Published work
Features
1 July 2024
Apollo
How to make a 21st-century museum in West Africa
The plans for the Museum of West African Art in Nigeria point to a new path for postcolonial institutions
18 May 2024
Apollo
Make a date with the Stone of Destiny at the new Perth Museum
The ancient Scottish relic makes for a captivating moment of theatre, but the rest of the displays are just as artfully done
2 February 2024
Apollo
The craft of carving from thorns, in the flesh
As an exhibition at the Hunterian in Glasgow shows, the miniature sculptures of the Nigerian artist Justus Akeredolu are a major achievement
7 July 2023
The Gallery
of Everything
What are you saying? And why are you saying it?
Gallery essay on the occasion of ‘Southern Somebodies’, an exhibition at the Gallery of Everything, London, 1 June–27 August 2023
28 May 2023
The Telegraph
Have you been to Britain’s most-visited art gallery without even noticing?
Gloucester Road station is visited by over 10 million commuters a year. How did it become an art space – and what do the passengers think?
27 February 2023
Apollo
How do you solve a problem like Picasso?
While the artist’s life can pose difficulties, the Musée Picasso in Paris is finding ways to open up his work for a new generation
6 January 2023
The Telegraph
From sex shops to swanky galleries: how neon art became red-hot
Once a symbol of kitsch, fluorescent tubes now have a place in the mainstream. But why are they so alluring?
1 November 2022
The Telegraph
How one encounter in a Parisian bistro changed the face of Western art
As debates continue in the present about restitution, we should recall what European art historically owes to Africa
6 October 2022
Outland
For the Yatreda collective, NFTs are a way of bringing Ethiopia’s past into the present—and preserving it for the future.
23 March 2022
Apollo
Will the Burrell Collection give Glasgow global reach?
After six years of work, the city’s most singular museum is reopening. But while it is once again filled with wonders, there are also questions to be answered
25 October 2021
Apollo
Missionary position – David Livingstone’s birthplace gets a makeover
It’s not easy to repackage a museum devoted to a Victorian missionary, but the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum has pulled it off
21 August 2021
Apollo
Sharp shooters – the photographers who put West Africa into the frame
The portraits of James Barnor, Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé conjure up an image of cool modernity – but also draw on a long photographic tradition
21 June 2021
Apollo
Pulling power – the murky magic of magnet fishing
It’s the aquatic cousin to metal detecting – and an increasing number of devotees are casting off into rivers and canals in search of trash and treasure
4 May 2021
Apollo
‘Here are the contradictions of Glasgow laid bare, with love’ – in the footsteps of Joan Eardley
The painter’s tender portraits of slum life are being celebrated across Scotland in her centenary year
19 November 2020
Apollo
Apollo Artist of the Year: Toyin Ojih Odutola
Toyin Ojih Odutola is Apollo's Artist of the Year 2020. Her extraordinary gift for world-building sets the Nigerian-American artist apart, writes Samuel Reilly
1 August 2020
Apollo
Private enterprise – the individuals who are taking restitution into their own hands
While museums deliberate about returning objects that were taken from their places of origin without consent, it is easier for individuals to act
22 July 2020
Apollo
‘Her photographs appear as an eloquent reminder to passers-by of a life cut short’
Khadija Saye was among the 72 people who died in the fire at Grenfell in 2017. A series of self-portraits she made that year is currently on display near the tower
18 December 2019
Apollo
School of rock – inside the new-look Aberdeen Art Gallery
After a £35m renovation and expansion, the granite city can finally display its collections in the manner they deserve
19 September 2019
Apollo
South Africa’s most established art fair has undergone a rapid rebirth
A sophisticated revamp means that Art Joburg is now a smaller, sleeker affair
14 August 2019
Apollo
Félix Fénéon – critic, collector, and champion of African art
The Parisian critic may have been an enigma who stayed out of sight – but he introduced African art to the French avant-garde
