news Yinka Shonibare Opens Artist Residency Program in Nigeria British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare CBE has opened a residency program and art space in Nigeria with a mission to foster exchange between artists of different cultures and career paths. Located on two sites, Lagos and a rural working farm in Ijebu, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation will provide public programs, exhibition opportunities, and workspace for creatives from Africa, the diaspora, and around the world. Ghanaian-British architect Elsie Owusu and Lagos-based architect Nihinlola Shonibare designed the location in Lagos, a barrier-free venue that boasts studio, gallery, and performance space on the ground floor and shared living quarters upstairs—enough to accommodate three resident artists at a time. (London-based Owusu also designed Shonibare’s house in Lagos.) The 54-acre farm is staffed by local villagers and features hundreds of cashew-nut trees and other crops. The farm’s new building, designed by Papa Omotayo of MOE+, will offer residency space for artists, scientists, and agriculturalists. Construction on workshop spaces dedicated to weaving, ceramics, and other crafts will begin in the spring. Both sites were funded by Shonibare himself; the residencies and programs will be funded by his foundation and through partnerships. “The art world needs to evolve,” Shonibare said at the center’s opening, as reported in the Nigerian newspaper The Nation. “There is a rich vein of talent out there, but we might lose them if the status quo of the last 30 years remains. We are working with the
Yinka Shonibare with his installation “The British Library.” Photo by Tabatha Fireman/Getty Images.
local community, whilst opening doors for the next generation, equipping them to thrive not just survive.” Shonibare is one of many African and African diasporic artists who are capitalizing on their own success to cultivate the next generation of artistic talent in their
The 54-acre farm is staffed by local villagers and features hundreds of cashewnut trees and other crops. countries of origin. Painter Amoako Boafo, installation artist Ibrahim Mahama, and performance artist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi have each set up spaces in Ghana to support young artists. Meanwhile, Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock residency in Senegal has become a closely watched incubator for emerging figures. In the absence of robust government funding for the arts, these initiatives have quickly become a core part of their countries’ cultural infrastructure. ArtDiction | 7 | January/February 2022
Shonibare first announced the launch of his non-profit in 2019. It was inspired by his long-running “Guest Projects” initiative, for which he invited up-and-coming artists to work in a London studio, located on the ground floor of a former carpet factory. The Nigerian residency spaces were originally slated to open last November, timed in conjunction with the Art x Lagos art fair, but the logistics around the pandemic resulted in delays. It officially opened its doors in February. Paris’s Galerie Templon to Open Outpost in New York Galerie Templon, one of Paris’s leading contemporary art galleries, will open a location in New York this fall. The space’s inaugural exhibition will be a solo show devoted to artist Omar Ba, who is based in New York and Dakar, Senegal. The new location, at 293 Tenth Avenue, is located in New York’s Chelsea area, and was formerly home to Kasmin gallery. The 6,500-square-foot space will be renovated by architect Markus Dochantschi’s studio MDA. In addition to the Ba exhibition, Templon has shows planned in the
