Every new edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair highlights the plurality of the continent—54 is the number of countries it contains, each bearing unique histories and geopolitics. The fair’s reach has grown progressively across three cities: London (since 2013), New York (since 2015) and Marrakech (since 2018). The 2025 Marrakech edition, on view now through February 2, hosts some thirty exhibitors from fifteen different countries, including ones as far-flung as Japan and India. Fifteen of this year’s galleries hail from the African continent; ten are based in Morocco.
1-54 helped spearhead a market infrastructure that didn’t exist, and some artists who have shown at the fair have been discovered by bigger galleries and are now having their work shown at larger fairs, widening the global dialogue. Yesterday (Jan. 30), on the first day of 1-54 Marrakech, Tate acquired a work by Amoako Boafo from a group presentation at Gallery 1957, which has locations in Accra and London, strengthening the links between African art and global institutions.
Observer spoke with the fair’s founding director, the formidable Touria El Glaoui, about Marrakech’s specific appeal, the artists it has propelled forward and her refusal to flatten African art into “trends.”
Since its inception in 2018, how has the fair evolved in Marrakech?
Since we launched, it has grown to become a vital platform for African and diaspora art. Even though it’s based on the continent, it’s truly global in terms of the audience that is coming. I think we have seen remarkable diversification of our collector base coming to Marrakech. In the beginning, we primarily attracted European audiences. But with time, we have seen a real engagement with African collectors and Middle Eastern collectors—Morocco is in this very interesting position, with Arabic and French being spoken. [Moreover], Marrakech has this connotation as this very exotic place. There’s the attractiveness of the city—Marrakech itself brings an audience.
One of our largest collector bases coming to Marrakech every year is Asian. One year, we received large contingents of Koreans; this year, there’s a large contingent of Chinese. It’s very interesting for us to see this appetite growing in terms of what we are able to present and these different collecting regions showing up.
Are other factors at play in terms of drawing in an increasingly international collector base?
I definitely think that the local gallery scene and institutions in Marrakech have evolved. Three of the galleries based in Casablanca opened up new spaces in Marrakech. We have more galleries presenting not only Moroccan artists but also a larger range of African artists. We have a collector base in Morocco that is suddenly much more interested in a Pan-African way of collecting. This is definitely influenced by the energy that 1-54 is bringing. In Marrakech, we have galleries coming from all over the world with the mission of showing African and diaspora artists. It’s a very small fair but with a diversity of international galleries. This year, we have galleries from Tokyo and Kuwait and a foundation from India.
Did you notice a particular crossover point in terms of this wider diversification?
I feel like it was two years into 1-54 Marrakech. The second time around, people think it’s not a one-off. One thing that was slower but that we are very proud of in our six years in Marrakech is that we have the larger collector base from Morocco coming to see the fair. They were usually harder to get because they were very aware of what the galleries in Casablanca and Marrakech are doing all year long—so they were the last to be really engaged with the fair. In addition to consistently doing the editions in Marrakech, now those Moroccan collectors are coming to London—less to New York, because it’s too far away. They’re part of this whole ecosystem of fairs, which was a more difficult thing to get them engaged in before.
Are there any particular artists whose careers you feel have been boosted by 1-54?
There are definitely many artists that I think were boosted in terms of their appreciation with the international audience… With the fairs in their globality, we have two categories. There are the ones who were really new to the art market in general and who have seen a real boost in their careers in the past five years. Prince Gyasi, for example, this Ghanaian photographer—we love to call him a “1-54 baby” because we’ve had him since the beginning of his career, and now he has all these amazing collaborations in fashion and music and incredible visibility. Then we have artists who we have worked with for 10 years, who were already extremely established in their own countries: for example, Abdoulaye Konaté from Mali, or Barthélémy Toguo, who are—in my world—very, very established artists. Even if we were part of their journey in their global visibility, they were superstars when we started the fair. But I think their appreciation has been boosted by 1-54, in terms of how they are priced today or how they were picked up by larger galleries.
There’s the artist Sanaa Gateja, who is now with KARMA in the U.S. and represented Uganda in the Venice Biennale this year. There’s also Tesfaye Urgessa from Ethiopia, who we showed at 1-54; he is now with Saatchi Yates but is apparently in discussion with bigger galleries and also presented the first Ethiopian pavilion at the Biennale of Venice. I love to think that we were important in their journey.
