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© 2026 Kyekyekule Africa. All rights reserved.
kyekyekule.africa
© 2026 Kyekyekule Africa. All rights reserved.
kyekyekule.africa
Emmanuel Agyapong
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Published on:
October 7, 2026
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair returns to Somerset House from 15 to 18 October 2026 for its 14th London edition, bringing together galleries, artists, collectors, curators and cultural practitioners from across Africa and its diaspora.
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair returns to Somerset House from 15 to 18 October 2026 for its 14th London edition, bringing together galleries, artists, collectors, curators and cultural practitioners from across Africa and its diaspora.
Taking place during Frieze Week, this year’s fair expands its contemporary program with a dedicated focus on African Modernism, alongside solo presentations, new gallery participants, Special Projects and a program of talks addressing collecting, institutions and the development of African art.
A Fair Dedicated to African and Diasporic Art
Founded by Touria El Glaoui in 2013, 1-54 takes its name from the 54 countries that make up the African continent. Over the years, it has developed into an international platform for modern and contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, with annual editions in London, Marrakech and New York.
The London edition has been held at Somerset House since its establishment and has become an important part of the city’s October art calendar.
In 2026, the fair will occupy the East Wing, West Wing, South Wing and Terrace Rooms of Somerset House, bringing together galleries from cities including Lagos, Accra, Addis Ababa, Harare, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Cairo, Casablanca, Beirut, Geneva, Paris, Lisbon, Rome, Montreal and London.
African Modernism Takes a Larger Role
One of the defining developments of the 2026 edition is the expanded focus on African Modernism. At the centre of the program is West Wind, a 1-54 Presents exhibition curated by South African Portuguese art historian and researcher Dr Nancy Dantas.
Inspired by Miriam Makeba’s 1966 song and its evocation of African unity, West Wind brings together artists whose practices developed during the mid-twentieth century, a period shaped by political independence, cultural reconstruction and the emergence of new artistic languages across the continent.
The exhibition includes Alexander “Skunder” Boghossian, Bertina Lopes, Gerard Sekoto, Kofi Antubam, Sam Joseph Ntiro, Papa Ibra Tall and Uzo Egonu, presented by Hannah O’Leary Fine Art. Selma Feriani Gallery will present works by Baya and Rafik El Kamel, while Vigo Gallery will present works by Ibrahim El-Salahi.
The Modern section also extends into the commercial fair. Loeve&Co will present works by Aubrey Williams, Twins Seven Seven, Guido Llinás, Frédérique Devaux Yahi, Roland Dorcély and Roberto Altmann. The Gallery of Everything will stage a solo presentation dedicated to Senegalese sculptor Seyni Awa Camara, while TAFETA will also participate in the Modern section.
The emphasis places artists associated with African Modernism alongside contemporary practices, drawing attention to generations whose contributions have often been positioned outside dominant accounts of twentieth-century art history.
Solo Presentations Across the Fair
Individual artistic practices remain central to the contemporary programme.
Addis Fine Art will dedicate its booth to Ethiopian painter Tizta Berhanu, while ARTBASE will present Senegalese artist Aliou Diack. DozieArts will focus on Nigerian painter Victoria Oniosun, and Fabienne Levy will present Nigerian painter Ekene Emeka-Maduka.
Other solo presentations include Beau Disundi Nzazi at In Situ, eL Seed at ITINERRANCE, Kimathi Mafafo at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Kuamen at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix and Medhat Shafik at Errm Art Gallery.
Women artists are also represented across the programme, including through all-female presentations by GALLERY BRULHART, Gillian Jason Gallery and Galleria Anna Marra.
Galleries from Africa and Beyond
The 2026 fair introduces a significant group of first-time participants, including 16/16, ARTBASE, DozieArts, ELLEPHANT, Errm Art Gallery, Fabienne Levy, Isaac Benigson Old and Interesting Art, ITINERRANCE, Maya Art Space, MRS ART, Tribe Gallery and Yenwa Gallery.
Project LOOP, which participated as a Special Project in 2025, returns with its first commercial booth.
