1-54 Turns Marrakech Into One of Africa’s Most Important Art Hubs

Since its founding in 2018, the Marrakech version of the 1-54 Modern African Artwork Honest has been instrumental in elevating the profile of this Moroccan metropolis, lengthy a vacationer hub. However the truthful, now in its sixth version, is just one a part of an ecosystem that has made Marrakech into one of many Africa’s most necessary artwork hubs.

“Marrakech has welcomed, by 1-54, massive teams of collectors and establishments, and it’s had a huge effect of the Moroccan ecosystem with galleries opening second places in Marrakech,” 1-54 founder Touria El Glaoui advised ARTnews forward of the opening of its second VIP day. “The Moroccan artwork market may be very robust. I’ve been saying that loud and clear from even earlier than we began the Marrakech truthful. Casablanca, Rabat, Tangiers, and Marrakech [each] have about 5 – 6 robust galleries.”  

Although 1-54 began in London after which expanded to New York, El Glaoui’s purpose was all the time to launch a good on the continent. Due to Marrakech’s attractiveness as a vacationer vacation spot and its luxurious accommodations and rising meals scene, town turned the perfect candidate.

“With Marrakech, it was about discovering a metropolis that would maintain the truthful,” she stated. “The artists all wished to indicate on the continent. There’s a delight for them in belonging on the continent. The core of the truthful is about selling and giving visibility to artists from the continent and the African diaspora.”  

The truthful, which is unfold throughout two venues, opened on a wet Thursday morning. From its opening minutes, the intimate corridor of the five-star La Mamounia lodge, which is host to 22 of the truthful’s 30 cubicles, was packed, with the aisles full of collectors, curators, critics, and extra. The smaller portion, consisting of the remaining eight cubicles, is held at DaDa, a mixed-use area simply off Jemaa el-Fnaa, town’s foremost bustling sq., a 15-minute stroll from La Mamounia.

The truthful attracts a world viewers, with a big quantity guests hailing from Francophone nations, given Morocco’s prior colonization by France and provided that French is broadly spoken right here.

One in all Morocco’s most necessary business enterprises, Loft Artwork Gallery, which has places in Casablanca and Marrakech, has participated for the reason that first version of 1-54 in Marrakech. By 1:30 p.m. on the primary day, the gallery had bought virtually all the things in its sales space, together with a wall-hung ceramic work by Bouchra Boudoua for 8,000 euros, a number of work by Nassim Azazar for five,800 euros every, and a textile piece by Amina Agueznay for 15,000 euros.

“For the reason that first version, there was a rise in momentum for Marrakech,” Loft Artwork Gallery founder Yasmine Berrada advised ARTnews. “There’s a variety of curiosity within the Moroccan artwork scene—the artwork world’s eyes are on it.”

Supplier Abla Ababou, who based an eponymous gallery in Rabat in 2017, is taking part in 1-54 Marrakech for the primary time, presenting 4 main Moroccan artists, all of whom give attention to how using supplies can spur recollections of the previous and uncover forgotten histories.

“We wished to enterprise outdoors of Rabat to indicate our artists on a extra international scale,” Ababou stated. “The Moroccan artwork scene remains to be rising compared to the European scenes, however it has additionally been established for a very long time,” particularly when considering Morocco’s lengthy historical past of conventional art-making in a rustic the place the divisions between craft and tremendous artwork are much less pronounced than elsewhere.

Among the many most high-profile works on view is a 2021 portray on paper, Clean Stare, by Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo. A part of a bunch presentation of Ghanian artists by Accra-based Gallery 1957, the expressive portrait of a younger Black man was acquired on the truthful by Tate’s Africa Acquisitions Committee Catalyst Fund for the British museum group’s everlasting assortment. Tate had organized a patron journey to this version of 1-54 to kickstart the buying energy of the Catalyst Fund, which launched final 12 months with an intention of supporting up to date African artists.

“We’ve got virtually parallel tales,” El Glaoui stated, noting that Tate’s devoted acquisition program for contemporary and up to date African artwork began in 2012, round a 12 months earlier than 1-54 launched its first London version. “I feel shopping for one thing right here in Marrakech on the African continent has way more influence than doing it in London. It would encourage different establishments to do the identical.”

Nobody medium or fashion appears to dominate the truthful, although there’s a particular emphasis on Moroccan artists, each ones based mostly within the nation and ones residing overseas. Two twinned portraits of a person and a lady by Valérie Ohana at Casablanca’s Myriem Himmich Gallery, for instance, have been made by mixing the earth with pigment that was then utilized to the canvas and to metal wool. The Casablanca-based CDA Gallery has on view computer-generated images by Muhcine Ennou that place shiny mirror-glass sculptures in imagined deserts as in the event that they have been mirages. A big-scale cracked clay work by Fatiha Zemmouri at Abla Ababou Galerie is especially hanging, as are the ethereal textile works by Malika Sqalli at MCC Gallery’s sales space of mountains that the artist, a retired skydiver, sees as self-portraits.

La Galerie 38, which was based in Casablanca in 2010 and expanded to Marrakech in 2023, has titled its group presentation on the truthful “Concrete Bridges” as a strategy to sign the intergenerational work on view. The sales space is highlighted by an untitled abstraction from 2023 by Mohamed Hamidi, one of many main members of the famed Casablanca Artwork College of the Sixties and ’70s. (The artist can also be the topic of a just-opened, two-person present, with Kendall Geers, on the gallery’s Marrakech location. Geers can also be featured within the sales space itself.) Elsewhere within the sales space are pulsating Op artwork–inflected items by Younes Khourassani, who studied beneath Hamidi on the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca within the late ’90s and early 2000s.

