Photo: Jim Winslet, London
From the refined Tea Room of La Mamounia in Marrakech, the Moroccan curator and Founding Director of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Touria El Glaoui, shared her passion for Art inspired by her father – the renowned Moroccan painter Hassan El Glaoui, who famously had Winston Churchill’s blessing to pursue his dream. After an academic education in New York City and before starting a career in the banking industry, as a wealth management consultant, Touria spent 10 years in the field. London as a home base, where she founded 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in 2013. She has since launched the fair in New York in 2015, in Marrakech in 2018 and in Paris 2021. 1-54 is now a world-leading platform dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. A conversation with one of the Forbes Magazine’s 50 most powerful women in Africa, who excels in the fight for African Art and its representation in the Western World.
Photo: Micheal Huard
Read on to know what Touria El Glaoui had to say about the 1-54 Art Fair.
When did you decide to create 1-54?
It started in 2013, a little before because I had to prepare 1-54 as a platform. I think it was partly because I traveled quite often in Africa for my professional life and because I am the daughter of an artist so it’s in my DNA, he transmitted a lot of art, an education, an art curiosity. When I was traveling in Africa for work, I was quite curious of the Artistic scene there. It was my reference in a city I didn’t know: finding artists, visiting galleries…It made me feel at home there! And when I came back to London where I live, there was no trace of these artists. It didn’t matter if they were the most important artists in the continent, there were not crossing those geographical borders. It was not my industry at the time. I was speculating on the Why’s. And I think, this made me realize that I had to do something about it. I started research, and I understood there was no visibility for those artists. I worked with my father the last 15 years of his life and career. I was not promoting [his work] but he was doing really well on his own. He had this whole international visibility going on for him because he started his career in France. It was a switch for me, I knew that being part of the narrative internationally, having an international data base, that was missing to international artists. That’s why I created the platform and gave them a voice. I took it with a lot of responsibility, with huge duty of the African continent because they have never shown it before. And it had to be done perfectly. At the time, most of the African artists had no web pages, no biography online. We thought of the Fair as a discovery, an education, we tried to form people as well.
Photo: Ayoub Essafi
How did you do to convince producers and galleries to trust those emergent African artists?
Let’s say that it’s a bit more simple than that in many ways. Even if the galleries were really the pioneers in representing them, the fairs are working with the galleries. So, we are the platform for the galleries. The galleries choose the artists. We have three selection committees a year to choose the galleries that will participate in each fair. The first year was very difficult, but at the same time those galleries were never invited to other events. Art fairs were not included in anything. So what was difficult for them to understand, because they all small businesses, they can’t afford expenses… So, the first year we started with 17 galleries in London, and I have to say it was a bet not only for me but for the galleries. The first year all the galleries sold out. So they were very happy and they realized how important it was to participate in fairs. When I started looking, 70% of the artworks in the world are sold through fairs and none of the fairs were giving access to African artists. That’s why we had to go with this model because this is how you can sell the most, to make a real difference for the artists.
Photo: Ayoub Essafi
What would be the difference?
A profitable life in their country, not to be obliged to go abroad to make a living in art. Having people in the continent who are inspiring, we’re so tired of what we see on the art market. African artists should be inspired by their life context, by their continent, by their stories. When you decide to be an artist on the continent, it’s quite more challenging because you don’t have all the infrastructures. Morocco is in a way, is very developed country when it comes to the infrastructure. I don’t know if we can compare it to the rest, but because I travel a lot in Africa, sometimes you have just one actor in the whole country, of contemporary arts. Maybe it’s not fair to say one, but let’s say one who’s willing to take the chances to export their artists, do events, make sure they have a great visibility… In Morocco, you have auction houses, you have galleries, you have art magazines. In a way, this is really rare, you don’t have that in many countries of the continent.
Photo: Ayoub Essafi
With the exhibition, do you feel the change in Africa?
