“I have a theory that [Grammy award-winning Nigerian artists] Wizkid and Burna Boy are who they are today because they were first well known at home,” Kayode Adegbola told Observer, speaking from his home in Lagos. It is the mindset with which the 35-year-old lawyer, collector and cultural entrepreneur has been supporting artists through his curatorial and advisory platform Adegbola Art Projects over the past fifteen years while also helping to build Nigeria’s arts infrastructure.
From the beginning, he has tapped into his relationships and networks not only to recommend artists to institutional and individual buyers but also to forge partnerships and collaborations with galleries, including Hourglass in Nigeria and London-based Gillian Jason, Pi Artworks and TAFETA on projects such as exhibitions. He sponsored “Invisible Hands,” a 2021 exhibition celebrating the contributions of Nigerian female artists at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, a private museum founded by Prince Yemisi Shyllon. Adegbola also helped raise funds and produce the Nigerian pavilion at the 2023 London Design Biennale. (His wife, Adewunmi Adegbola, was one of the producers.) More recently, Adegbola Art Projects partnered with the National Museum on “Anyanwu: The New Light,” a group show of works by contemporary Nigerian artists.
He has also held private sales and secondary market exhibitions featuring the work of Bruce Onobrakpeya, Yusuf Grillo and other legendary Nigerian artists. In December of last year, he organized an exhibition titled “End of Year Party,” featuring work by artists including Ablade Glover and Ben Enwonwu. The idea behind the show, he explained, was to allow students to see work they had read or learned about but never encountered because many of the pieces are in private collections.
Adegbola also founded The Vault Artist Residency, which provides studio space in Lagos and materials for early-career and emerging artists. One of its recent beneficiaries is Nigerian-born London-based Cherry Aribisala, who joined just after graduating from Goldsmiths, University of London with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2022. According to Adegbola, one of the reasons Aribisala was selected was the opportunity to introduce her work to local collectors.
Over the past three years, Adegbola has been working with Adewale Kolawole John, whom he discovered through an Instagram story by another artist in 2022 after purchasing the artwork he saw in that post. After collecting John’s work, Adegbola said he became “interested and invested in the growth and trajectory” of the artist, which led to projects that included a solo exhibition the following year, “which was very, very successful.” This November, John’s works on paper will be at Nigerian art fair ART X Lagos—considered by many the premier international art fair in West Africa—alongside portraits by Akinola Lasekan, credited as one of the pioneers of Nigerian modernism.
An avid collector, Adegbola’s personal portfolio includes work by artists like Ladi Kwali, El Anatsui, Ben Enwonwu, Nengi Omuku, Ndid Emefiele, Victor Ehikhamenor, Haneefah Adam, Jimo Akolo, Yusuf Grillo, Uche Okeke, Adewale Kolawole John, Solomon Wangboje and Olowe of Ise. According to the dealer, he has “always had a creative bent”—his first foray into the arts was as a photographer in primary school, where he created scrapbooks. After taking photos, he would develop them, print them and stick the images in exercise books with captions. “It was my version of Instagram.” In secondary school, he made his first pocket-sized book of photographs to accompany the poem Desiderata by Max Ehrmann.
In his late teens, he began organizing exhibitions and won a prize for his photography at Queen Mary University of London while studying for his Bachelor of Laws degree. In 2010, at age 20, Adegbola organized his first solo show and has since been collecting and advising individuals, companies, institutions and the government on building collections while preparing to launch his gallery.
On October 1, Adegbola Gallery will open in Lagos with an inaugural exhibition coinciding with Nigeria’s 65th independence anniversary. Referencing an exhibition held in 1960 in Lagos to celebrate the country’s independence from Britain, the non-selling museum-quality show titled “Heroes Past” will explore the history and art of Nigeria through rarely seen photographs, archival materials, paintings and sculpture by the likes of Ben Enwonwu, Akinola Lasekan, Uche Okeke and Oyerinde Olotu.
Also on view will be portraits and busts of Nigerian nationalists; newspapers, books and magazines on the fight for Nigerian independence; a feature by British historian Michael Crowder on Nigeria’s independence; and the invitation to a 1963 ceremony naming Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the country’s first and only Prime Minister, as the first Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria’s oldest university founded in 1948.
According to Adegbola, the gallery will prioritize artistic talent development and experimentation. The decision to mount a non-selling historical exhibition of Nigeria as a commercial entity is a testament to the gallery’s expanded focus. There are also plans to publish books about art and Nigerian history, and the gallery is building a reference library with a collection of vintage publications (including West Africa Review and Black Orpheus, journals of African and African American literature) that will be available to students and art enthusiasts. Meanwhile, Adegbola Art Projects, the organizational sponsor of the gallery, is executing a public art project: murals on a 1,200-square-meter space under the columns of a bridge in Lagos—one more opportunity to engage with art.
“The gallery is really a reflection of my personal passions in the arts,” Adegbola concluded. “There’s the beauty aspect, which is the aesthetic value of the art, but what is equally important is historical importance and the opportunity to provide educational initiatives embedded into our exhibitions and special projects.”
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