The 2023 Venice Biennale Honors Demas Nwoko With the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

The Nigerian artist, designer, and architect Demas Nwoko has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, dubbed “The Laboratory of the Future.”

The decision was made at the suggestion of Lesley Lokko, the 18th International Exhibition of Architecture curator. It was authorized by the Board of Directors of La Biennale, headed by Roberto Cicutto. On May 20, 2023, the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia, Ca’ Giustinian, will host the awards event and the opening of the 18th Exhibition.

©New Culture Studios

The 18th International Architecture Exhibition’s curator, Lesley Lokko, stated that “One of the main themes is an appreciation of architecture as a developed field of initiatives, influencing both the material and immaterial worlds; a space in which ideas are as crucial as artifacts, particularly in the service of what is yet to come. Despite the event’s focus on the future, it makes perfect sense to present the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to an artist whose career spans seven decades but whose intangible contributions, approach, idea, and ethos—are only now being fully appreciated and honored.”

Demas Nwoko: The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Nigerian-born artist, inventor, and master builder Demas Nwoko pioneered the country’s blossoming Modern Art scene. His works aim to unite African themes with cutting-edge artistic and architectural methods. His multidimensional work includes contributions to numerous fields and art forms, such as building, sculpting, design, literature, criticism, and stage design.

©Andrew Esiebo

Prince Demas Nwoko, the son of King Obi Nwoko II, was born in Idumuje Ugboko, Nigeria, in 1935. Nwoko found architectural inspiration in the freshly built homes in the town and his grandfather’s Palace edifice, the Obi. Between 1957 and 1961, he attended the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology in Zaria, where he helped establish the Zaria Art Society. The “Zaria Rebels” was a loosely organized collective that advocated for natural creation, a notion pioneered by artist Uche Okeke.

The idea was to unite the artists’ Western education at the hands of colonial instructors with their African heritage, which emphasized ancestral concepts and tales. Zaria Rebels members were active in the postcolonial modernist vanguard in Nigeria during the 1960s.

The Dominican Institute and Chapel, Ibadan. ©Andrew Esiebo

“The multitalented builder, sculptor, designer, writer, set designer, critic, and historian Baba (a prestigious Nigerian title) Demas Nwoko does it all. To avoid the narrow definition of “architect” that has undoubtedly kept his name out of the annals, he sometimes calls himself an “artist-designer,” which testifies to the breadth of his skills and works.” As Lesley Lokko put it.

As time passed, Demas Nwoko established a school for the arts in Ibadan called New Culture Studios. The power of his collection of work comes from his attempt to combine Western ideas with genuine, age-old African methods. His building designs reflect these passions. Despite the few buildings he has completed, they all show signs of an innovative and environmentally conscious strategy and genuine cultural expression.

Akenzua Cultural Center. ©Biennale Architettura

For over fifty years, Demas Nwoko’s art has been defined by a deep yearning to combine and integrate rather than eradicate. He was an early critic of Nigeria’s dependency on Western imports of physical products and thoughts, and he has stayed dedicated to using locally sourced techniques and materials.

Nwoko’s structures in Nigeria serve a dual purpose. They are the vanguard of a new wave of creative practices that are environmentally friendly, resource-conscious, and true to African traditions. Second, they’re futuristic, a big deal for an artist whose work is so little recognized that not even his own country has heard of him.

Noel Moffett, an architectural critic, praised Nwoko’s work on his first project in 1977, a complex for the Dominican Institute in Ibadan, writing at the time, “Here, under a tropical sun, architecture, and sculpture combine in a way which only Gaudí perhaps, among architects, has been able to do so convincingly.”

The Dominican Institute and Chapel, Ibadan. ©Andrew Esiebo

“It is with great pleasure that I present Demas Nwoko, an architect of the 20th and 21st centuries, with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. I invite all 18th International Architecture Exhibition attendees to see the compact but beautifully crafted Exhibition of his work at the Stirling Pavilion in the Giardini, near the Book Pavilion Project of The Laboratory of the Future.” As Lesley Lokko stated.