TOKINI PETERSIDE-SCHWEBIG
ADVANCING AFRICAN ART
After working in luxury brand management for Moët-Hennessy (part of the LVMH Group) as Head of Marketing in Nigeria, Tokini Peterside-Schwebig in 2012 founded a strategy consultancy that cut across fashion, culture and luxury. Through this company, she developed businesses with pioneering entrepreneurs such as ALARA, the David Adjaye-designed luxury concept store conceived by Reni Folawiyo.
In 2016, she reconfigured the company and with that came the birth of ART X Lagos - West Africa’s first and leading international art fair. Since its debut, ART X has grown to host galleries and artists from over 40 countries. It is renowned for its program, which includes ART X Talks, a lively panel discussion series; ART X Live, a one-of-a-kind showcase featuring collaborations among some of the fastest-rising artists and musicians on the African continents; as well as specially curated presentations and interactive projects. The beauty of ART X Lagos lies in its huge contributions to the growth of tourism in the country and in positioning the city of Lagos as an art destination every November. In this exclusive interview, Tokini talk about the recently concluded ART X Exhibition and her expectations for the Nigerian Art Industry.
When did you first get interested in Art, and how did it lead you into the business of hosting West Africa’s first and leading international art fair?
My interests in Art and creativity were nurtured in my childhood by my family, and this grew into a passion for culture in my adult years, when I also began to collect Art. I became convinced many years ago of the power of culture to shift mindsets, to influence perceptions of who we are as a people, as a nation, and as a race, whether these perceptions were held by us ourselves internally or by outsiders. I desired seven years ago to harness that power of culture to contribute to my society and, hopefully, to inspire others to do the same. This is how my company, ART X, and our art fair, ART X Lagos, were born.
Tell me a bit about ART X Lagos. How would you describe the program and its vision?
ART X Lagos is the leading international art fair in West Africa, which I established in 2016. The fair was created to restore the visual arts to their rightful place in Nigeria’s national consciousness. To bridge the gaps between the art scene in Nigeria and the art scenes across Africa and the rest of the world, to magnify the patronage of artists of African descent globally, and to contribute to positioning Lagos on the global arts and culture map. The platform has become a cornerstone of the African art movement and has achieved more than we imagined, even at the outset.
Each year since then, we have showcased right here in Lagos hundreds of artworks by leading artists across Africa and the Diaspora, anchored by the leading art galleries in the sector. At this year’s seventh edition fair, we exhibited the works of 120 artists from 40 countries worldwide - this is double what we presented at our debut fair in 2016. This year, galleries who presented at ART X Lagos came from as far afield as Dakar, Cape Town, Abidjan, New York, Paris, Luxembourg, the UAE, and many of the world’s capitals.
ART X has grown well beyond the boundaries of a traditional art fair and has become a catalysing space for important conversations and inspirational encounters. We welcome thousands of visitors from Nigeria, Africa and across the world each year and have become a foundational catalyst for the art season that now blossoms in Lagos each year in the buildup to our fair.
You have a background in luxury brand management. Does that influence the choice of artists selected to participate in the fair?
My background doesn’t influence the choice of our exhibiting artists - these decisions are taken very carefully by our selection committee of art and curatorial experts. What my background in luxury brand management does influence, however, is the presentation of the selected Art, the design of the experience, our narrative and storytelling, and ultimately the careful custodianship of our brand.
Why did you choose to enter the world of Art through the fair instead of the typical gallery? What interested you the most about this structure?
I chose to create an art fair specifically because I wanted, first and foremost, to blow up the visibility of the art sector and quadruple its support base. It was clear that a large-scale, ambitious experience would be the way to do this. I knew that creating a gallery, a profitable and worthwhile venture, no doubt, would focus my efforts on the collecting audience, the affluent audience, almost exclusively.
Whilst I wanted to pull in this audience, to stir up their interest in artists and create a place where they could engage commercially with the artworks, I also desired at the same time to build an experience that could be inclusive. One that was vast and varied that could attract the full gamut of Nigerian, African, and the international society - to multiply and diversify the audience base for the continent and Diaspora’s artists and galleries.
I wanted to create an experience that everyone would desire to be part of and where everyone could thrive, no matter their background. If you attend ART X Lagos over the multiple days of the fair, you will find that our audience spans the entire breadth of society. Ranging from its most affluent members to international visitors, families, millennials and even young children from marginalised communities. We have successfully created the largest aspirational event in Nigeria, but with a diverse and inclusive audience, a place where everyone is welcome.
Are there any editions of ART X Lagos that stand out in your mind as exceptional?
Every edition of ART X Lagos has been special; some have been harder to pull off, while others have been easier. If I had to, I would choose two landmark editions. The first is our debut art fair in November 2016, as there are few words I can find to express the excitement we felt, and we saw our audiences feel when we introduced this fair that year. We shut down Victoria Island on our opening night at the Civic Centre due to the thousands of cars arriving at the venue, with guests eager to experience for the first time what we had created. The second edition I would choose would be our fourth edition in November 2019, when we moved for the first time to the Federal Palace. Our fair doubled in size. Our core followers were in awe of the ambitious heights to which we had pushed our programming and the experience. Thousands of people came out to support that fair from around Nigeria and from all over the world. We had attendees from some of the world’s most important art institutions, like Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris and more. Whilst it was challenging for us to execute, it showed what we were capable of and was phenomenally rewarding. Our recently concluded seventh edition was fantastic as well, in that we demonstrated the resilience and dynamism of Africa’s art scene, despite the challenges we have all experienced this year.
I became convinced many years ago of the power of culture to shift mindsets, to influence perceptions of who we are as a people, as a nation, and as a race, whether these perceptions were held by us ourselves internally or by outsiders.