This week: Nigeria heads to the polls this weekend; what are the implications for its museums and art scene? Dolly Kola-Balogun, director of the Retro Africa gallery in Abuja, reflects on the candidates and discusses the importance of art, and culture more widely, to the country’s future.
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Cover of All the Beauty in the World: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
Photo: Courtesy of Patrick Bringley and Simon & Schuster
We also talk to Patrick Bringley, the author of a new book All the Beauty in the World: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, in which he reflects on his experiences as a guard at the museum and coming to terms with the loss of his brother.
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Hubert Robert's Boats in Front of the Grotto in the Park at Méréville (1786-87)
Photo: Cecilia Heisser/Nationalmuseum
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Boats in Front of the Grotto in the Park at Méréville by Hubert Robert. It features in The Garden: Six Centuries of Art and Nature at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, whose curator, Magnus Olausson, tells us about the painting.
• All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, by Patrick Bringley, Simon and Schuster (US) $27.99, out now. The Bodley Head (UK), £20, 16 March.
• The Garden—Six Centuries of Art and Nature, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden, until 7 January 2024.