Since 2016, PIASA auction house has been successfully specializing in contemporary African creation, highlighting the broad panorama of the continent's artistic scene. As attested by the very good results of the November 7, 2019 auction, which doubled its estimate to more than 1.43 million euros, the African Contemporary Art department has consolidated its position in a booming market. Christophe Person, director of the department gives us his vision on this booming market.
What place does contemporary African art occupy in the art market in France and in the world?
Contemporary African art still occupies a modest place on the international art market but its evolution has been in very strong growth for the last ten years. Through the auctions that PIASA has been organising since 2014, we can see that the quality and diversity of the works, whose quality and diversity are constantly increasing, are finding an ever-growing number of collectors at each auction. From our observation point, it seems that this market differs from other art markets in that the places of production (the African continent) and the places of consumption (the West) are not the same. But things are changing, which is positive. This can be explained by the fact that artists travel a lot. In part, contemporary African art is the art of the African Diasporas and their production naturally benefits from these exchanges. On the side of art consumption, the availability of works on the continent is also facilitated by the exhibitions, fairs and galleries that are developing there. A local market is currently developing.
What changes have you seen in the last twenty years?
The market for contemporary African art is one of those that have experienced the most tremendous developments in recent years. It is worth noting that for some time now, a range of factors have been put in place to promote the visibility of African artists.
Whether in Paris, Europe or around the world, we have seen in recent years the flourishing of exhibitions that have put African art in the spotlight. We can of course mention the exhibition of the Magicians of the Earth in 1989, which revealed an art rooted in the Continent, but it must be said that more recent exhibitions have for the past 20 years aimed to show the contemporaneity of African art and its ability to deal with social issues. In the wake of institutional events, the art market has taken the lead in giving collectors access to contemporary African art. In this sense, the 1:54 fair is a pioneer in having created in central London, at the same time as the Frieze, a fair dedicated to African art, offering for the first time a prestigious platform for specialist galleries. It should be noted that given the timing of its development, the contemporary African art market is taking full advantage of the opportunity to grow by experimenting with the new marketing methods that are now being imposed on the entire sector, including apartment galleries, pop-ups, digital galleries and e-commerce, partnerships and a focus on residencies.
In this great market upheaval, where galleries and auction houses are increasingly playing a prescriptive role, PIASA's success is noteworthy, as it has innovated by offering collectors the opportunity to acquire first-market works at auction. With this approach, we make available to an international public a curated selection of works by artists we believe in. As for all the sales proposed by PIASA in the other specialities, our positioning aims to propose a glance, but also a path, a history of contemporary African art that is written.
How do you explain its success?
We believe that the success of contemporary African art can be explained by its relevance and contemporaneity. These are the two aspects that govern the selection of the works we offer at auction. Given the great history and individual stories of African artists, they are particularly inspired to reflect the issues facing our society. If the history of Africa is marked by the migration of populations within and outside the continent, whether voluntary or forced, the history of individuals is also marked by these movements. Thus, artists who develop a multi-cultural viewpoint acquired through their origins and their trajectories are in the best position to produce an art of today with a certain vision of the world.
What are the recurring themes?
The recurring themes are those of today. There are many works dealing with identity. The African identity, claimed with a history that goes back to before colonization and that the world sometimes rediscovers, and a future and the aspirations of the younger generations in a globalized world, hyper-connected with inequalities that are today impossible to ignore. Personal identity, because we are in areas where tolerance and acceptance of minorities, women, religions and differences is sometimes even more damaged than elsewhere.
Following on from the previous theme, colonisation is of course a recurring theme in the work of African artists. Although more than sixty years after decolonization it continues to permeate the collective imagination in Europe, it inspires artists who take up the issues of racism, communities and also classical African arts.
There are also a large number of works dealing with the environment, particularly through the exploitation of natural resources, the movement of goods, and the impacts of climate change.
All these themes are of course more intertwined than compartmentalized, and it is the ability of some of these artists to analyze or synthesize them that makes their work particularly attractive to collectors around the world.
The partnership between PIASA and ASPIRE auction is unprecedented, can you go back over its genesis? What is your assessment of the first sale in February 2020 in Cape Town?
To oversimplify, we can see that in the contemporary African art market, the flow of works, and to a large extent of artists, is from South to North. Moreover, the notion of contemporary African art as a whole that is prevalent in the West is opposed to the reality of markets in Africa, which are essentially either domestic or regional. It is on the basis of this observation that we wished, in partnership with Aspire, to contribute to showing in Africa works by artists who had hitherto been seen mainly in Europe. The idea was therefore to share with Aspire our sourcing and our network of collectors, knowing that the South African market is among the most developed.
Both houses were very satisfied with the results of the sale, which helped to make our respective contacts aware of the diversity and richness of African creation.