Unusual photos at MoMA conjure the beaches, bustle and history of Lagos

Logo Oluwamuyiwa: , from "Monochrome Lagos." This series offers a vibrant vision of the city in black-and-white images. Logo Oluwamuyiwa hide caption

toggle caption Logo Oluwamuyiwa

Logo Oluwamuyiwa: , from "Monochrome Lagos." This series offers a vibrant vision of the city in black-and-white images.

Logo Oluwamuyiwa

You don't expect to walk into one of the world's great art museums and hear car horns honking.

It's a soundtrack for New Photography 2023, an ambitious new exhibit of 151 works at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that seeks to capture the essence of Lagos, Nigeria, the bustling home to upward of 17 million people.

The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 16, is notable for other reasons. With seven photographers represented, the exhibit marks the first time MoMA has presented a group show by living West African photographers. And it's the launch of an ongoing series of exhibits that MoMa says will focus on "specific art scenes across the globe."

Amanda Iheme: , from "The Way of Life." Iheme explores the past of Lagos that lingers on in older buildings from the colonial past. Amanda Iheme hide caption

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Amanda Iheme: , from "The Way of Life." Iheme explores the past of Lagos that lingers on in older buildings from the colonial past.

Amanda Iheme

Another photo captures shadowy stairs inside an abandoned building, a scene that evokes shadows lurking from the past. In yet another, pedestrians in Western and traditional African dress walk side by side down a street whose pavement is in visible disrepair. She also shows a sense of humor in her depiction of a grand pink building with no evidence of anyone living there 00 but with laundry drying on the outside hedges.

The next gallery emphasizes the sensual beauty of the city. In his finely detailed black-and-white series, "Sea Never Dry," Akinbode Akinbiyi conjures the sense of an unending ebb and flow of life in Lagos, which is located on a lagoon and consists of several islands famed for their beaches. Onabanjo describes this series as "photographic constellations of people, animals, and objects" found at Bar Beach on Victoria Island in Lagos. Among the most striking is a woman dressed all in white, holding a book (perhaps a Bible) as she strides alone by the surf's edge, a place where the foam from the sea and the gritty grains of sand blend one into the other.

Akinbode Akinbiyi: , from the series "Sea Never Dry." The photos depict the ebb and flow of life in Lagos, which is located on a lagoon and consists of several islands famed for their beaches. Akinbode Akinbiyi hide caption

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Akinbode Akinbiyi: , from the series "Sea Never Dry." The photos depict the ebb and flow of life in Lagos, which is located on a lagoon and consists of several islands famed for their beaches.

Akinbode Akinbiyi

On display nearby is what Onabanjo calls "the spectral spine of the exhibit," a series of collages that artist Abraham Oghobase, calls "Constructed Realities." The photographer juxtaposes blurrily reconfigured archival images of local African and colonial figures with legal documents and lawbook pages that spell out the racist basis of imperial rule.

Abraham Oghobase: Untitled 01 from "Constructed Realities." He juxtaposes archival images of local African and colonial figures with legal documents and lawbook pages that spell out the racist basis of imperial rule. Abraham Oghobase hide caption

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The second work in the set, shows Ọba Ọvonramwen, the last king who ruled the independent Benin Kingdom, in 1897, as the British rulers to whom he has just surrendered prepare to send him into exile. "He was humiliated. You could see the leg chains, you could see the security guards," the photographer notes on the MoMA website. Oghobase uses the same historic image of Ọba Ọvonramwen in another piece in the series, but here, he says, "I've scaled it down to the point that you can't even see the leg chains ... I cut things up, scan them, digitally crop them" in order to tell the story from an African point of view.

Kelani Abass: , from "Casing History," using a letterpress type case and digital print. Abass uses the thin wooden cases to display snapshots from the 1960s and 1970s. Kelani Abass hide caption

toggle caption Kelani Abass

Kelani Abass: , from "Casing History," using a letterpress type case and digital print. Abass uses the thin wooden cases to display snapshots from the 1960s and 1970s.

Kelani Abass

Ohiri call his collage of old negatives and prints, collected from commercial photographers, "The Archive of Becoming" — a reference to the often psychedelic colors and transformations wrought by heat, humidity and time. "They are also unbelievably striking, strange, beautiful, swirling, unexpected pictures," says Onabanjo.

Karl Ohiri: Untitled, from "The Archive of Becoming." Ohiri features old negatives and prints that have been transformed by heat, humidity and time. Karl Ohiri hide caption

toggle caption Karl Ohiri

Karl Ohiri: Untitled, from "The Archive of Becoming." Ohiri features old negatives and prints that have been transformed by heat, humidity and time.

Karl Ohiri

Ohiri's two-pronged video, "Rolling Footage" also offers a social critique, in its depiction of a Lagos community of the homeless and the disabled who are forced to construct their own makeshift vehicles — in this case, a skateboar, which is also on display — to navigate the congested streets of an indifferent-seeming city.

The exhibit closes with the photos of photojournalist Yagazie Emezi documenting Nigeria's October 2020 country-wide protest of the police brutality of the country's Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). These photos document her own participation in the protests and contain "extraordinary power. They show the anger, joy and celebration inside a political movement feels like," says Onanbanjo.

Yagazie Emezi: Untitled, from "#EndSARS Protests." PHotojournalist Emezi documents Nigeria's October 2020 protests of the police brutality of the country's Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). Yagazie Emezi hide caption

toggle caption Yagazie Emezi

Yagazie Emezi: Untitled, from "#EndSARS Protests." PHotojournalist Emezi documents Nigeria's October 2020 protests of the police brutality of the country's Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

Yagazie Emezi

In these photos, Emezi has said, "It's like the crowd breathes in and out." In the same way, visitors to the show can see, feel and hear the breath and pulse of the city of Lagos.

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Correction July 29, 2023

A previous headline incorrectly implied that Lagos is Nigeria's capital. In fact, the capital is Abuja.