Ahead 61st Venice Biennale, kó, Inglett support Udondian, Kure

'Okrika Reclaimed', textile installation and performance project, in Accra Ghana, by Victoria-Idongesit Udondian, 2025. PIC: c/o of the artist.

LAGOS, Nigeria-based kó Gallery, which announced that Victoria-Idongesit Udondian has been invited to the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, expressed support for the creative progression of the artist.

Also, kó joined Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, in announcing that another Nigerian-born artist, Marcia Kure has been invited to the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia by Koyo Kouoh. 

Udondian and Kure are among many artists, from across the world, invited by the creative director, Kouoh, for the 61st Venice Biennale taking place on May 9-November 22, 2026. Udondian (b. 1982, Akwa Ibom, Nigeria) works across textiles, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, video, and ceramics. 

According to kó, Udondian's interdisciplinary practice is driven by an on going investigation into textiles and the ways material design shapes identity, drawing on the histories and tacit meanings embedded in everyday fabrics and objects. The gallery tracked her training in tailoring, painting, sculpture, and new genres, noting that "Udondian creates large-scale interdisciplinary projects with textiles at their core, often informed by her experiences growing up in Nigeria." kó stated that her work interrogates the postcolonial condition within an increasingly globalized world, examining the intersections of migration, labour, and global trade.

Kure’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Menil Drawing Institute, Houston; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Wanås Konst Sculpture Park, Sweden; Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; the Sharjah Biennial; the International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Seville; Dak’Art - Dakar Biennale; and La Triennale, Paris. Her work is held in public collections including the British Museum, London; Centre Pompidou; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Menil Drawing Institute; the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution; the Newark Museum of Art; the Princeton University Art Museum; and the Studio Museum in Harlem. The artist is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, and kó, Lagos.

Udondian received her B.A. in Fine Arts (Painting) from the University of Uyo, Nigeria, in 2004, and her MFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Columbia University, New York, in 2016. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, She is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Art at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York. Udondian was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 and the Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2018. She has participated in numerous residencies, including Fountainhead (Miami), Instituto Sacatar (Bahia, Brazil), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown), Villa Strauli (Winterthur, Switzerland), Fondazione di Venezia (Italy), and Bag Factory Studios (Johannesburg).

Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Fischer Landau Center for the Arts (New York), the Bronx Museum, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the National Museum (Lagos), the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), the South London Gallery, and Villa Strauli Art Centre (Switzerland). Recent solo exhibitions include After the Last Supper at The Armory Show, New York (2025), Nsinam Mi Ke Ndi Owo at Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo, New York (2025), How Can I Be Nobody at Smack Mellon, New York

(2022), and Adape 1 at The Arts Collaboratory, University of Buffalo (2021). Recent group exhibitions include the British Textile Biennial (Blackburn, UK, 2023), Fragmented World/Coherent Lives at Ten North Group Gallery (Miami, 2023), and Hacer Noche: Promised Land at Museo Textil de Oaxaca (Mexico, 2022). Her work is held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Nigeria), the West Collection (Philadelphia), and the Fondazione di Venezia (Italy).

Marcia Kure (b.1970, Kano, Nigeria) is a multidisciplinary artist working between Nigeria and the United States. Her practice is grounded in drawing and extends into sculpture and material-based processes. Through line, inscription, and trace, her work examines how power, trade, and movement shape bodies, materials, and environments over time.

kó is dedicated to promoting modern and contemporary art. kó has a dual focus in championing Nigeria’s leading artists from the modern period and celebrating emerging and established contemporary artists across Africa and the Diaspora.

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