Tag: African art market
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Hannah O’Leary on a Decade of Transformation in the African Art Market — and What Still Lies Ahead
Over the past decade, the market for modern and contemporary African art has undergone a remarkable transformation. Auction records have multiplied, international museums have expanded their acquisitions, and African artists have gained unprecedented visibility on the global stage. Yet behind the headlines lie more fundamental questions: How is value actually created? Who shapes an artist’s…
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She Helped Build Senegal’s First Private Museum of Contemporary Art. Today, CCH Pounder Collects “for the Future”
Long before contemporary African art became one of the fastest-growing segments of the global art market, CCH Pounder was collecting the artists she believed would one day define its history. Together with her late husband, the Senegalese anthropologist Boubacar Koné, she founded the Musée Boribana in Dakar (1992), the country’s first museum dedicated to contemporary…
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Touria El Glaoui, Founder of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, on Building Beyond Visibility
As recent institutional research suggests that the African art market has “come of age,” with dedicated auction departments now integrated into broader contemporary sales, the conversation around African art has shifted from questions of visibility to those of structural integration. Founded in London in 2013 as a platform dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and…
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“A Home for Us, by Us”: How Tokini Peterside-Schwebig Made ART X Lagos a Landmark for African Art
For Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, art has always been more than an industry—it is a way of imagining the future. Nearly ten years ago, she channeled that belief into ART X Lagos, a fair that has since become a cornerstone of Nigeria’s cultural calendar and a touchstone for contemporary African art worldwide. Under her direction, the fair…
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“We Are All Bidons”: Romuald Hazoumè’s Jerrycan Masks Mock a Wasteful World
Romuald Hazoumè’s voice—blunt, defiant, uncompromising—carries the same raw force as his iconic masks made from jerrycans. These sculptures, fashioned from discarded petrol containers, evoke Benin’s shadow economy of fuel smuggling with Nigeria, where many risk their lives transporting volatile loads on modified motorcycles for hidden profiteers. For decades, Hazoumè has transformed waste into works that…
Bridging Africa and The World Through Contemporary Art 