Chukwudubem Ukaigwe Shortlisted for Canada’s Sobey Art Award; Nifemi Marcus-Bello Honored at 2025 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize; Spotlighting Mahube Diseko's
Chukwudubem Ukaigwe Shortlisted for Canada’s Sobey Art Award
Chukwudubem Ukaigwe has been named a finalist for the 2025 Sobey Art Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious prizes for contemporary visual art.
Born in Nigeria and currently based in Winnipeg, Chukwudubem Ukaigwe is an artist, curator, and writer whose interdisciplinary practice spans painting, installation, video, and performance. His work explores semiotic dissonance, shared authorship, and fractured time, drawing on influences such as experimental music, speculative fiction, and diasporic histories. Through immersive audiovisual environments, he challenges traditional subject-object divides and seeks to create new sociographies rooted in community and collaboration. Ukaigwe has participated in residencies and exhibitions across Canada and internationally. His art is held in public collections, including the School of Art Gallery.
As part of the Sobey shortlist, Ukaigwe will receive $25,000 in prize money and will be featured in the 2025 Sobey Art Award Exhibition, which opens at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa on October 3, 2025, and runs through February 8, 2026.
Jonathan Shaughnessy, the National Gallery of Canada's director of curatorial initiatives and chair of the 2025 Sobey Award jury, comments on the shortlisted artists:
"Through paintings, drawings, textiles, video, sculpture, and multidisciplinary installations, their works capture the vitality of artmaking in this country today while touching on subjects pertinent to contemporary Canadian identity."
The overall winner, who will receive $100,000, will be announced during a special celebration on November 8, 2025.
Nifemi Marcus-Bello Honored at 2025 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize
Nigerian designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello received a Special Mention at the 2025 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize for his work, TM Bench with Bowl. The award was presented by architect Patricia Urquiola during a ceremony at Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. This recognition highlights Marcus-Bello’s innovative approach to contemporary African design and sustainability.
Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Nifemi Marcus-Bello aims to develop a design language that captures the essence of contemporary African life. “It takes a village. But in my case, it takes a city,” he says, reflecting on the influence of his environment. Inspired by the experience of buying a second-hand car, he began reusing industrial waste to create bold, sculptural pieces that take the form of furniture. Through this process, he transforms discarded materials into objects with renewed meaning and lasting value.
Part artwork, part social commentary, and part archive, TM Bench with Bowl highlights how the value and use of mass-produced materials constantly change.
The jury praised the work’s simplicity and strength, noting its quiet yet powerful commentary on consumerism. Marcus-Bello’s design language aims to reflect contemporary African life, revitalizing industrial detritus into bold, functional art.
The 2025 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize exhibition features 30 finalists selected from over 4,600 submissions across 133 countries. The exhibition is open to the public at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid until June 29, 2025.
Venice Biennale Moves Forward with Late Koyo Kouoh's Vision
The Venice Biennale will move forward with the late curator Koyo Kouoh’s vision for its 2026 edition as planned.
Titled “In Minor Keys,” the 61st International Art Exhibition will be realized by the curatorial team Kouoh had assembled, who pledged to carry out the show as she conceived it—down to the artists, theoretical framework, and catalogue she had begun shaping last year. Due to open May 9, the event will be headed by a team of five advisers Kouoh selected: curators Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helena Pereira, and Rasha Salti; Siddartha Mitter, a critic, and Rory Tsapayi, who will assist the team.
Koyo Kouoh died in May at 57 after a recent cancer diagnosis. She was the first African woman appointed to helm the biannual art fair.
Kouoh’s assistant Rory Tsapayi recited the verses composed by the late artistic director in 2022: “We need to be with love again. We need to dance. We need to make and give food. We need to rest and restore. We need to breathe. We need the radicality of joy. The time has come.”
Artist Spotlight: Mahube Diseko
Mahube Diseko (b.2000) lives and works in Johannesburg (ZA). She works with different media, such as photography, video, textile and sculpture. She deals with questions of identity, particularly in relation to race, gender and sexuality, while also exploring personal and social experiences. Her work has been exhibited at Stevenson (Johannesburg, ZA), Kunstverein Braunschweig (DE) and Bag Factory Artists' Studios (Johannesburg, ZA).
The artist tackles her reverence towards romance, projecting her individual feelings that may ring true for a broader collective. In her most recent exhibition, Thank you for bearing witness, the artist invites us into her idea of love, and gives texture to it. The articles of underwear, both hard and soft, are contained in frames but also dotted along a fur wall installation that Diseko has used to further bring attention to the work’s delicacy, converging into a landscape of love musings that are both textually evocative and tactile.
On view:
Tell me about your dream mosque: Selebe Yoon presents an exhibition by Fredj Moussa following a six-week residency in Senegal. (May 22 – June 28, 2025)
time heals, just not quick enough: Curated by Ose Ekore, Efie Gallery features works by contemporary artists across generations– Samuel Fosso, Aïda Muluneh, Kelani Abass, Abeer Sultan, and Sumayah Fallatah. (June 1 – July 30, 2025)
Notes on Friendship: Breaking Bread: Featuring works from 23 artists spanning generations and working across both traditional and contemporary media exploring friendship as a dynamic space for dialogue, critique, and support. (April 29 – July 27, 2025)