They join established participants including Gallery 1957, First Floor Gallery Harare, October Gallery, Gallery Misr, Loft Art Gallery and Perve Galeria, bringing together practices spanning painting, sculpture, photography, installation, textiles, mixed media and other forms.
Special Projects Beyond the Booths
The fair’s Special Projects program extends beyond conventional gallery presentations into questions of material, history, craft, belonging and cultural exchange.
One of the largest interventions is Flowing Upstream, a multimedia installation occupying the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Courtyard. Created by Martin Wöllenstein with Romeo Addai-Boateng Akoto of Ghana’s Supreme Masqueraders Society and Perve Galeria, the project draws on West African masquerade traditions.
The installation uses discarded Ankos costumes alongside projection mapping, sound, moving image, light and performance. Fifty-four modular panels trace the shape of the African continent, transforming reclaimed costumes into a large-scale installation while addressing textile waste and unequal systems of production and exchange.
Hassan Hajjaj’s London Portraits
Moroccan British artist Hassan Hajjaj will present My London Rockstars, a series of portraits focused on a new generation of figures shaping London’s cultural landscape.
The project includes portraits of Central Cee, Slawn and Jorja Smith, bringing Hajjaj’s photographic language into conversation with music, fashion, street culture and African studio portrait traditions.
Having moved from Morocco to London at the age of twelve, Hajjaj developed his practice within the city’s creative communities before extending it across photography, fashion, design and contemporary art.
Barkcloth, Cocoa and the Politics of Material
Other Special Projects place particular materials at the centre of questions about history and value.
Our Canvas Grows From The Soil, presented by Borderlands Art, connects practices from Uganda and Ghana through barkcloth. Gloria Kiconco and Piloya Irene present sculptural zines and textiles, while Othello De’Souza-Hartley uses barkcloth as a surface for photographic printing and textured painting. The project positions the material between contemporary social practice, environmental concerns and ancestral knowledge.
Accra-based Midunu Institute, founded by artist, author and cultural thinker Selassie Atadika, will present Commodity / Couture, a sensory installation examining Ghana’s cocoa industry.
The project follows cocoa from farm to finished product and considers how value is distributed along the supply chain. Visitors will encounter cocoa through scent, field recordings, structures made from cocoa sacks and a brass cocoa pod produced by an Ashanti artisan in Kumasi using the lost-wax method.
At the centre of the project is a question of value at origin.
Reconsidering How African Art Is Written
The fair also turns attention to the ways African art is written about and understood.
(Re)Casting the Canon, a research-led initiative by Folasade Ologundudu, focuses on critical arts writing and overlooked histories of African and African diasporic peoples. Through a writing lab and pop-up exhibition, visitors will encounter artworks before responding through writing, reflection and historical research, creating a living archive of perspectives on African art history.
British Nigerian design practice I JŌKŌ, founded by architect and designer Richard Adetokunbo Aina, will transform Somerset House’s Navy Board Room into a lounge developed with 1-54 and Hazendal Wine Estate. The project brings collectible design, contemporary African art and hospitality into the same environment.
Esther Mahlangu and Malick Sidibé
Another notable presentation brings together the work of South African artist Esther Mahlangu and Malian photographer Malick Sidibé.
Tristan Hoare Gallery and Alexandra de Cadaval Art Projects will present tapestries based on Mahlangu’s designs alongside Sidibé’s photographs. Mahlangu’s geometric compositions have been translated into handwoven tapestries using the Indian Dhurrie weaving tradition, creating a dialogue between Ndebele mural painting and Dhurrie weaving.
The presentation will occupy a dedicated space in Somerset House’s Great Arch Hall.
Talks on Collecting, Institutions and African Modernism
The Talks Programme will run throughout the fair, addressing collecting, African Modernism, institutional visibility and cultural infrastructure.
Friday’s programme includes The Future of African Art Collecting, presented with Strauss & Co, a conversation on African Modernism with West Wind curator Nancy Dantas, and a celebration of Addis Fine Art’s tenth anniversary.
