Otobong Nkanga's Candence (2024), a site-specific commission at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Photo: Emile Askey, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Creative Mind: Otobong Nkanga
The Nigerian-born artist is known for large-scale tapestries, drawings, ceramics, and more that explore our relationship with the earth
Otobong Nkanga. Photo: Wim van Dongen
At the heart of Otobong Nkanga’s multidisciplinary art practice is an exploration of our relationship with the Earth and the materials we extract from it. The Nigerian-born, Belgium-based artist makes large-scale tapestries, drawings, photographs, and ceramics, and often uses found natural materials, including plants, stones, and minerals, to shed light on the interconnectedness of all things.
Through June 8, the atrium at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is transformed by Nkanga’s groundbreaking new site-specific, multisensory commission titled Cadence, centered on a monumental, multipaneled tapestry that recalls ecosystems and galaxies digitally woven with both natural and synthetic fibers.
Candence (2024), a site-specific commission at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Photo: Emile Askey, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Otobong Nkanga, Wetin You Go Do, 2015, at the 13th Lyon Biennale. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Breakout moment: This has so far been a banner year for Nkanga, who was named the 2025 Nasher Prize Laureate, one of the art world’s most prestigious awards, with a $100,000 grant and a solo exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. On view from April 5 through August 17, the show will include a selection of some of her most ambitious ongoing projects, such as Carved to Flow (2017) as well as a new work responding to the North Texas region. “The extraordinary impact of Otobong Nkanga’s work resides in the way it intimately links people with the matter of their daily lives—its uses, evocations, and histories—as a way for seemingly disparate people to forge even deeper connections with each other and the world around them,” says Jed Morse, interim director and chief curator at the Nasher.
Up next: A Paris exhibition is scheduled for fall at the Musée d’Art Moderne.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Spring Issue under the headline “Creative Minds.” Subscribe to the magazine.
An installation view of “Double Plot” (2018) at the Kröller-Müller Museum, in Otterloo, the Netherlands. Photo: Courtesy of Lisson Gallery
Otobong Nkanga, Wetin You Go Do? Oya Na, 2020, installation view. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery
We Come from Fire and Return to Fire, 2024 Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Lisson gallery
Cover: Otobong Nkanga's Candence (2024), a site-specific commission at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Photo: Emile Askey, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
