Part I of the conversation between Trish Kahle speaks and Victor Ehikhamenor, a Nigerian artist, photographer, and writer, about his installation The Wealth of Nations, and the practice and politics of representing oil and nation in Nigeria.

Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian artist, photographer, and writer. Ehikhamenor has been prolific in producing abstract, symbolic, and politically/historically motivated works. A 2020 National Artist in Residence at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ehikhamenor is a 2016 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow and has held several solo exhibitions and his work has been included in numerous group exhibitions and biennales, ranging from the 57th Venice Biennale as part of the Nigerian Pavilion (2017), to the 5th Mediations Biennale in Poznan, Poland (2016), the 12th Dak’art Biennale in Dakar, Senegal (2016), and the Biennale Jogja XIII, Indonesia (2015). As a writer, he has published fiction and critical essays in global academic journals, magazines, and newspapers, such as the New York Times, the BBC, CNN Online, and the Washington Post, among others. His works are housed in private and public collections around the world, including the Museum of World Art, Netherlands; the Modern Forms Collection, London; The Peggy Cooper Cafritz Collection, Washington, D.C., and Access Bank Plc, Nigeria. Ehikhamenor is the founder of Angels and Muse in Lagos, Nigeria, a thought laboratory dedicated to the promotion and development of contemporary African art and literature.