Saturday’s programme includes Contemporary African Art After the Spotlight: Visibility, Value and the Institutions Still to Come, alongside discussions on African Modernism, collecting, institutions and Congolese cultural production.
Other sessions include the launch of Ô Cameroon! Modern and Contemporary Art and Artists From 1925 to Now by Ozong Agborsangaya Fiteu, The New Institutional Moment: African Art After Visibility with Oliver Enwonwu, a discussion on Lettrist photography by Loeve&Co, and Creatives, Collaborators and Catalysts: Contexts and Challenges of Championing Congolese Culture with The Defise Foundation.
The Fair’s 2026 Dates and Opening Hours
Venue: Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA
Thursday, 15 October
Photocall: 8:30am–9am
VIP and Press Preview: 10am–7pm
Friday, 16 October
Public and VIP Opening: 11am–7pm
Saturday, 17 October
11am–7pm
Sunday, 18 October
11am–6pm
Standard admission is £32, while concession tickets are £18. A VIP Preview ticket for Thursday is £100 and includes the VIP Cocktail. Children aged 12 and under can enter free, and disabled companions are also admitted free.
A Fair Looking Across Generations
The 2026 edition places contemporary practices alongside artists and movements from earlier generations. The addition of African Modernism, particularly through West Wind, expands the fair’s programme beyond contemporary market activity to include artists whose work forms part of the wider history of modern African art.
With galleries from cities across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America, alongside artists working across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, textiles and mixed media, 1-54 London 2026 will bring different histories and artistic practices together at Somerset House from 15 to 18 October.
For its 14th London edition, the fair’s programme combines its established focus on contemporary African and diasporic art with a new emphasis on Modernism, while continuing to provide a platform for galleries, artists and cultural projects connected to the continent and its global diaspora.
List of Participating Galleries & Artist
The following is the participating gallery and artist list announced by 1-54. The list is subject to change.
Addis Fine Art — Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
50 Golborne — London, UK
193 Gallery — Paris / St. Tropez / Venice, France / Italy
16/16 — Lagos, Nigeria
Affinity Gallery — Lagos, Nigeria
Afikaris — Paris, France
albertz benda — New York / Los Angeles, USA
ARTBASE — Wiesbaden / Berlin, Germany
DozieArts — Clark, USA
Eclectica Contemporary — Cape Town, South Africa
ELLEPHANT — Montreal, Canada
Errm Art Gallery — Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Fabienne Levy — Lausanne / Geneva / Zurich, Switzerland
FILAFRIQUES — Geneva / Abidjan, Switzerland / Côte d’Ivoire
First Floor Gallery Harare — Harare, Zimbabwe
Galleria Anna Marra — Rome, Italy
Gallery 1957 — London / Accra, UK / Ghana
GALLERY BRULHART — Geneva, Switzerland
Gallery Misr — Cairo, Egypt
Gillian Jason Gallery — London, UK
Guns & Rain — Johannesburg, South Africa
In Situ – fabienne leclerc — Romainville, France
Isaac Benigson Old and Interesting Art — London, UK
ITINERRANCE — Paris, France
Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery — London / Berlin / West Palm Beach, UK / Germany / USA
kumalo | turpin — Johannesburg, South Africa
Larkin Durey — London, UK
LIS10 Gallery — Arezzo / Paris / Hong Kong, Italy / France / Hong Kong
Loeve&Co — Paris, France
Loft Art Gallery — Casablanca / Marrakech, Morocco
Maya Art Space — Beirut, Lebanon
MRS ART — London, UK
O’DA Art — Lagos, Nigeria
October Gallery — London, UK
Perve Galeria — Lisbon, Portugal
Project LOOP — London, UK
TAFETA — London, UK
The Gallery of Everything — London, UK
The Southern Art Hub — London, UK
THK Gallery — Cape Town / Cologne, South Africa / Germany
Tribe Gallery — Geneva, Switzerland
Tristan Hoare Gallery & Alexandra de Cadaval Art Projects — London, UK
Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix — London, UK
Yenwa Gallery — Lagos, Nigeria
September 19, 2026
October 7, 2026
October 3, 2026
September 30, 2026