{"id":1936448,"date":"2026-05-14T19:34:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1936448"},"modified":"2026-05-14T19:34:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:34:38","slug":"the-best-booths-at-1-54-contemporary-african-art-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1936448","title":{"rendered":"The Best Booths at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\tThe 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is back at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Chelsea\u2014just a few blocks from Frieze New York and in the same building at NADA\u2014with more than 20 galleries from the continent and other ports of call for the \u201cever-expanding narratives of the African diaspora,\u201d as fair director Touria El Glaoui\u00a0described it. Spirits were high during the opening preview on Wednesday, when an international roster of galleries\u2014including first-time fair participants from Lagos, S\u00e3o Paulo, Nassau, and New York\u2014placed a stated special focus on Brazil and Afro-Brazilian perspectives.<\/p>\n
\n\tBelow is a look at the five best booths at the fair, which runs through Sunday.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\n
Sulette van der Merwe at Blond Contemporary<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy Blond Contemporary\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n\tThe London-based gallery Blond Contemporary is showing phantasmagorical paintings by the South African artist Sulette van der Merwe, who conjures the legacy of Surrealism in works that play with \u201cthe notion of consciousness and how consciousness is formed,\u201d according to gallery director Philip Blond. There\u2019s also a playful element of trompe-l\u2019oeil trickery, as what appear to be collaged elements are all painted on surfaces that otherwise seem to be stuck together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
\n\n
Modou Dieng Yacine at 193 Gallery<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy 193 Gallery\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n\tIn the booth for 193 Gallery, which maintains spaces in Paris, Venice, and Saint-Tropez, there are paintings by Modou Dieng Yacine that are inspired by Senegalese wrestlers. They exude a sense of power while remaining intriguingly elusive. The artist\u2014born in Senegal and currently based in Chicago\u2014reimagined figures based on photographs as \u201cunstable, shifting bodies where Black identity dissolves into silhouette, transparency, and absence,\u201d according to gallery materials. The colors are inviting, but they also manage to somehow recede, pulling the viewer in close.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
\n\n
Black Forest Library<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n\tPresented as a \u201cSpecial Project\u201d by 1-54, Black Forest Library is an extension of an initiative started at MIT through which the artist Ekene Ijeoma organizes community events and plants trees. Some 400 milk crates in the colors of the Pan-African flag display a heady collection of books\u2014on subjects ranging from racial justice and conservationism to the history of dub reggae\u2014as well as plants and other curios. Ijeoma has planted hundreds of trees all over\u2014including 200 in the South Bronx.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
\n\n
Rommulo Vieira Concei\u00e7\u00e3o at 22 Aura<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy Aura\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n\tRommulo Vieira Concei\u00e7\u00e3o, born in Salvador and based in Porto Alegre, plies materials such as anodized aluminum into works that tap into traditions and histories while paying attention to reality that \u201cglobalization is collapsing,\u201d the artist said. In a work presented by the S\u00e3o Paolo\u2013based gallery Aura, colorful tiles arranged in geometric patterns conjure the past of Brazilian modernism while dramatic blue waves wait to wash them away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
\n\n
\u201cBrazil Beyond Brazil\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n\tThe first curated section of its kind at 1-54, \u201cBrazil Beyond Brazil\u201d features 10 artists selected by Igor Sim\u00f5es, whose curatorial statement reads in part: \u201cBrazilian art is Black Brazilian art and goes far beyond the white-Brazilian art that, for decades, occupied the center of debates about the country and its artists.\u201d A big painting by Jaime Lauriano extrapolates on an earlier rendering of the arrival of the Portuguese to Brazil in the 1500s, with ominous elements haunting boats that burn. Nearby, a chess set by No Martins consolidates the most powerful pieces (all of them white) in the middle of a board populated otherwise by black pawns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/DSC_7704.jpg?w=1024″] The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is back at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Chelsea\u2014just a few blocks from Frieze New York and in the same building at NADA\u2014with more than 20 galleries from the continent and other ports of call for the \u201cever-expanding narratives of the African diaspora,\u201d as fair director Touria […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1936448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1936448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1936448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1936448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1936448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Sulette-van-der-Merwe-2.jpg?w=400\")
![](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Modou-Dieng-Yacine.jpeg?w=400\")
![](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Black-Forest-4.jpg?w=400\")
![](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Rommulo-Vieira-Conceicao-O-espaco-fisico-requer-que-o-outro-seja-aliado-ou-inimigo-N10-2025.-Foto_-Flavio-Freire.jpeg?w=400\")
![](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Brazil-Beyond-Brazil-6.jpg?w=400\")