22 July 2019
Apollo
A pan-African event keeps its sights set on local scenes
A year-long travelling exhibition celebrates the continent’s leading artists
29 November 2018
Apollo
‘Art X Lagos is more like an arts festival than your average art fair’
The liveliness of the international art fair shows that the Nigerian arts scene is going from strength to strength
16 October 2018
Frieze
Never Knowingly Understood: How Ivor Cutler Turned Daftness into Serious Business
A new show at Goldsmiths CCA shows us the ways the Scottish humourist made the comical his life’s work
14 September 2018
Apollo
How the V&A Dundee is rewriting the history of Scotland
The country’s first design museum is taking a cosmopolitan approach to presenting the national story
Interviews
27 May 2023
Apollo
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith Remakes America
The artist who has long campaigned for the recognition of Native American artists is changing how we look at the art of the United States
3 November 2022
Apollo
Tadesse Mesfin’s beaming visions of Ethiopia are pure joy
The pioneer of Ethiopian modernism tells Apollo about his years in the USSR and his depictions of brightly-dressed women at market
22 September 2021
Apollo
‘Jazz to me is like oxygen’ – an interview with Sam Nhlengethwa
The South African painter and collage artist discusses his enduring passion for jazz music
23 April 2021
Apollo
‘You don’t have to man-manage artists’ – Maro Itoje talks African art
The England rugby star is presenting an art exhibition in London exploring Africa’s contribution to world culture
18 January 2021
Apollo
The Apollo 40 Under 40 Africa in focus: Mikhael SubotzkyThe South African photographer talks to Apollo about art, power, and his long-standing mistrust of images
4 December 2020
Apollo
‘The future is certainly in Africa’ – an interview with Simon Njami
The writer and curator discusses his latest project at Art Abu Dhabi and how the contemporary art scene in Africa has changed in recent years
16 June 2020
Apollo
‘The truth is contagious’ – an interview with Lonnie Holley
The artist and musician first turned to sculpture after a personal tragedy, but his work is rooted in the history of the American South
2 May 2020
Apollo
The wit and wisdom of Yinka Shonibare
The artist discusses his plans for a new residency in Lagos, and delves into the serious mischief of his sculptures
20 December 2019
Apollo
Community spirit – an interview with Grace Ndiritu
The artist started out working with textiles – but has since broadened her focus to explore alternative communities
26 September 2019
Apollo
‘I liked the idea of bringing sharp objects into a library’ –
an interview with Sean Lynch
The artist discusses the allure of the 19th-century forger Flint Jack – who fooled museums and collectors with his brand-new prehistoric artefacts
20 December 2018
Apollo
‘I’m as excited about etching now as I ever have been’ – an interview with Norman Ackroyd
The artist’s etchings capture the mood and meaning of the remotest landscapes in the British Isles
Reviews
25 March 2020
Apollo
Solitary refinement – the uncanny art of Léon Spilliaert
The Belgian Symbolist is at his spookiest and most original when he depicts reality
8 January 2021
Apollo
Trouble in paradise – Michael Armitage at the Haus der Kunst, reviewed
The artist’s complex depictions of Kenya present scenes of violence alongside moments of beauty
5 May 2022
Apollo
‘An elegy to a disappearing planet’ – Katie Paterson in Edinburgh, reviewed
Over the course of an almost a decade, the Scottish artist has gathered and crushed ancient geological specimens to create a work of real conceptual power
24 October 2022
Apollo
The instant appeal of William Kentridge’s slow art
A journey through four decades of the South African artist’s works reveals the steady evolution of his talent
9 February 2023
The Telegraph
Peter Doig, review: this modern master’s unsettling voice rings out loud and clear
The Courtauld's show is hugely rewarding in itself, while also allowing fascinating comparisons with other artists' work
25 January 2024
The Telegraph
Paolozzi at 100: highlights the endless ingenuity of the UK’s Pop Art master
The National Gallery of Scotland's show thrusts together works from across Paolozzi's array of disciplines in a brilliantly engaging way
