A Nigerian Sculptor Reflects on All the Land Contains – The New York Times

24 April 2025

When Otobong Nkanga appeared on the Art Newspaper’s “A Brush With…” podcast, the host, Ben Luke, asked which piece of art she would choose to live with, if she could choose only one.

It’s a question he asks every guest. Most people pick historical masterpieces, a Turner, say, or a Giotto. Nkanga chose a stone.

Two years ago, Nkanga was announced as the 2025 winner of the Nasher Prize, honoring her work in sculpture.

It follows that Luke’s immediate reply was: “Because you could sculpt it?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Because it would contain all what I need.”

The first time I spoke with Nkanga, in a video interview, it was three weeks before the opening of her Nasher Prize exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (which runs through Aug. 17). The award comes with a $100,000 prize, one of the art world’s biggest. When we spoke, though, she was home in Antwerp, Belgium, packing her bags to head across the Atlantic, and she still didn’t know exactly what she would be showing.

Her plan had been to not ship anything ahead of time and instead make all new pieces, on site.

“I want to try out and see if I can make it happen,” she said. “It’s much more riskier in a way. I have such a short time to put everything together.”

The serenity and tangible warmth with which she spoke belied how high-stakes a moment this was.

Read more of Otobong Nkanga's interview with Dale Berning Sawa for The New York Times here.

Photo: Nitashia Johnson for The New York Times