Nasher Prize Gala Honors Otobong Nkanga With An Artful Dinner, Taiko Drumming, and Dancing

In the fall of 2023, Dallas’ Nasher Sculpture Center announced Otobong Nkanga as its 2025 Nasher Prize Laureate. The award honors Nkanga’s internationally lauded work as a multi-disciplinary artist. Best known for her sculptures and performance art, Nkanga’s practice also includes photography, paintings, installations, poetry, and music.

Since 2016, the Nasher Prize has recognized “remarkable artists who question, explore, expand, and remake the category of sculpture.” As the eighth and newest Nasher Prize Laureate, Nkanga joins a rare, distinguished company including Theaster Gates, Nairy Baghramian, and Senga Nengudi, who won in 2023.

To celebrate Nkanga, leadings artists, philanthropists, and patrons of the arts recently gathered at the Nasher Sculpture Center on a similarly rare chilly April evening in Dallas for the Nasher Prize Gala. As the by-invitation-only guests arrived in their most artistic interpretations of black tie formality, Dondoko Taiko played deep, thundering heartbeats on taiko drums.

Nkanga, resplendent in an Akris dress and Schiaparelli earrings (I like to think she knew Schiaparelli’s Dallas connection), held court in front of the museum, proudly posing for photographs on her big night. Inside, attendees viewed the polymath’s recently-installed exhibition, “Each Seed a Body.” As she passed by, Nancy Nasher instructed me to, “Go smell the exhibit!” (Are you as intrigued as I was?)

After sipping from elegant coupes of champagne during cocktail hour, guests ascended the stepped terrace, following dancers from Bruce Wood Dance. Outside and across the garden, a tent erected for the dignified occasion awaited. Extravagantly decorated with lush and verdant greenery from Bows + Arrows, the tent transported guests like Grace Cook, Nancy Carlson, and Deedie Rose to a Shakespearian woods.

Interim Director and Chief Curator Jed Morse welcomed attendees before they began the artful, four-course dinner from Wolfgang Puck Catering. I particularly enjoyed the beet tortellini, whose flavors included wild thyme, rhubarb compote, goat cheese, butter-toasted walnuts, and beurre monté.

Matrice Ellis-Kirk and Lucilo Peña co-chaired this first iteration of the now-biennial prize, stopping by each table to thank attendees for their support. Onstage, Ellis-Kirk and Peña explained the box of soap at each guest’s place setting. Nkanga produced them in Dallas as part of her ongoing project, “Carved to Flow.” (The co-chairs humorously cautioned guests not to actually use the soap until it finishes curing on May 5!)

The evening crescendoed when Nasher presented Nkanga, who was born in Nigeria and resides in Belgium, with the 2025 Nasher Prize. The newest laureate relished this moment in the sun, gleefully and animatedly striking a triumphant pose with her award. (Nasher and David J. Haemisegger commissioned Renzo Piano, architect of the Nasher Sculpture Center, to design the award object. Suffice it to say, it’s special!) Nkanga thanked everyone in her orbit, from family members to the Nasher Sculpture Center security guards who work the twilight shifts to ensure the museum’s safety.

Then, Nkanga and company were ready to dance! Guests returned to the museum for the afterparty, dancing into the early hours to a “mix of Afrobeats, house vibes, and pop surprises” mixed by DJ Elkin Pautt.

The Nasher Prize Gala remains one of the most sensational nights for the Dallas arts’ community, bringing together some of the city’s most vibrant artists and the people who champion them. It felt particularly special to watch someone enjoy winning their award so wholeheartedly, knowing that moments like this don’t come around often.

An evening like this? It calls for the Schiaparelli earrings.

PC Spotted: Kathryn Andrews, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Nathan Carter, Ambassador Ron Kirk, Rachel and Adam Green, Yuko Hasegawa, Hugh Hayden, Melissa and Drew Ireland, Koyo Kough, Pablo León de la Barra, Vicki Meek, Francisco Moreno, Nic Nicosia, Loring Randolph, Jay Shinn, Joyce Goss, Dr. Theodora Vischer, Donna Wilhelm, Sharon and Michael Young.