This article was produced with the support of 1-54
There’s something about Marrakech in early February that already feels like a statement. The light; the pace; the mix of people arriving from everywhere. It’s the kind of city where art doesn’t sit quietly in white cubes. It spills into hotel lobbies, terraces, private dinners, institutional openings and late-night conversations.
This year, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair leans into that energy with a format that’s deliberately tighter. The 2026 edition brings together 22 galleries and more than 60 artists, presented at La Mamounia from 5 to 8 February, with a press and VIP preview on 5 and 6 February 2026.
Morocco isn’t a ‘local chapter’, it is the core
The strongest signal in 2026 is the dominance of Moroccan artists and galleries. Moroccan artists represent the largest presence at the fair – more than 30 artists – making up over half of the programme. Moroccan galleries are also heavily present, with seven Morocco-based exhibitors from Casablanca and Marrakech. That isn’t token representation. It is a clear reflection of how the scene has evolved: Morocco has built a collector base, gallery infrastructure and institutional momentum that makes it one of the most active art ecosystems on the continent. In that context, Marrakech is no longer “a stopover”. It’s a meeting point.
22 galleries, 21 artist nationalities and a wider map
Even with Morocco at the forefront, the fair still stretches across a wide geography. Galleries come from 12 countries, with exhibitors based in Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia and Zambia, alongside France, Switzerland, the UK, Canada and Japan. The artist list spans 21 countries, linking African and diasporic narratives across the Atlantic and beyond.
This matters because it reflects how African contemporary art actually circulates today, through overlapping networks rather than neat categories.
Alongside Moroccan artists, the fair is expected to give strong visibility to Ghanaian voices, as well as artists from Tunisia and Côte d’Ivoire, which together form the next most present nationalities after Morocco.
The galleries tell the story too
One of the clearest ways to read a fair is to look at who returns – and who shows up for the first time.
This edition includes a strong roster of long-standing and returning galleries – including names that have helped shape 1-54’s identity over the past decade. It also welcomes new energy: four galleries are new to 1-54 overall, including ELLEPHANT (Montreal), Imvelo Art Studios (Lusaka), The Art Affair (Luanda) and The Lobster Edition (London / Tunis).
It’s not just a diversity statistic: new exhibitors often come because they believe the fair’s audience is ready – and because Marrakech is becoming a more convincing market destination.
Four solo booths: a sign of confidence
Another detail worth paying attention to: four solo presentations this year.
That format is always a strong signal in a fair context: it requires confidence from a gallery, a clear market position for the artist and a willingness to tell a focused story.
This year’s solo booths include presentations by:
- Stanley Wany (ELLEPHANT)
- Geoffrey Phiri (Imvelo Art Studios)
- Evan Cláver (The Art Affair)
- Ibrahim El-Salahi (Vigo Gallery)
Together, these galleries form a strong backbone for the edition: historical weight, contemporary urgency and practices that extend beyond painting.
Materials, not just mediums
The fair includes sculpture, installation and mixed media in a way that feels increasingly central rather than secondary:
- Sculpture (5 galleries highlight sculptural practices)
- Installation (3 galleries)
- Mixed media (9 artists)
- Photography (2 artists highlighted)
This range isn’t incidental: it reflects where attention is moving internationally. Collectors and institutions are increasingly drawn to work that is physically ambitious, materially specific and harder to flatten into quick digital consumption.
Women-led galleries, real visibility
Another quiet but important thread runs through the fair: who is shaping the programme.
This year counts 13 women-led galleries, across different regions and models from Casablanca to Montreal to Tokyo.
It’s not framed as a theme, which is precisely why it feels significant: the leadership is simply there, embedded into the structure of the fair.
Marrakech becomes a citywide moment
1-54 Marrakech has never been just a “fair visit”, it’s a cultural week. In 2026, that ecosystem becomes even more visible through the fair’s Special Projects and the alignment of major institutional programming around the same dates. In parallel, Marrakech’s institutions strengthen the sense of a city in motion. MACAAL, LE 18 and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech all present exhibitions during the same period, while a dense calendar of vernissage previews activates the Gueliz district well beyond daytime fair hours.
Special Projects: 1-54 beyond the fair
A key highlight this year is Constellation, presented by Fondation TGCC. The exhibition reunites talents from the Prix Mustaqbal, the foundation’s emerging contemporary art prize launched in 2021. Across five editions, the prize has supported more than 70 artists through exhibitions in Casablanca and off-site projects. Constellation brings together finalists and winners from past editions, positioning emerging artistic voices in dialogue with time, memory and future horizons.
Elsewhere in the city, In Between Blues by ABLAKASSA takes over DaDa Marrakech from 3 February to 30 March 2026. Curated by Roger Karera alongside designer Jean Servais Somian, the project is conceived as an immersive exploration of the colour blue through sculpture, installation, textile and design, unfolding through a series of spaces that combine exhibition, sound and daily gatherings.
The programme also includes Special Installations such as Flowering in Verse by Akshay Raj Singh Rathore. This is presented by Strangers House Gallery, developed through an exchange between India and West Africa and supported through a dialogue between India Art Fair’s Young Collectors’ Programme and 1-54.
In La Conférence des Palmiers – Totem Dattier, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (Loft Art Gallery) extends his long-term exploration of the palm as a critical, symbolic form. Using faience, stoneware, enamel, wool, oil paint and metal, Lahlou continues to treat the dead palm not as a motif but as a sculptural archive shaped by colonial landscaping, ecological displacement and globalised imaginaries of the “exotic”. Both grounded and aspirational, the totem reflects on migration, memory and the transformation of universal symbols – speculative markers of survival, adaptation and potential futures.
Together, these projects extend the fair’s footprint beyond La Mamounia and contribute to the sense of a citywide cultural week.
A fair built for relationships
In the end, relationships are what Marrakech does best. This isn’t a fair that tries to do everything. It’s a fair built on closeness: between artists and collectors, between galleries and new audiences, between the continent and its diasporas and between Marrakech and the wider world.
By tightening the programme, 1-54 Marrakech 2026 doesn’t lose momentum. It gains clarity. The fair knows where it stands, and makes a strong case for why Morocco matters now.
1-54 Marrakech 2026: La Mamounia, Marrakech. Press & VIP preview: 5 to 6 February 2026. Public days: 7 to 8 February 2026.