A Tate St. Ives survey in 2023, which then traveled to the Sharjah Artwork Basis and the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, positioned the Casablanca Artwork College as one of the vital necessary artwork actions from Africa, and the worldwide profile of the motion’s artists has been quickly rising ever since, with numerous associated artists showing within the 2024 Venice Biennale. A number of Casablanca At College artists have been represented all through the truthful. Casablanca-based African Arty Artwork Gallery had on view an untitled 1973 mixed-media work by Abderraham Rahoule, whereas the Paris-based Nil Gallery is exhibiting two works by Abdellah El Hariri, who is understood for mixing geometric abstraction with calligraphy.

With this in thoughts, La Galerie 38 determined to pair these two artists’ work to indicate the creative lineage of up to date artwork in Morocco, in addition to that includes works by much more rising Moroccan artists, like Yacout Hamdouch, Meriam Benkirane, and Ghizlane Agzenaï, in line with the gallery’s Marrakech-based director Canelle Hamon-Gillet. The rising prominence of this iteration of 1-54 on the worldwide truthful is a part of the explanation why La Galerie 38 determine to broaden to Marrakech. “This can be a very large occasion in our 12 months,” she stated. “Collectors from all around the world come to this very worldwide truthful.”

“Morocco is taking up a task of cultural management in Africa proper now,” Nil Gallery founder Hugo Zeytoun advised ARTnews, noting that the nation has a powerful custom of accumulating. “Marrakech has a particular power. There’s a sense that you simply’re a part of one thing thrilling occurring right here [at 1-54]—the delivery of an ecosystem.”  

Nil Gallery director Adja Ndiaye added, “Marrakech is turning into one of the vital necessary cities on the continent for up to date African artwork.” Along with the works by El Hariri, the gallery can also be exhibiting photographer Sara Benabdallah, who was born and raised in Marrakech, and whose photographs take into account the position of ladies in Moroccan society, each traditionally and within the current. The 2 photographs on view, from her newest collection “Dryland,” present ladies in conventional costume, every with a white dove, as a strategy to correlate how each “animals and girls are domesticated by society,” Ndiaye stated.

The attain of 1-54 is increasing in its exhibitor listing as properly, with this version together with galleries from two nations which have by no means earlier than had a presence on the truthful: Kuwait and Japan.

The Japanese gallery, Tokyo’s Area Un, arrange store solely final April, and 1-54 is the primary truthful it has ever finished. Area Un can also be distinctive within the Japanese artwork market—it’s seemingly the primary and solely gallery to focus completely on exhibiting up to date African artwork in Japan. Area Un’s founder, Edna Dumas, visited 1-54 Marrakech final 12 months simply earlier than opening, with a watch towards taking part in 2025. “Area Un is a tremendous story,” El Glaoui stated. “They’re doing pioneering job in introducing African artwork in Japan.”

Now, that dream has turn into a actuality by way of a joint sales space with Senegal’s Galerie Atiss Dakar. Galerie Atiss founder Aissa Dione, who additionally works as a textile designer and has been touring to Japan for over 30 years to work with kimono weavers, met Dumas just a few years again. The 2 started collaborating virtually instantly by way of residencies, with Dumas internet hosting Senegalese artists in Japan and Dione internet hosting Japanese artists in Senegal.

That residency program has now turn into formalized beneath Area Un, because the artists it hosts will now additionally have the ability to exhibit on the Tokyo location. “We see ourselves as extra of a cultural platform than a business gallery,” Area Un director Naoki Nakatani advised ARTnews, noting that the artwork world wants extra tasks like theirs. Within the sales space, Area Un is exhibiting one work by the primary artist it hosted, Aliou Diack, a Senegalese artist that Galerie Atiss has been representing since 2016. An all-over abstraction, Dialogue 2 (2024), bought throughout the truthful’s first hours.

Dione’s gallery has participated in a single version every of 1-54 in New York and London, however she stated the Marrakech truthful “is turning into extra necessary than New York and London” for her enterprise, because the truthful’s smaller scale permits for extra visibility and the flexibility to make extra contacts.

One other first-time exhibitor is Ross-Sutton Gallery, which operates in New York and Stockholm. Gallery founder Destinee Ross-Sutton had participated in 1-54’s New York version final 12 months, and her husband visited the 2024 iteration in Marrakech and steered she apply to indicate right here. Though Ross-Sutton was initially hesitant concerning the success she might need at a good so removed from her two bases, she stated that based mostly on the truthful’s first hours she was joyful she had taken the plunge in spite of everything.

“Individuals are right here in Marrakech particularly for this truthful,” she advised ARTnews, noting that 1-54’s London and New York variations are technically satellites to Frieze gala’s in these cities. “It jogs my memory of Artwork Basel [in Switzerland] in a means. The artwork is the main target. It provides a stage of power that’s vigorous and chaotic in a great way.”

Two of the artists she confirmed at 1-54 New York are additionally right here at her Marrakech sales space, the place Joshua Michael Adokuru’s figurative work bought out and numerous Dina Nur Satti’s ceramic vessels additionally discovered patrons. In the course of the first hours on the Marrakech truthful, she had already made numerous gross sales for these two artists and the others in her sales space.

Additionally in Ross-Sutton’s sales space are mixed-media items by Cape City–based mostly artist Turiya Magadlela, through which the artist has stretched colourful pantyhose—orange, pink, pink—over self-portraits. Born in 1978 and coming of age through the closing lengthy decade of South Africa’s Apartheid interval, the works are a means for the artist to course of the “intersection of resistance, survival, and self-discovery” through which she discovered herself.

“My work wrestles with the stress between the will to ascend to the rarefied heights of the 1% and the worry of what which may value—together with the alienation of my roots and my very own humanity,” Magadlela’s artist assertion reads.