Definitely. I don’t want to be the only one taking credit because everybody is doing so much and the continent is so big, every little thing counts. What I think I was able to provide with 1-54, though, is a constant interest. Three times a year I’d have the events, we have press trips, we have international press coming to visit. We have a market value: information, visibility, appreciation. All those things we were able to provide for ten years. Now, I think this is the only thing I can say was very different, than anybody has ever done before. 1-54 can take credit for that because it brought the market to Africa. Now the African market is booming. Before, in Morocco, you had very good galleries, but they would represent only Moroccan artists. If you see the three top galleries now in Casablanca, they have artists from all Africa. We have galleries in Ghana and Ivory Coast, that are not focusing only on their country. And they’re taking that as a lead to do more things on the continent and introducing more artists from Africa. We have African references today, and it’s important. Yesterday, during the festival of literature, of Marrakech a writer said that the problem of this 60/70/80’s generation was that we all learned art references that were not ours. It’s time for Africa to have its own references on aesthetics! For example, in art school, we should have the Master of Zellig (a style of mosaic tilework made from individually hand-chiseled tile pieces from Morocco), even if he has no diploma, he has the gift and the experience. We have to create our own stories. Africa has to create its own story. And I see it to be honest, because when we started ten years ago in London, there was no platform for this. Now, ten years later, I’m meeting students that not only before they went to school, but they had also gone to 1-54. They’re not impressed by it to have it, you know, like for them it’s just normal. It’s changing already…
Photo: Adnane Zemmama
How do you build a great rating?
This is where the auction houses arrived intervene. They validate the price. For example, the gallery is dealing with art coming out from the studio of the artist, and they sell it for the first time for the price that they agree on with the artist. They think it’s the right value. But what happens next is that if the gallery does their work properly in promotion, like in placing it in the right collection making sure the artist is part of an international exhibition or museum exhibition, the appreciation of the value of the artist grows. In our fair, what happens is that the galleries come with a price of the artist’s art. They give us the value, they’ve agreed on with the artist, and they will sell it for that price with maybe a discount, if they know their clients. Then the auction houses do their job. In our business, we’re trying to be honest, always be very thoughtful of the galleries who are participating. It’s great for us to have some of the top galleries from France because they bring the level up and there are some pieces that reach $700,000 sold in Morocco. It’s huge.
Photo: Adnane Zemmama
Africa is so diverse. Is there such a thing as African Art?
There is no African art, you know, it’s artists from the continent, it’s artists from the diaspora. That’s the right definition of it. And we use it most of the time. That’s why this exhibition’ name is “1-54” : 1 continent, 54 countries.
You are part of an artistic family through your father and your sisters. What was Art for you when you were little?
I realized quite young, for me and for my sisters, that we had the chance to have a studio of an artist at home. We had to pose for my dad, and it was so fun. My friends from school had dads who would go to work, our dad was at home painting. It was his work and for us it was normal. You don’t automatically pay attention to it because it’s the normality of it. You have paintings on the wall, you have a father that talks about art, talks about exhibitions, have collectors at the home. I personally was really studious at school. I was not a rebel in any kind of way. I wanted to be independent, an independent woman, a businesswoman. However, what I realized as soon as I moved from our family home, was that all those things that seemed quite normal continued with me in terms of wanting to go, to museums, wanting to see art, wanting to connect to this artistic lifestyle. But at the same time, I wanted to study finance and international business trying to become something else. And I think my sisters are very different because they were more creatives, but manually creatives. Karima is a poet, she’s a writer. But she has always had that in her, Ghizlan and Maya were always painting or doing manual things. It was not my thing. I came closer to my dad towards the last 15 years of his life. I was able to live in London, I was also having a job between Morocco and London, so it gave me more time to be around him, around his studios, and understand more of his career.
Photo: Adnane Zemmama
Is it fair to say that the past has caught up with you?
Kind of. I had time to help him out. I start to understand the importance of a catalog, of referencing his work and trying to get all those technical things in place for him. But at the same time, by helping organize the last three exhibitions he did, it also made me realize about this whole art system and made me understand how he made it in a way, because I had to go back to the years when I didn’t know my dad, the shows he did in different countries and write his biography. And by doing that, I understood, who he was, why he lived in Europe for ten years where 20 galleries were representing him. He decided to go back to Morocco, and that probably slowed him down. The visibility he got for those ten years living in Paris was incredible for his career. And then he came with that package to Morocco. Those years with him made me who I am and made me want to create 1-54…
Photo: Ayoub Essafi
