THREE METALS, ONE STORY

Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s First Lagos Solo Show Traces Time Through Material

Nifemi Marcus-Bello in Material Affirmations, his first solo show in Lagos at Tiwani Contemporary, photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

“My aim has always been to interrogate material histories and identity, while trying to understand their cultural significance within society” — Nifemi Marcus-Bello

This past week, Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s Material Affirmations – ORÍKÌ Acts I–III opened in Lagos, Nigeria’s Tiwani Contemporary. The designer-artist’s first solo presentation on home soil, which is on show until January next year, is a meditative survey of material culture that locates its constituent objects as archives of national and continental pasts, presents, and futures. Each period becomes its own act through a definitive material: bronze for the past (a reference to historic Benin bronze crafts), aluminum for the present (for how readily accessible it is), and copper for the future (symbolic of Africa’s extractive economies). With this temporal system, Marcus-Bello narrates and speculates on Nigeria’s — if not Africa’s — socio-economic evolution as told through a story of metals. The show’s subtitle also lends itself to his freshly minted début monograph, Oríkì: Material Affirmations in Three Acts, published by apartamento, which bounds his conversation pit of a practice with particular focus on this latest show.

Nifemi Marcus Bello’s Material Affirmations: ORÍKÌ Acts I–III at Tiwani Contemporary. Foreground: TM Moon (Screen), 2023; recycled sandcast, aluminum. 72.88 x 59.88 x 18.88 inches. Edition of 5 plus 1 artist’s proof.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Headrest, 2025; copper, bronze. 9.25 x 15.75 x 9 inches. Edition of 10 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Daybed w/ Candleholder, 2025; copper, bronze. 53 x 36.63 x 21 inches. Edition of 4 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello, TM Vessel, 2025; recycled sandcast aluminum. 16/5 x 13.38 x 13.38 inches. Edition of 15 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Production and craft, long central to Marcus-Bello’s design approach since before his triumphant breakthrough with the LM Stool in 2018, play a major narrative role in the show. Works like the visibly thumb-pressed cast bronze Friction Ridge Bench (2023) serve as a communal manifestation of dialogue between the artist-designer and his network of producer-craftsmen. Also on display — and a testament to hands that make and the economic conditions under which that making occurs — are the TM Bench in recycled sandcast aluminum (2023) and the Daybed w/ Candleholder (2025) in copper and bronze (and wax) — to list off a couple of the nine works exhibited.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Detail of Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Headrest, 2025; copper, bronze. 9.25 x 15.75 x 9 inches. Edition of 10 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Detail of Nifemi Marcus-Bello, TM Moon (Screen), 2023; recycled sandcast, aluminum. 72.88 x 59.88 x 18.88 inches. Edition of 5 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Detail of Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Friction Ridge Bench, 2023; bronze. 71.63 17.75 x 24.38 inches. Edition of 10 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

While the works are shown in three different materials, address different moments in time (here, been, and speculative), and pull from various parts of the African context, the show is not just held together by its overarching themes of material culture. Rather, the show fulfills the promise of the series’ name, Oríkì — the Yoruba practice of praise poetry and affirming utterances — by the declaring that across the past, present, and future, the capacity for African design and production has been firmly proven.

Foreground: Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Low Table; copper, bronze. 12 x 17.5 x 17.5 inches. Edition of 4 plus 1 artist’s proof. Background: Nifemi Marcus-Bello, TM Bench w/ Bowl; recycled sandcast aluminum. 44.13 x 15.75 x 20.13 inches. Edition of 5 plus 1 artist’s proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Marcus Nifemi-Bello, Charcoal Light (2025); copper, bronze, charred pine, lighting components. 58.75 x 11.5 x 11.5 inches. Edition of 4 plus 1 artist's proof. Photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Friction Ridge Bench (2023); bronze. 71.63 x 17.75 x 24.34 inches. Edition of 10 plus 1 artist's proof. Photographed by Rachel Sideu for PIN–UP.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello photographed by Rachel Seidu for PIN–UP.