In October 1960, Nigeria won full independence from the UK, said Anny Shaw in The London Standard . This landmark moment sparked “a period of enormous cultural fecundity”, as artists sought to create a “visual identity” for the country – one that embraced indigenous traditions and the “buzz” of modern life, while reckoning with Nigeria’s “fraught colonial past”.

Now this cultural “renaissance” is the subject of a new exhibition at Tate Modern, which brings together some 250 pieces – including paintings, sculptures and textiles – by more than 50 artists, to examine Nigerian art pre- and post-independence. The result is a show that is sprawling but compelling, said Mark Hudson in The Independent . Other exhibitions of African art have tended to shy away from showing “the first gropings

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