Azu Nwagbogu

Azu Nwagbogu (born 1975) is a Nigerian art curator and National Geographic Explorer at Large. He is the Founder and Director of the African Artists' Foundation, the LagosPhoto Festival and creator of Art Base Africa, an emerging virtual space dedicated to exploring and understanding contemporary African art and diaspora. He was awarded Curator of Year by the Royal Photographic Society in 2021, and included on the ArtReview list of the 100 most powerful people of the art world in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2024 he curated Benin's inaugural pavilion at the Venice Biennale Quotes This protest is not about ‘the poor masses. Everyone who isn’t in government has had enough. The genie has been let out of the bottle and it won’t go back in without the wishes of the people being fulfilled. It is not about ideas of black excellence or black misery, but what I call a middle sensibility that makes the mundane special. For a long time, no one from outside got to see the work of local photographers and they, in turn, had no interaction with international photographers. So the aim from the start was twofold: to engender a dialogue that disrupted the sense of isolation that many African artists felt, and to challenge Afro-pessimism, the prevailing notion of Africa as a place of suffering and an object of pity. Many were from people with some kind of connection to the continent through the objects they own or have inherited. You’ve got to learn what’s in the box before you can think outside of the box. Her work is diverse but personal. I wouldn’t want to call her a humanist photographer, but she uses researched human condition as the basis for her work and creates interventions in spaces that have been traumatised. The exhibition is entitled Everything Precious is Fragile, which draws inspiration from Yoruba Gèlèdè philosophy. Venice must not cower and kowtow to remain relevant. As a curator, I try to live and participate with minimal dissonance between my existence as a thinker and as a compassionate being trying to make sense of my survival in this world. As ever, I have a keen ear to the ground on all the Africa Pavilions. External links Category:Photographers from Nigeria Category:People from Lagos Category:Living people Category:1975 births