Today, art is one of the fastest growing sectors in Nigeria’s economy thanks to government aid, banking investments and an emerging circle of local art consumers with its unique dispositions. The roots of this flourishing artistic ambience lays in the country’s rich traditions, consequently reconstructing Nigerian art history is required, not so much in order to understand the art of yesterday as to appreciate how it shapes the less familiar landscape of contemporary art.   

The last two decades have witnessed the arrival of contemporary African art into the global arena, a course that necessitates a rethinking of Western perspectives on "high" culture produced by the "Other" from the Global South. For a long time the Western hegemonic gaze tended to refrain from acknowledging the plurality of African cultures, their diverse artistic expressions and the fact that African artists are in constant negotiation with not only Western techniques and styles but also with their own past, previously relegated to the margins of that same arena.    

As a result, African modern and contemporary art is often still conceptualized in terms of the Eurocentric art-historical discourse and therefore considered as inhabiting provincialities of Western various artistic milestones and references. However, more and more art scholars realize, as demonstrated by the Nigerian artists in this exhibition, that the subjective experiences and the particularities of each artist and their deep connection with local artistic traditions and stylistic sophistication produce a multilayered cultural-artistic landscape.