African art fair to dip its toe in Hong Kong, as market ‘shifts East’

An art fair specialising in works from Africa and its diaspora is launching its first Asian project in Hong Kong next March.

The London-based 1-54 fair, so called because there are 54 countries in Africa today, announced on Thursday that it would make its first foray into Asia to provide more access to African art there amid growing interest from the region’s collectors.

“Around 25 galleries will provide artworks for the Hong Kong show, and the exhibition will have 25 to 30 pieces in total,” says Touria El Glaoui, who founded the fair in London in 2013 before launching editions in New York in 2015 and Marrakech, Morocco, in 2018.

She adds: “This is a presentation rather than a fair, as Hong Kong is very new to us. The idea is to go with highlights of the past 11 years from 1-54 and to reference artists who are well established.”

If the first sale is well received, says El Glaoui, who was born in Casablanca, Morocco, she will launch a full-scale fair in Hong Kong in 2025, probably at Christie’s soon-to-open new headquarters in the Henderson, the curvy skyscraper designed by Zaha Hadid Architects that is under construction in the city’s Central business district.

The just-completed 2023 1-54 fair in London featured 62 galleries from more than 30 countries, making it the largest to date.

Compared with London and New York, where there are large African diaspora populations and a close cultural affinity with the continent, in Asia there is far less knowledge of Africa and its art. Collectors in Asia have, until now, focused on regional and Western artists.

The Hong Kong-born owner and founder of the eponymous art gallery represents African-born artists such as British-Nigerian Yinka Shonibare and South African Zanele Muholi.

We all follow America because it’s the leader of [the] contemporary art world. Contemporary art is always about politics and social change, and in the US it’s been diversity, diversity and diversity in the past 10 years,” Lam says.

As a result, the market focus has been on African-American artists, though more people have come to know about African contemporary art through fairs such as 1-54, she adds.

Her own interest in African art goes back a long way.

Lam visited the 2005 exhibition “Africa Remix” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and was riveted by the work of artists such as Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui and Ethiopian-born painter Julie Mehretu, for whose work a new auction record of US$9.32 million, including commission, was set in Sotheby’s Hong Kong evening sale on October 5.

Lam believes that collectors in Asia will have a great deal of curiosity about African art. Modern China began trading with Africa in 1949 because of Western sanctions during the Cold War, she says.

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“With that long relationship in mind, it will be exciting to have Chinese collectors come up with their own understanding of art from the continent.”

Dolly Kola-Balogun, founder of Retro Africa in Abuja, Nigeria, agrees. She took part in Art Basel Hong Kong for the first time in 2022, and found there was “extreme and genuine” interest from collectors, even though sales were not as good as they could have been.

“We sold four pieces. Two to collectors we already knew and two to new collectors. The lack of sales was not an indication of a lack of interest,” she says.

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“We are not going back to Art Basel Hong Kong in 2024 because we have to pick between Singapore and Hong Kong, but we plan to be back the following year,” she says.

“The art market is shifting East and we believe the moment for African-Asian cultural exchange is now.

“It is an exciting thing to be in the region without being subjected to the gatekeeping of Western validation. Asian collectors can make decisions for themselves,” Kola-Balogun adds.