‘Nollywood Portraits’ Goes to Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art

Stories by Vanessa Obioha

At last year’s Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF), Smithsonian’s National Museum for African History and Culture which participated in the festival announced that the Nigerian-American artist Ike Udé’s ‘Nollywood Portraits’ will be opening in Washington DC. Udé’s work was officially displayed at the museum yesterday, February 5 while a virtual global launch featuring an interactive session with the artist and four Nollywood stars discussing their portrait experience, an exclusive preview of Udé’s documentary short, ‘Nollywood in Focus’, and a sneak peek of the exhibition is slated for February 11.

“We are very excited to join the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in celebrating these Nigerian film industry personalities in the classic, elegant style Iké Udé has perfected,” said Project Director of ‘Nollywood Portraits’, Osahon Akpata.

Udé celebrates the luminescent beauty and mystique of Nigerian visionaries by turning his lens on the talented people who drive Nollywood, Nigeria’s burgeoning film industry. Known for his performative and iconoclastic style and vibrant sense of composition, the US-based artist’s photographs use colour, attire and other markers to make elegant yet unexpected portraits. They make a bold statement about the power of African identities, despite centuries of attempted erasure by Eurocentric art history and notions of beauty.

“The radical beauty of these portraits is intended to make a bold statement about the portrayal of our people at the highest art and cultural institutions in the world,” remarked Akpata.

Director of the National Museum of African Art, Ngaire Blankenberg commented that the exhibition which falls on Black History Month provides an opportunity to reflect on the “contributions of African people across the globe to art, to history, to culture and our common humanity.”

“Whether he turns his camera on himself, flowers or the talented stars of Nollywood, Udé presents a world of beauty, and most powerfully, a world that centres on African beauty.”

The exhibition features 33 of Udé’s 64 portraits of Nollywood film stars, directors and producers, alongside — for the first time — some of the garments styled by the stars and a bespoke set, in which visitors can create their own identities with the help of on-site stylists.
The exhibition which will run through February 2023, was originated by independent curator Selene Wendt and curated for the Smithsonian by Karen E. Milbourne.