The International Contemporary Art Fair of Paris or FIAC turned off its lights on March 7, 2021. It has succeeded in bringing together 212 internationally recognized galleries from 28 countries in a virtual format, after the cancellation of the 2020 edition due to containment measures.
Organized every year since 1974, FIAC is an annual artistic event where collectors, curators and other art world personalities meet. It is the place par excellence, allowing contemporary artists to present their creations in large spaces of expression made available to them.
Presented by Jennifer Flay (Director of FIAC), the virtual access to the “FIAC Online Viewing Rooms” proposed to discover the works by years of creation, authors, dimensions and by medium and/or price.
African galleries were also represented
Of the 212 participating galleries, only two were from the African continent. They were Selma Feriani Gallery (Tunis) and Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Abidjan, Dakar, Paris).
Selma Feriani is a woman passionate about art, in which she has been immersed since childhood, her mother being a gallery owner herself. Trained in London at Christie’s Institute, she opened in 2013 in Tunis, the doors of her gallery. Her approach is that of promoting the artistic creativity of young local talents. Selma extends her support in the sub-region, touching all of North Africa and the Middle East. It is for her, to unearth the artists and to guide them on the processes of creation, exhibition and sale of their works. She also collaborates with the most important galleries, museums and other patrons, for the promotion of contemporary African art.
As for Cécile Fakhoury, her parents also owned a gallery in Paris. Nothing predestined her to take over the family heritage, since she had oriented her studies in commerce. She founded her first gallery in Abidjan in 2012, then another in Dakar in 2018 and a showroom in Paris in 2019. She mainly promotes local artists or artists from Africa, believing that their international recognition will be the result of their own development as well as the development of African galleries.
African galleries on the world stage
Contemporary African art has been on the rise for the last ten years and has attracted particular attention and interest. Biennials, fairs, exhibitions, museums, galleries, foundations … constantly growing are the vectors.
Our two exhibitors have opened the way for many artists and collectors of the contemporary art world from Africa and its diaspora. They have brought their original touch to the art world to gain international recognition through multiple collaborations.
A growing presence on African soil of art galleries promoting African contemporary art, will therefore intensify this type of collaboration and by ricochet to African artists to be the actors of their recognition.
The appointment is therefore made for the next physical edition of the FIAC from 21 to 24 October 2021 at the Palais Ephémère on the Champ de Mars in Paris.
