ART X Lagos announces its tenth anniversary edition, taking place from 6 – 9 November 2025. Held under the theme Imagining Otherwise, No Matter The Tide and helmed by Founder and Director Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, ART X Lagos will spotlight international and local galleries alongside special commissions.
The Fair has confirmed special projects and commissions by artists including J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Nengi Omuku and Temitayo Ogunbiyi, with more to be announced. Through bold cultural programming - spanning music, film, design, literature and art - ART X Lagos has become a cornerstone of the African art scene; evolving beyond a traditional art fair and welcoming artists and galleries from over 70 countries, since it first launched in 2016.
The tenth anniversary theme addresses how - when we imagine Lagos’ future, and life more broadly in urban, global centres - human imagination can assist us in our attempt to create healthy, spatialities. Imagining Otherwise, No Matter The Tide considers the ways that we individually and collectively have agency to act, to imagine and cultivate our shared place in the world.
The special projects, curated by Missla Libsekal, ART X Lagos’ Curator-at-Large, will offer an international platform to current and past artists:
J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere (1930- 2014) was an artist and photographer best known for his landmark, critically acclaimed series, Hairstyles, a visual catalogue of Nigerian hairstyle traditions that anchors the sculptural artistry and cultural significance of hair as a form of identity, heritage, and communication. With Ojeikere's photographic artworks collected by prestigious international institutions and private collections, an exhibition at ART X Lagos will bring together previously unseen works for a significant exhibition spotlighting his expansive career.
Nengi Omuku will exhibit alongside Temitayo Ogunbiyi in a unique exhibition at ART X Lagos. Omuku, a Nigerian artist working with sanyan, a traditional Yoruba textile, creates immersive, psychologically charged paintings that explore ideas of refuge, identity, and collective experience. Ogunbiyi’s site-specific installations meanwhile transform notions of urban space into sites of collective memory, sensory engagement, and imaginative reconfiguration, exploring the relationship between the environment, line, and representation.
In addition to these special exhibitions, this year’s fair will see the return of The Library—a dedicated space for literature—alongside ART X Live!, its innovative music platform; ART X Cinema, a showcase dedicated to artistically-minded independent African filmmaking; and ART X Talks, which features exceptional African and diasporic talent, and has previously included keynote speakers such as El Anatsui, Njideka Akunyili-Crosby, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Wangechi Mutu, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Ibrahim Mahama and more.
Demonstrating its commitment to empowering the next generation of creative talent - and in celebration of its tenth edition - ART X Lagos has partnered with the Embassy of France in Nigeria and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, to launch Resonance, an annual residency program for visual artists, designers and curators living and working in Nigeria. The Fair will also feature the fifth edition of Art Across Borders which offers an unparalleled cultural exchange opportunity to dynamic pan-African artists under the age of 50, who represent the innovative spirit that defines contemporary African art.
Since its launch in 2016, ART X Lagos has played a pivotal role in amplifying the voices of African artists, curators, and galleries—both emerging and established. By extending an open invitation to cultural collaborators to programme around the fair, ART X Lagos sparked the emergence of the art week and season in Nigeria - an annual highlight of the country’s art scene, thus also positioning Lagos as a leading hub on the global cultural map.
Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, Founder and Director of ART X Lagos, comments: “Our tenth edition marks an important landmark for ART X Lagos and offers a unique chance to reflect on how the Nigerian art scene has grown and changed over the past ten years since we started. We began in 2016, with a bold vision to champion how African creativity is seen, celebrated, and valued. Over the past ten years, that vision has grown into a movement; ART X Lagos has connected hundreds of artists from over 70 countries to a global audience and welcomed over 700,000 visitors from 170 countries, both in person and online. Through our platforms, we’ve reimagined what it means to advocate for the African narrative on the global stage. The theme this year is focused on possibilities; looking at the role that community will play in the future of Lagos and cities like it around the world. We’re very excited to also share our special programming that will platform African artists on a global stage and showcase their work in previously unseen ways.”
Main Image: J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, Nigerian Culture series, Portrait of Maiden Dancers, 1974