You have three regional editions of 1-54. Are there other fairs you’re in conversation with or that you learn from?
My whole strategy when starting 1-54 was that I did it at the same time as Frieze. Once we got that blueprint of how 1-54 was successful in London, benefiting from and leveraging all the collectors and all the institutions that were in town… we’re so specific and small and boutique, and we obviously are very independent, and we don’t belong to a group. We are flexible in many ways. We are fundraising for each fair. It makes our life a bit more difficult, but at the same time, we can aim to be the Art Basel of the world for African galleries: the best quality and the best reputation for galleries specializing in contemporary African and diasporic art. We are focused, we’re specialized and we are independent. We can make sure that we are always responding to the different needs of the different regions.
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The collectors, the galleries and the artists participating at 1-54 Marrakech are unique; we have a selection committee for the three different fairs that are very different based on who can bring us local flavor in our selection of galleries and curatorial spirit. Each fair has different dynamics. The markets are very, very distinct. Marrakech is very distinct from New York or London. It’s definitely a more intimate setting. It has an offering of travel for an art fair in a very different, sunny place.
The beauty of being on those three different continents is definitely building on those larger global networks. We are happy to be different in New York, to attract different types of galleries and a different type of diaspora. In New York, we have a group of galleries that often present more African American artists—sometimes African-Caribbean artists. We have more U.S. galleries in New York like we have more Moroccan galleries in Morocco. In New York, what is very exciting is that you’re tapping into a large pool of African-American collectors there that we are not engaged with in London or in Marrakech. This is very important to us as well. They have a very strong interest in Black artists—this is also our larger group of artists at 1-54 New York.
We do have a following that is our core base, an audience that follows us in the three different locations, which is very exciting. Our fairs are small, so people remember what we do. You visit the fair, and you have time to digest it and talk to artists since they are often present. Curators often tell us that the beauty of 1-54 is you take the time: the galleries are there to explain and to educate, and often the artists engage with the audience. I think that’s one of its strengths.
How do you nourish your own collection?
I had two phases of my collection. I’m the daughter of an artist, Hassan El Glaoui, so my collection was completely centered on the work he gifted me, which was my collection base. Then, when I started the fair and was visiting different places on the continent, I really became engaged with a more pan-African collection. In the first years of the fair, I had this phase of not going beyond $5,000: I wanted to find young artists, and, in the case of the fair, our access point was very accessible. With time, I decided to buy a bit less but also to focus on the artists I have a particular desire to have in my collection. It is exciting to be a collector, although I don’t call myself a “collector” because compared to what I see from people really collecting at the fair, I’m a very small player.
The purpose of setting up the fair was to bring knowledge and appreciation of African art. At this juncture, are there misperceptions you still have to deal with or negotiate?
I think there’s one enduring misconception about African art: that there’s a singular category or style. We are often asked, “What is an African art trend?” Also, a lot of people still consider “African art” to be “traditional art”—you know, the masks, the objects and all the masterpieces that have influenced many artists.
Now that we have a good thirteen years behind us doing the fair—in our own ecosystem of collectors, galleries and institutions—there’s definitely an understanding of the multiplicity of creation that we have on the continent. In many ways, I don’t have to explain so much: when you have collectors or an institution coming to 1-54, they know that they’re coming to see contemporary African art.
I often have discussions with the galleries who suddenly are going to big fairs—which is obviously where we want them to be included and be part of that market as well—but they come back and tell me that they have to start from scratch, trying to explain the context of what they’re showing. They don’t have to do that at 1-54. There’s a longer way to go when you’re in the more global world, where you’re one small gallery among 300 galleries at Art Basel: you have to explain what the stories are. Collectors in those very large events, unfortunately, don’t really have the time to take that in.
Yes, the perception and market differences are increasingly understood, and it’s beautiful to see collectors now know the names of some of the artists—they’re part of their vocabulary, and they know which museums they’re part of. That is something we are really privileged to have today, compared to when we started in 2013. But, at the same time, when you see the total amount of sales at auctions of contemporary African artists versus artists from the rest of the world, that number is still very, very small. This is where you know you still have a lot of work to do to get those artists in the auction sales and to be more appreciated. This is where the journey is still very long in terms of the real integration of all those artists into the global art market. We’ve made so much progress, but we still have to keep working on where we’re going.
