London's 1-54 Fair Looks Back to Move the Story Forward
London's fair for African art is looking backwards for the first time.
The 14th London edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair opened at Somerset House in London on 15 October and runs until 18 October, with history added to its usual contemporary line-up, according to The Art Newspaper.
1-54 is a fair dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. This year it has introduced a historical strand of curated stand presentations spotlighting Modern artists from Africa and its diaspora. That is new.
The strand is called Modern Spotlight, the fair said in its London 2026 press release. The idea, 1-54 said, answers a wider surge of institutional attention towards African Modernism as museums and scholars work to recover artists overlooked in mainstream accounts, as stated in the fair's press release.
Two special displays carry that history theme. The 1-54 Presents exhibition, titled West Wind, brings together pioneering mid-20th-century African artists. It was curated by Nancy Dantas, the South African-Portuguese art historian and scholar.
The second is 50:50—Artists Africa, a Special Projects presentation covering artists active from the 1840s to the 1980s. It was assembled by collector Michael Graham-Stuart.
Founding director Touria El Glaoui said this edition places African artists as authors of Modern and contemporary art history.
There is contemporary news too. The Whitechapel Gallery in east London made its first institutional appearance at 1-54 in 2026. It presented new artist editions — small-run prints and objects made to be sold to support a gallery — by Joy Labinjo, Veronica Ryan, Virginia Chihota, Joy Gregory and William Kentridge. Sales support its Errantry Fund, which backs representation of artists from the Global South and diasporas in its commissions and exhibitions.
What makes this stand out is the mix. Visitors can move from living artists to figures from the 1800s in the same building. The London dates run from 15 to 18 October, according to Wallpaper. A New York edition is listed for 2027.
