ART X Lagos Announces Theme for its 11th Edition
ART X Lagos, West Africa’s leading international art fair, returns from 5–8 November 2026 at Federal Palace, Lagos for its 11th edition, opening a new chapter following 10X, its landmark tenth-anniversary fair.
Founded by Tokini Peterside-Schwebig in 2016, over the past decade, the fair has grown into a global destination for contemporary culture from Africa and its diaspora, drawing artists and galleries from over 70 countries and participants from 170 nations worldwide.
ART X Lagos now enters its second decade with the theme — “A New Chapter, A New Decade”, turning to the artists, architects, educators and thinkers who shaped modernism in Nigeria for inspiration.
At a time when foreign ideas were often valued above local histories and traditions, these cultural pioneers returned to the knowledge and aesthetic intelligence held within their own histories — not as a retreat into the past, but as a means of reinterpreting it into new forms that spoke powerfully to their present. This same question sits at the heart of ART X Lagos 2026: “How do we draw on the histories that shape us and use them to help move us forward?”
The 2026 programme explores this question through acts of bridging: between past and present, tradition and contemporary practice, local knowledge and international exchange, established voices and those still emerging into view.
Main Image: Portrait of Ladi Kwali decorating a pot: William Alfred Ismay (W. A. Ismay). Photograph of Ladi Kwali at a pottery demonstration in England. 1970s. York Museums Trust. The W. A. Ismay Bequest, 2001. Photo: W. A. Ismay, © York Museums Trust