In Côte d’Ivoire, Simone Guirandou-N’Diaye is known as “the mother of artists”. The gallery she co-founded with her daughter Gazelle Guirandou is one of 26 exhibitors at the New York edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair– which opened today at 439 West 127th Street and will run through Sunday. Simone opened her first gallery thirty years ago in Abidjan, knowing that she said oncethat the only way for artists “to flourish is to help them connect with the public.”
The phrase sticks in my head as a reminder of the importance of galleries in supporting artists, both commercially and in terms of building an audience for their work. Since the very first edition of 1-54 in 2013 in Marrakech, founder Touria El-Glaoui applies this same sentiment to an even greater level, using her fair as a platform to stimulate galleries that support artists from Africa and its diaspora. .
For the 2023 New York edition, El-Glaoui was very intentional in continuing to use the fair to “explore conversations around the diaspora,” she told Artnet News. This objective is manifested in a program of galleries presenting works by artists based in the Caribbean, South America, the United States or Europe. Below, I’ve highlighted six spaces, including the innovative Guirandou Gallery, which demonstrate how 1-54 has taken the stories that live on the continent and brought them closer to others that don’t – but can often trace back to Africa, in one way or another.
Louis Simone Guirandou Gallery
Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Pedro Pires, Mask for a future (2022). Image courtesy of Galerie LouiSimone Guirandou.
A bright yellow wall piece hangs next to the entrance to LouiSimone Guirandou’s stand. Measuring 8 feet by 10 feet, it can easily be mistaken for a textile. The work is by Malian artist Ange Dakouo and is actually made with recycled newspaper that he rolled up on small cardboard squares and then dipped in paint.
Once inside the Guirandous stand, the profusely painted gestural works of Ghanaian teacher and painter Ablade Glover seem to jump off the wall. Feeding off this energy, at the center of the stand are lightweight fiberglass busts of an artist named Pedro Pires, who splits his time between Angola and Portugal. He covered the heads with traditional African wax cloths, referring to how these have become symbols in his hometown of Luanda, Angola, where they are often one of the first things. people see.
Nosco Gallery
Brussels, Belgium
Works by Isabelle.D and Caio Marcolini at the Nosco Gallery. Photo courtesy of Galerie Nosco.
There are plenty of vibrant exhibits throughout 1-54, but none quite like the Nosco Gallery booth filled with large crochet canvases by French-Algerian artist Isabelle.D. The Algerian artist’s works look like lush, colorful flower gardens springing from the wall.
Despite appearances, they are not inspired by nature. In fact, the artist made them to mimic the coloring of a bruise. Hiding behind splashes of rich reds and blues is an analogy of how colonization has hurt or bruised societies.
Associated with these, metal sculptures by the Brazilian artist Caio Marcolini. Using a single thread weaving technique traditional in West Africa, Marcolini’s amoebic pieces appear to be suckers on the wall – and yet somehow they seem fragile at the same time, as if they could get rid of that directly too.
By the end of the VIP day, all of Marcolini’s pieces, which ranged in price from $2,000 to $8,000, had been sold. Isabelle.D’s works cost between $18,500 and $50,000 and there was only one left at the end of the first day.
Loeves & Co.
Paris, France
Roland Dorcely, The road mill (circa 1958). Image reproduced with the kind permission of Loeve&Co.
In the mid-twentieth century, Haitian artist Roland Dorcély was living as an artist and poet in Paris, socializing with some of the great artists of the time, from Roberto Matta to Pablo Picasso. His paintings strongly evoke this influence, with flat, contoured lines separating deep blocks of color.
And yet, he struggled to find success. He once wrote to one of the few supporters of his work that Parisians expected him “to wear a loincloth, a quiver and arrows, but that he does not like Winslow Homer or Seurat”. By 1962, he was so indebted that he had to sell his work to his Parisian dealer and leave Europe for good.
Loeve & Co. discovered the work of decades later after a meeting with this dealer’s grandson. The gallery recently sold a large piece to the Center Pompidou, five years after Dorcély died in 2017, having lived most of his life in complete darkness.
Prices for Dorcély’s smaller works start at $15,500, with the largest piece being $41,000. They are all still available.
kb
Lagos, Nigeria
Adebayo Bolaji, Agago (2023). Image courtesy ko.
Many of the works at the fair contain dual or hidden meanings linked either to colonialism or to the political unrest left in its wake. A ceramic piece resembling a large piece of clothing hangs on one of the walls of the kó stand. Oziomo Onuzulike made it with ceramic palm kernel beads which were “formerly used as a symbol of currency in West Africa, then transformed in more contemporary times into a symbol of social status”, explained the director of kó , Joseph Gergel.
On the opposite wall, Nigerian artist Mobolaji Ogunrosoye created the collaged portraits on display by manipulating photographs she had taken of her friends. These distortions are meant to point out perceptions around the female body in Nigeria.
Finally, sandwiched between these works are colorful large-scale paintings by British-Nigerian artist Adébayo Bolaji, who takes old Yoruba parables or stories and shapes them into new ones, via the skillful interplay of figures and symbols.
The Ogunrosoye portraits are available for $4,000 each. Onuzulike’s garment costs $40,000, and Bolaji’s paintings have an average price of $18,500 each.
Spinello projects
miami
Jared McGriff, In the shallow coolness in between (2022). Image courtesy of Spinello Projects.
One of the most interesting parts of the fair this year is seeing how the work of emerging African-American artists fits together.
An example: on the stand of Spinello Projects, the figurative works of Jared McGriff, painted with loose and jerky brushstrokes, play with the themes of memory and intergenerational work. All of his paintings, which range in price from $12,000 to $55,000, sold out at the end of the preview day, following some notable recent acquisitions by the Hort Family Collection and the Jasteka Foundation.
Memorandum Gallery
new York
Works by Josie Love Roebuck at LatchKey Gallery. Image courtesy of LatchKey Gallery.
Another standout among 1-54’s African-American artists: at LatchKey Gallery, Josie Love Roebuck’s textile portraits, which revolve around the idea of belonging or lack thereof.
In I know why the southern black girl sanghis piece which reinvents that of Degas little dancerRoebuck tries to reclaim the space she never thought she would have, growing up as an adopted mixed-race child in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and struggling to figure out who she really was.
Prices for his solo booth range from $2,000 to $12,000, with three sold and two pending at the end of the VIP day.
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