Prices at this year’s auctions have been volatile, prompting questions about whether the market is slowing down, but that hasn’t stopped Julie Mehretu from setting and resetting records.
In October, the Ethiopian-American painter set a new record for an African-born artist when an untitled work from 2021 sold for $9.32 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. It broke the previous record, set by South African artist Marlene Dumas The Visitor (1995) in 2008, when it sold for $6.33 million at Sotheby’s in London. Then, in November, Mehretu broke her record with a new one: her 2008 work Walkers with dawn and morning (2008) sold for $10.7 million at Sotheby’s New York.
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Mehretu’s records were a sign that the international market for African art was hot this year. That was also evident in October at Sotheby’s in London, when British-Ghanaian painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s auction record was reset for her painting. Six birds in the bush (2015), which sold for $3.6 million, more than $1 million above its estimate.
The focus is on the momentum gained in 2022. A 2023 report by insurance company Hiscox revealed that Ivory Coast-born Abdoulaye “Aboudia” Diarrassouba was the best-selling artist in 2022, with 75 works sold at auction, surpassing to Damien Hirst. And an Artprice report published in March stated that “contemporary African art has become a staple of the global art market”, with major auction houses scrambling to meet demand. Hiscox estimated that $63 million was spent on works by African-born artists in 2022, up from $47 million the previous year.
“Collectors continue to have an interest because they have it [finally] since artists from Africa and the diaspora have longevity and are also worth investing in,” said Adora Mba, a consultant specializing in contemporary African art.
This year there were many more African artists, and art became more prominent in exhibitions, museums, fairs and art spaces, especially on the international stage.
Commissioned by El Anatsui for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.
Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images
In the first quarter of the year, Ghanaian artists Amoako Boafo and Gideon Appah made their solo debuts in New York and London at megagalleries Gagosian and Pace, respectively. Accra and London-based Gallery 1957 debuted at Frieze Seoul in September, with works by Boafo, Appah, Kwesi Botchway, Ivorian photographer Joana Choumali, Kenyan painter Kaloki Nyamai and Ethiopian painter Tegene Kunbi. Nigerian-American artist Victor Ekpuk made his Middle East solo debut at Dubai’s Efie Gallery that same month. Following the commissioning of his installation in the Dubai Design District, he became the first African artist to exhibit a public sculpture in the city. And in October, El Anatsui’s monumental Hyundai Turbine Hall commission opened at London’s Tate Modern, where it will remain on view until mid-April.
Market figures such as Mba sought to expand gallery offerings for African art. In November, she curated the exhibition “The Sound of Our Souls” at UTA Artist Space LA, featuring 15 emerging African artists showing their work for the first time in Los Angeles.
“I wanted to show a variety of artworks and practices as well,” Mba said in a chat with Emmy-nominated Nigerian-American actress Yvonne Orji before the exhibition’s opening. Mba also said that he wanted to “show different aspects of the continent, that’s why he didn’t want to show only Ghanaian artists or only Nigerians or South Africans. I really wanted to … represent almost the entire continent.”
The increased demand for art from Africa led to the opening of more physical spaces on the continent and in the West.
Tiwani Contemporary, based in Lagos and London, has this year announced an “expansion of the framework” with a new gallery space in London’s Mayfair. That space officially opened in October, continuing the gallery’s “core mission of representing artists from Africa and its global diaspora.”
In late 2023, South African gallery Goodman opened a new space in New York to “bring awareness to artists who are not represented in the US and platform works by historical masters of pioneers of 20th century African art,” according to founder Liza Beings. At the same time, Cape Town-based Southern Guild announced its expansion to Los Angeles in 2024.
Southern Guild co-founders Julian and Trevyn McGowan in 2023.
Courtesy of Elizabeth Carababas and Southern Guild
“Partnerships are important with spaces in the West because they provide a much-needed bridge to the African continent,” said Mba, founder and director of Accra-based contemporary art gallery ADA\. ARTnews. “It allows collectors to see and appreciate art from countries outside [where] they reside and open their curiosity to the variety of art forms that are practiced that they may never have seen or known”.
In the last quarter of this year, two new galleries were launched in Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, adding to the growing number of spaces feeding the continent’s art scenes.
An eponymous gallery by African art specialist and collector Farah Fakhri opened in late 2023 in the Ivorian city of Abidjan to support and showcase emerging and established artists from Africa and its diaspora. In early September, Bwo Art Gallery was launched in Douala, Cameroon.
Bwo’s goal is to bridge “the artistic gap between African artists in Africa and their diaspora, those in Cameroon and the wider Central African region with the rest of the world,” said co-founder Noelle Mukete-Elhalaby. ARTnews in a recent interview. “Our distinctive approach resonates well with Cameroonians [and] sparked excitement in the local art scene. Our colleagues in Cameroon are not only embracing art, but also creating and joining discussions that contribute to our cultural heritage.
Brice Yonkeu and Noelle Mukete-Elhalaby.
Photo Wilfried Kote Amoyi/Courtesy Bwo Gallery
“I think there’s a window here that we get a hold of everything that’s going on in the art market,” said Brice Yonkeu, another co-founder of the gallery, adding that Bwo brings “more diversity or perspective” to conversations about contemporary art since the African continent, which he estimates is largely focused on English-speaking countries.
Yonkeu believes spaces like Bwo will help cultivate a new crop of local collectors: “A place like Cameroon is complex but also an interesting country,” he said. “We have so many entrepreneurs and people who have the ability to collect, but because we have historically been deprived of cultural institutions and art galleries, some of them have never really had the opportunity to develop that ability to appreciate art or develop that taste. of appreciating art.”
Ultimately, Mukete-Elhalaby thinks every moment this year shows “support and increased recognition of African art” while noting that it offers opportunities for stakeholders, including artists, gallerists and collectors, to continue to grow the market of the art of the continent.
“Despite what some people may have said, that it’s a trend and that it will go away at some point, I think there is confirmation that there is a lot of interest,” Yonkeu added.
