1-54 London Returns With New African Modernism Section

The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair opened its 14th London edition at Somerset House, running through Sunday, with a new section devoted to African modernism that arrives months after Sotheby's shut its dedicated African modernism department in 2025.

Art historian Nancy Dantas curated the new section, titled "West Wind." The title comes from Miriam Makeba's 1966 anthem for unity, a choice that frames the presentation around political and aesthetic liberation across the continent and its diaspora in the mid-20th century.

The showcase features masters of that period, including Ibrahim El-Salahi, Bertina Lopes, and Seyni Awa Camara. According to the fair, the section honors the past while pointing forward — a familiar claim at art fairs, and one that here carries specific weight because of what the market has just lost.

What does the Sotheby's closure change?

The context matters. When Sotheby's closed its African modernism department in 2025, it removed the most prominent commercial institutional channel for this material. 1-54's "West Wind" steps directly into that space. The fair has not said whether the section will continue beyond this edition; for now, it is a single-year experiment with a named curator and a defined historical scope.

What it changes, in practice, is where mid-20th-century African art gets seen in London this week: not at an auction house, but at a fair booth inside Somerset House.

The fair beyond the new section

The wider edition spans the kind of range the fair has become known for. The source report highlights booths running from 3D-printed chairs to what it describes as futuristic visions of Lagos's waterfront — a spread that signals the fair's continued push beyond painting and sculpture into design and speculative work.

The report lists ten booths as the edition's best, though the gallery accompanying the announcement carries the detail; the fair itself closes Sunday at Somerset House.

Whether "West Wind" becomes a permanent fixture — and whether a fair section can genuinely replace an auction department's market-making function — remains the open question for 2026.