Adegbola Gallery presents Heroes Past: Contemporary Interpretations, a continuation of the inaugural exhibition Heroes Past, which traced Nigeria’s artistic and political awakening at Independence in 1960.
This new chapter invites a generation of contemporary Nigerian artists to engage with the legacies of the nation’s modernist pioneers, reimagining their ideals, forms, and ambitions through the lens of today’s social and political realities.
Following the close of the main Heroes Past exhibition, which will live on through a digital partnership with Viaduct Design and Creativity Foundation, Contemporary Interpretations brings the dialogue forward, from archive to imagination, from commemoration to reinterpretation.
Artists include Haneefah Adam, Kolawole John Adewale, Jonathan Chambalin, Emmanuel Chidube, Folashade Fagorusi, Christiana Obafemi, Femi Okediji, and Olasunkanmi Oyelusi. The exhibition is on view at Adegbola Gallery, Victoria Island, Lagos, from October 25 to November 9, 2025.
Heroes Past: Contemporary Interpretations examines how Nigeria’s artistic heritage continues to influence creative practice today. The exhibition features a group of contemporary artists whose works converse with themes of nationhood, memory, identity, and material innovation.
They revisit the spirit of a post-Independence optimism that sought to define what it meant to be both modern and Nigerian, while acknowledging the tensions and contradictions that accompany that search.
Through painting, sculpture, textile, photography, and mixed media, Contemporary Interpretations bridges past and present, asking how contemporary artists reclaim or resist the narratives handed down by their predecessors, and how art can still serve as a site of public reflection, as it did in the 1960s.
The exhibition is conceived as a meditation on legacy and continuity. If Heroes Past looked back to the foundations of Nigeria’s artistic modernity, Contemporary Interpretations situates the present generation within that continuum, offering a plural, global, and self-aware perspective on nationhood and creativity.
“The works in this exhibition are not simply referencing the past,” said Adekepemi Aderemi, Curator of Heroes Past: Contemporary Interpretations. “They are extending the conversation, questioning the idea of heroism, authorship, and collective memory. Each artist has found a personal route back to the ideals of freedom, experimentation, and synthesis that defined the Independence era, but with the urgency of our own time.”
The show positions the artists as interpreters rather than imitators, allowing them to translate the modernists’ ethos, the belief that art could reflect and shape a national consciousness, into contemporary forms.
Running alongside Heroes Past: Contemporary Interpretations is a focused presentation of mid-century Nigerian modernism in the rear viewing room of Adegbola Gallery. This intimate installation showcases seminal works by modernist pioneers whose creative courage helped define Nigeria’s visual identity in the years leading up to Independence.
Together, both spaces create a dialogue between generations. The main gallery houses Contemporary Interpretations, new works that reimagine the spirit and tensions of the 1960s through today’s lens.
The rear viewing room serves as a living archive of Nigeria’s modernist canon, with works on paper and a lithograph block by Uche Okeke, a large set of panels by Bruce Onobrakpeya, a portrait by Enwonwu, a selection of paintings from the Osogbo school, and an intricate wood carving by J. D. Akeredolu.
By inviting visitors to move between these rooms, Adegbola Gallery transforms the exhibition into a multi-temporal encounter, where the optimism of the post-Independence era meets the complexity of contemporary realities. The dialogue reinforces the gallery’s commitment to preserving history while inspiring new creative readings of it.
The original Heroes Past exhibition, presented earlier this month at Adegbola Gallery, celebrated Nigeria’s early modernists and the 1960 Independence Exhibition that inspired them. It assembled historical works, archival materials, and rare documentation that charted the evolution of Nigerian art across decades of cultural transformation.
Although the physical exhibition has now closed, its digital life continues through an ongoing partnership between Adegbola Art Projects and Viaduct Design and Creativity Foundation, ensuring that the research, images, and essays from Heroes Past remain accessible to audiences worldwide.
Contemporary Interpretations extends this legacy, not as a sequel, but as an evolving dialogue. It positions the gallery as both custodian and catalyst, preserving historical memory while creating new space for imagination and discourse.
Each participating artist reinterprets aspects of Nigeria’s post-Independence spirit through reimagined portraiture, material experimentation, or conceptual storytelling. Together, their works embody a living conversation between generations, bridging artistic lineages from pre-Independence to the present.
