Two photographic exhibitions at the National Museum of Africa Art offered profoundly different approaches to modern Nigerian visual culture. Iké Udé: Nollywood Portraits, a traveling exhibition, celebrated the Nigerian film industry from a transnational elite perspective. In contrast, Before Nollywood: The Ideal Photo Studio explored the popular studio photography of Solomon Osagie Alonge during the late colonial and early national era, documenting community leaders and middle-class lives in Benin City, Nigeria.
Before Nollywood emerged out of long-term research, conservation, and curatorial partnership between the Edo kingdom, the people of Benin City, the Osagie and Alonge families, the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, and the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives (EEPA) of the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA). The Alonge Project included NMAfA's major 2014-2016 exhibition Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria. In 2017, the Smithsonian presented parts of the show as...