Nigerian art historian, critic Okwui Enwezor dies at 55

BERLIN – Nigerian art historian, curator, author and critic Okwui Enwezor has died at 55.

The Haus der Kunst in Munich, where Enwezor was director from 2011 to 2018, confirmed his death in the southern German city Friday. It provided no further details.

The museum said despite falling ill in 2015, Enwezor continued to work on exhibitions including the recently opened “El Anatsui. Triumphant Scale.”

Bavaria’s state minister of the arts, Bernd Sibler, said in a statement that “we have lost a brilliant intellectual, a highly educated cosmopolitan and a sensitive patron of the arts, to whom artists, museums and art lovers owe a lot.”

Enwezor also curated the 2015 Venice Biennale, was artistic director of the Documenta 11, and an adjunct curator at the International Center of Photography in New York.