Why Talent is Only the Baseline in the Business of Art: Nigerian Gallerist Wunika Mukan

This Women’s Month, Globetrotter Lab celebrates Wunika Mukan and her invaluable contributions to the evolving contemporary art scene in Nigeria.

Since the inception of Wunika Mukan Gallery in Lagos six years ago, Wunika has been dedicating her career to promote the works of emerging artists from Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the diaspora. Her previous experience with a prominent non-profit foundation has instilled in her the passion and confidence to curate quirky and edgy artworks that the gallery is known for today.

Having founded the gallery during the pandemic, Wunika understands resilience and that great progress, like everything in life, needs time. “Time is God,” she says. Those words continue to resonate as she guides her artists, serving as a middlewoman between the young talents and the global collectors.

For our latest installment of People & Spaces, Globetrotter Lab’s Kennedy Ashinze meets Wunika in her gallery for a tour of the space and a conversation about why it’s a great time to be a Black artist and gallerist right now.