22 March 2024
Apollo
Martin Boyce keeps his distance
In the Turner Prize-winner’s first major show in Scotland in two decades, his sculptures are best viewed at something of a remove
22 May 2024
The Telegraph
Lowry and the Sea: The ‘matchstick men’ artist revealed in a whole new light
He's famed for his scenes of industrial Salford, but this exhibition introduces us to Lowry’s lesser-known side: the seascape painter
31 May 2024
Apollo
The British collectors who developed a decided taste for Degas
William Burrell came to own 23 paintings by the artist, but an exhibition in Glasgow shows that his contemporaries were just as appreciative
25 October 2019
Apollo
The Turner Prize has more of a purpose than it has had in years
Tai Shani, Oscar Murillo, Helen Cammock and Lawrence Abu Hamdan can be found in playful, reflective or forensic mode in Margate
31 March 2021
Apollo
Hardy boy: the wild landscapes of James Morrison, from Angus to the Arctic
As a new documentary reveals, the Scottish painter braved wind, rain and Arctic ice in search of his 'rough truth'
4 July 2018
Apollo
Bacon and Giacometti remain as elusive as ever at the Fondation Beyeler
The Fondation Beyeler ingeniously pairs Bacon and Giacometti in a way that highlights the individuality of both artists
25 July 2018
Apollo
Ecstasy and ethnography in Geneva
An exhibition at the MEG urges us to see African religious objects afresh by placing them in contemporary sacred contexts
23 August 2018
Apollo
Jiří Kolář’s collages cut up reality to devastating effect
The Czech artist’s unsettling work includes a vivid record of the crushing of the Prague Spring
December 2018
The Bottle Imp
26 April 2019
Frieze
Different Eyes, Different Times: Edvard Munch at the British Museum
The show of the artist’s prints is the largest to be held in the UK in 45 years
11 August 2024
The Telegraph
Now in its 20th year, the art festival features beautiful and powerful works from the likes of Chris Ofili, El Anatsui and Ade Adesina
30 March 2018
Apollo
The artist’s collection of Japanese prints gave him a new way of seeing the world
Opinion
7 August 2018
Apollo
The destruction of The List at the Liverpool Biennial is deeply troubling
The List, which documents the thousands of people who have died trying to reach Europe, was torn down from hoardings in Liverpool
30 April 2021
Prospect
More than a century ago, the Bronzes were taken by the British during a brutal colonial campaign in West Africa. Is it time they went back home?
10 June 2022
ArtReview
Can an Ethnographic Museum Reinvent Itself?
A new exhibition at the musée du Quai Branly in Paris shows what can be achieved when institutions rely on cooperation and exchange, and not the custodianship of colonial collections
19 September 2022
Outland
For activists frustrated with the pace of change in the physical world, NFTs are opening up new ways of thinking about the digital repatriation of looted African artefacts.
11 November 2022
Apollo
Digital Benin opens a new chapter in the restitution saga
The project that launched this week is not the first to attempt cataloguing the Benin Bronzes, but it’s by far the most comprehensive
8 December 2022
Outland
Arcual is the latest venture to promise that its blockchain technology will transform the art world, but thorny questions remain.
29 March 2023
ArtReview
What Happens When ‘Vernacular Art’ Enters an Institution?The unspoken presupposition that artistic value is conferred by the establishment seems at odds with the artwork
28 February 2024
ArtReview
A new book, Gauguin and Polynesia, revisits the painter’s controversial period and the ‘archive of colonial imagery’
22 February 2019
Apollo
Lagos is a better home for the Lander stool than London
The rare Yoruba artefact would mean more in a new museum in Lagos than it does in storage at the British Museum
Books
September 2024
Freight Books
The Hunterian Poems, volume 3
Edited by Alan Riach, including my poem 'E.1., or Queen Mother'
January 2022
3812 Gallery
Looking East: St Ives Artists and Buddhism
Exhibition catalogue, texts by Chris Stephens, Philip Dodd, Mark Hudson, Toby Treves and Samuel Reilly
November 2017
Mad Weir Books
Tigerish Waters: Selected Writings of Sophie Reilly
Edited with an introduction by Samuel Reilly