Image via Complex Original
Last week, the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair took place at the Somerset House in London during Frieze Week, making it the first fair for contemporary African art ever. It acted as a place for galleries, artists, curators, and museums involved in African and Africa-related projects to promote their art to an international audience.
Out of 17 top-notch exhibitors, we've highlighted the work of 10 Contemporary African Artists You Should Know, whose pieces blew us away. Based on these, we hope the fair gets a chance to travel beyond London and Frieze Week.
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Zak Ové works in sculpture, film, and photography, bringing the old world and the new together through materials paying tribute to spiritual and artistic African identity. By examining African history and diaspora, with an emphasis on the Trinidadian Carnival, Ové promotes emancipation of one's personal existence through incarnating one's "other self" and play.
Hassan Hajjaj celebrates popular visual culture with an emphasis on the Moroccan market or souk. As a space for social interaction and exchange, creative recycling, and vibrancy, souks are Hajjaj's multi-faceted inspiration. Additionally, in 2009, Hajjaj was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize by the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Uche James Iroha studied sculpture but does photography, which shows in his emphasis on shapes and human bodies. He has been described as "a leading light of a new generation of Nigerian photographers" for his documentation of everyday reality through a unique lens. As a whole, his work addresses economic imperialism and gender issues.
Nairobi-based Miriam Syowia Kyambi's multi-media work examines perception and memory through the constructs of history, colonialism, family, sexuality, and violence. Her work has gained attention for juxtaposing personal relationships and cultural identities in a way that reveals loss and longing.
When Paul Sika was young, he'd play video games and program calculators. After a stint in software engineering, he decided to engage in what he calls "photo-making," which implies creating photographs in the same way as motion pictures. In this way, he stages unusual scenes where contemporary painting meets mythology and imagination.
Harandane Dicko's photography displays the complicated issues plaguing humanity in mostly black and white images. He won the first African photography competition organized by the Andalusian Centre of Photography and the African Film Festival in Tarifa, Spain.
Richard Butler-Bowdon
Melbourne-based Richard Butler-Bowdon's art has community at the center, and his practice shows his true curiosity about the current state of humanity. He considers the historical traditions of portraiture in his attempt to challenge viewers' ideas of diaspora.
Sokari Douglas Camp works in metal, and many consider her the most prolific contemporary African female sculptor. Her work explores Africa's socio-political turmoil, globalization, and the ancestral origins of Buguma heritage. In 2005, she was awarded a CBE recognizing her contribution to art.
Nathalie Boutté's collages combine photography, sculpture, and painting with her complex knowledge of paper and geometric volumes. Each small piece of paper is assembled one by one to create a feathered effect, emphasizing newness, new experiences, and new practice.
Edson Chagas
Edson Chagas uses photography to investigate daily life and consumerism. He uses everyday objects and scenarios from an existential perspective, inviting viewers to analyze and deconstruct their historical, social, geographical, ethnic, and economic associations.
