Evans Mbugua, Lollipop, 2018, Oil paint on perspex with photo paper 100 x 100cm. Courtesy Gallery of African Art (GAFRA).
Now in its sixth year, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair platforms the work of African artists and galleries, introducing them to international audiences. Being the only large scale international art fair dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, 1-54 was a necessary — if belated — inclusion onto the international art calendar. Indeed, since 2013, the fair has grown significantly and is now an important fixture on the London art scene alongside Frieze. It has also grown geographically, hosting its first African edition in Marrakech earlier this year in February — a key vision of its founding director Touria El Glaoui — and its fourth edition in New York last May. With over forty three galleries — sixteen of which are based on the African continent —representing an impressive 130 artists, the fair is the largest it’s ever been. And, for El Glaoui, this growth reflects a positive shift away from “Euro-centric art-historical narratives”.
This year’s 1-54 returns amid a dynamic conversation around contemporary art from Africa; with a commentator recently remarking that it is the artist that is African, not the art. 1-54 is no stranger to criticism when it comes to labelling: the fair’s detractors might ask “isn’t it essentialist to group artists working in diverse artistic traditions together as ‘contemporary African art’ just because they happen to have some arbitrary connection to a geographical location?
El Glaoui is aware of this, and has welcomed debate around the issue. “I knew I would have to include ‘contemporary African art’ to give visitors some idea of what we’re about, but ultimately 1-54 is our name,” she insists. “One continent, 54 countries.” While she agrees that the category has been contentious right from the start, El Glaoui realised that she had to be pragmatic in order to “stress the multiplicity of narratives and backgrounds considered under the ‘contemporary African art’ category.”
Since its inception, 1-54 has sought to encourage visitors to engage with the works on display by abandoning historical preconceptions of the African continent. As indicated by the growing number of visitors and exhibiting galleries attending the fair, 1-54 has succeeded in its aim, attracting audiences and collectors who might have been already interested in the notion of ‘African art’ only to surprise them with its eye-opening, diverse selection. With that comes the risk, however, of losing sections of the contemporary art crowd who reduce ‘African art’ to stereotypical subjects, such as masks and ethnological paraphernalia. Luckily, the word is out that 1-54 has so much more to offer.
Importantly, 1-54 addresses these stereotypical notions with an annual programme of talks, FORUM that challenges misconceptions around contemporary art from Africa. This year, the extensive in-house series is curated by Ekow Eshun, bringing together artists, curators and scholars to address contemporary artistic production from Africa and black diasporas. Themed “Freefall”, this year’s edition explores black artistic practice as a strategy for innovation, resistance and liberation, all the while drawing on a history of thought to interrogate notions of blackness in art and in the global art industry.
In this way, 1-54 creates an integrated marketplace where art can be bought and sold and vital ideas traded all in the same space. In such a setting, the category of ‘contemporary African art’ is likely to crumble, and rightly so. By briefly examining the exhibiting galleries and artists, it’s easy to realise why — the fair presents a multiplicity of techniques, artistic traditions and styles: from the transient oil-paint on Evans Mbugua’s perspex paper portraits to Wole Lagunju’s frivolous Yoruba-inspired paintings and to Meriem Bouderbala’s fascinating reverse-glass paintings. There are also well-known names to rediscover such as Yinka Shonibare, J. D. Okhai Ojeikere and Esther Mahlangu.
Back in 2013, El Glaoui says that her mission was “to create a channel of exchange that would provide a doorway for artists from Africa and its diaspora, and provide a space for their visibility in the international market.” Six years on, and her mission has certainly made a difference. As the director confirms, “We’re now seeing more art from Africa and its diaspora in much larger fairs such as Frieze and Art Basel getting the visibility on the international market they have long deserved”. El Glaoui insists, however, that 1-54 has not done it alone, adding that it has been “an accumulation of efforts by cultural makers and galleries over the last decade” to improve representation of African artists.
The misguided habit of qualifying the work of African and Afrodiasporic artists by their origin has allowed galleries and other gatekeepers to chide artists for producing work that is ‘not African enough’, revealing telling ideas about what is considered African, and what isn’t. In a searing satire titled, This one went to the market, Nairobi’s The Nest Collective wittingly explore the effects of this quagmire. In the collective’s short film, a Kenyan artist starts to make ‘Afrofuturist’ art because she has found out that it sells extremely well in the West with the ‘right’ keywords attached.
On the contrary, 1-54 seeks to unravel this impasse by engaging audiences with the work of African and Afrodiasporic artists consistently, regardless of fashionable market trends and buzzwords like ‘Afrofuturism’. In this way, El Glaoui hopes that audiences and collectors can be exposed to the diversity of work available all the while understanding “the importance of supporting an artist rather than just buying for monetary investment”. Ultimately, El Glaoui is keen on facilitating access and spaces of engagement for African artists and galleries, so that they will no longer have to perform an identity when they go to the market.
Images courtesy of Katrina Sorrentino.