The Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), Pan-Atlantic University, in partnership with SMO Contemporary Art, will host Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird, a major retrospective exhibition exploring more than three decades of the Nigerian artist’s work.
Scheduled to run from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027, the exhibition will feature paintings, drawings, sculptures, poems, diary entries, photographs and archival materials that offer insights into the artistic, political and personal experiences that have shaped Okeke-Agulu’s practice.
Curated by Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, with Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago serving as associate curator, Freedom Bird examines themes of freedom, memory, migration, displacement and belonging against the backdrop of Nigeria’s political history.
The exhibition will present Okeke-Agulu primarily as an artist, highlighting a studio practice that has developed alongside his influential contributions as an art historian, critic, curator and educator.
His artistic journey began during the political turbulence of Nigeria’s military regimes in the 1980s and 1990s, when his work explored repression, civic life, democratic struggles and the responsibilities of artists and intellectuals.
His subsequent migration to the United States introduced further reflections on exile, memory, identity and the search for belonging.
Since the early 1990s, Okeke-Agulu’s works have featured in solo, collaborative and group exhibitions across Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States.
These include presentations at the National Museum in Lagos, Goethe-Institut Lagos, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, the first Johannesburg Biennale and the Newark Museum.
The exhibition’s title, Freedom Bird, draws from a recurring motif in the artist’s visual and poetic vocabulary, representing freedom as an aspiration continually shaped by political struggle, personal memory and artistic expression.
Through works spanning the late 1980s to the present, the exhibition traces Nigeria’s postcolonial experience, from military dictatorship and democratic aspirations to civic challenges, migration and the continuing movement of Nigerians in search of new opportunities.
For YSMA, hosting the exhibition reflects its commitment to education, research and critical engagement with art. Rather than simply presenting artworks, the museum seeks to provide audiences with opportunities to understand the historical contexts, ideas and experiences that inform artistic expression.
The exhibition is particularly significant because Okeke-Agulu has spent decades combining artistic practice with influential scholarship on Nigerian and African modern and contemporary art.
He is currently the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, where he also serves as Director of the Africa World Initiative.
An artist, art historian, critic, curator, poet and educator, Okeke-Agulu has taught extensively on African art and historiography, curated international exhibitions and authored or co-authored influential studies of artists including El Anatsui, Yusuf Grillo and Obiora Udechukwu.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2022 and served as Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford in 2023.
Speaking about the exhibition, Dr Jess Castellote, Director of YSMA, said Freedom Bird aligns with the museum’s mission to encourage audiences to study, question and understand art.
He noted that the exhibition would create opportunities for students, researchers and the wider public to engage with Okeke-Agulu’s artistic practice and the historical questions that have shaped Nigerian and African art.
According to Castellote, the exhibition demonstrates the contribution an educational museum can make to Nigeria’s cultural life by connecting artistic expression with research, education and public dialogue.
The exhibition also marks a return to YSMA for its curator, Dr Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, who previously served as guest curator for the museum’s inaugural exhibitions in 2019.
Onwuegbucha is currently an Assistant Professor of African and Caribbean Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Cambridge.
His academic and curatorial work focuses on African modern and contemporary art, including the Nsukka School, which formed the subject of his doctoral research at Princeton University.
He has also curated and co-curated exhibitions in Nigeria, Europe and the United States, including Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Onwuegbucha explained that the exhibition emerged from his sustained engagement with Okeke-Agulu’s work and the historical and intellectual questions surrounding artists influenced by the Nsukka School and Nigeria’s turbulent postcolonial history.
He said the exhibition provides an opportunity to encounter Okeke-Agulu through his artistic achievements, rather than solely through his widely recognised contributions to art scholarship.
He also described presenting the exhibition at YSMA as particularly meaningful because of the museum’s commitment to research, education and public discourse, as well as the significance of the exhibition as a homecoming for the artist.
SMO Contemporary Art, which is co-presenting the exhibition, brings extensive experience in curating and presenting modern and contemporary African art to local and international audiences, with a focus on democratising access to art.
The organisation has contributed to the development of institutional art collections and conserved and curated more than 80 large-scale modernist artworks at the refurbished National Theatre between 2021 and 2024. It also created an archive of important historical objects dating back to FESTAC ’77.
Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago, Founder and Creative Director of SMO Contemporary Art, described Freedom Bird as an important platform for examining nation-building, freedom, social justice and collective responsibility.
She said Okeke-Agulu’s decades-long journey as an artist and social critic was particularly relevant at a time when questions surrounding leadership, civic responsibility and Nigeria’s future remained important public concerns.
Mbanefo-Obiago added that the exhibition would encourage audiences to reconsider their individual and collective roles in building a more equitable society while engaging with artworks that document the country’s political history.
The exhibition is supported by several sponsors, including TEMPLARS, a leading African law firm.
Beyond the artworks, Freedom Bird will feature a specially curated public programme of conversations examining Nigeria’s political and cultural history and the role of artists as witnesses to, and participants in, public life.
The exhibition will be held at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027.
