HESCAH Lecture | Dr. Chika Okeke-Agulu, "Art, Nationalism and Power: Gazbia Sirry and Egyptian Modernists in Revolutionary Egypt"

Art, Nationalism and Power: Gazbia Sirry and Egyptian Modernists in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Revolutionary Egypt
Dr. Chika Okeke-Agulu

This lecture by Chika Okeke‑Agulu explores themes of explore themes of modernism, decolonization, and diasporic artistic practices. Okeke-Agulu is a Nigerian-born artist, critic, and art historian based at Princeton University, where he holds professorships in African and African Diaspora Art and serves as Director of the Program in African Studies and Africa World Initiative Department of Art and Archaeology. He earned an MFA in Painting from the University of Nigeria and a Ph.D. in Art History from Emory University, and has taught at institutions including Penn State, Williams College, and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Okeke‑Agulu is the author of influential books such as Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth‑Century Nigeria (2015), Yusuf Grillo: Painting. Lagos. Life. (2020), and El Anatsui. The Reinvention of Sculpture (2022). A leading curator and critic, he co-organized exhibitions including El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale (Haus der Kunst, 2019) and Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts (Princeton, 2022), and co-edits Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.