By Arts & Culture Desk I Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026
LAGOS, Nigeria -To global audiences, Chika Okeke-Agulu is widely celebrated as a formidable voice in African art historiography. As the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, Fellow of the British Academy, and former Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, his critical essays, curatorial projects, and academic volumes have fundamentally shaped how modern and contemporary African art is documented and understood.
Yet long before the global lectures and scholarly monographs, Okeke-Agulu was an artist working at the easel amidst the socio-political upheaval of 1980s and 1990s Nigeria.
From November 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027, the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA) at Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, in collaboration with SMO Contemporary Art, will present Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird. The major retrospective survey brings the focus back to where it began: his three-decade-long studio practice.
Curated by Dr. Iheanyi Onwuegbucha (Assistant Professor at the University of Cambridge) with Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago as Associate Curator, Freedom Bird marks a historic milestone—it is the very first solo exhibition dedicated to a single artist in YSMA’s history.
Art as Historical Testimony
The timing of Freedom Bird could not be more poignant. Arriving as Nigeria prepares for an upcoming election year, the exhibition confronts questions of governance, leadership, civic fracture, and democratic aspirations through a contemporary lens.
Okeke-Agulu’s creative practice was forged under the shadow of military rule, a period defined by civic tension, political repression, and intellectual resistance. His subsequent migration to the United States introduced nuanced dimensions of exile, displacement, memory, and foreign belonging.
The exhibition takes its title from a central motif in the artist’s visual and poetic repertoire. Freedom Bird frames liberation not as a static achievement, but as an ongoing negotiation fought through political struggle, personal reflection, and artistic voice.
Rather than presenting isolated art objects, the survey integrates paintings, drawings, and sculptures with Okeke-Agulu’s personal poems, diary entries, archival photographs, and working notes. This multidisciplinary layout invites viewers into the intellectual and emotional terrain that sustained his art across thirty years.
A Homecoming of Practice and Inquiry
For curator Dr. Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, the exhibition serves as a vital correction to how Okeke-Agulu’s career has often been viewed.
”For an artist who has played no small role in producing exhibition and scholarship on other artists of the Nsukka school, while excluding himself, the exhibition allows us to encounter Okeke-Agulu not only through the lens of his celebrated scholarship, but through his art—because he is first an artist before becoming a scholar,” Onwuegbucha noted.
“Presenting this exhibition at YSMA is particularly important to me not only because of the museum’s commitment to connecting art with research, education and public discourse, but because it is a homecoming for the artist.”
This synthesis of studio production and academic inquiry aligns with YSMA’s identity as an educational museum.
”YSMA was conceived as a museum where art is not simply seen, but studied, questioned and understood,” explained Dr. Jess Castellote, Director of YSMA.
“Freedom Bird embodies that philosophy in an exceptional way because Chika Okeke-Agulu’s artistic practice and intellectual work are inseparable from some of the most important conversations about Nigerian and African art today.”
Civic Responsibility and Public Discourse
Co-presented by SMO Contemporary Art—an international platform known for curating art for social change and preserving West African modernist heritage—the showcase highlights the role of the artist as both witness and civic agent.
Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago, Founder and Creative Director of SMO Contemporary Art, emphasized the exhibition’s contemporary resonance:
”We consider Freedom Bird a pivotal exhibition to challenge us to think more deeply about our individual and collective responsibility towards building a more equitable world, touching on issues such as nation building, freedom and social justice.
“Chika Okeke-Agulu’s forty-year journey as artist and social critic is especially timely when we grapple with questions about leadership, followership and civic responsibility… Freedom Bird is probably one of the most important contemporary art showcases held in a museum in Nigeria for many years.”
Supported by sponsors including law firm TEMPLARS, the three-month exhibition will feature a public program of panel discussions, educational workshops, and lectures reflecting on Nigeria’s political history and the artist’s place in public life.
In an era marked by shifting migration narratives and civic re-evaluation, Freedom Bird provides a platform to engage with the works of one of Nigeria’s foremost intellectual-artists—inviting audiences to re-examine where the nation has been and where it might fly next.
Exhibition Details:
Title: Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird
Dates: November 1, 2026 – January 31, 2027
Venue: Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), Pan-Atlantic University, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos
Organizers: YSMA & SMO Contemporary Art
Curators: Iheanyi Onwuegbucha (Curator), Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago (Associate Curator)
