BOBO, a landmark exhibition by British-Nigerian artist Olaolu “Slawn”, opened at Nahous on Saturday, December 20, to an electric response from Lagos’s art and creative community. The exhibition, which marks Slawn’s largest presentation in Nigeria to date, will run through February 1, 2026.
A homecoming in every sense, BOBO—titled after Slawn’s native name, centres the return of an artist who has created, performed, and provoked across continents. Bringing together a selection of new works, this exhibition revisits the soil, rhythm, and irreverent humour that shaped him. It is not a retrospective; it is a reclamation. A gathering of fragments from a life lived publicly, online and off, filtered through global recognition and an ever-expanding creative identity.
Infused with both wit and an unexpected quietude, the works in BOBO reflect Slawn’s signature playfulness while revealing a deeper internal landscape: themes of memory, distance, belonging, and the boy behind the myth. Here, the tension between performance and sincerity becomes vivid; canvases, gestures, and sculptural forms that feel immediate yet introspective, bold yet disarmingly tender.
The opening night brought together artists, curators, collectors, musicians, skaters, writers, and long-time admirers of Slawn’s practice.
The atmosphere was charged, unfolding as equal parts exhibition, reunion, and cultural moment, a celebration of an artist returning not for nostalgia, but for clarity, context, and confrontation.
