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.
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.
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.