kazeem, artist Kelani Abass and curator and artist Jumoke Sanwo and artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji, this year’s Access Bank ART X Prize curator. The winner of the Access Bank ART X Prize 2021 will be announced shortly thereafter.
The jurors will screen applications submitted and select 5 finalists who will partake in The Finalist Forum, a two-day series of workshops designed to support artists in their creative practice. The workshops will be facilitated by a dynamic group of Nigerian creatives including writer Maryam Kazeem, artist Kelani Abass and curator and artist Jumoke Sanwo and artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji, this year’s Access Bank ART X Prize curator. The winner of the Access Bank ART X Prize 2021 will be announced shortly thereafter.
ART X Collective 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 Bank and Gasworks. Learn more here.