This article was written with support of 1-54
From May 8th to 11th, 2025, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair returns to New York for the 11th edition and celebrates its ten-year presence in the city. This year's fair will be held for the first time at Hello at 28 Liberty Street, in the heart of Manhattan's financial district. The new venue will provide a fresh and vast background to the fair that formed the basis for New York's cultural calendar every spring.
With around 30 exhibitors from Africa, Europe, the US and the Caribbean, the fair will showcase its work by over 70 artists working in a variety of media, from painting and photography to sculpture, installations and digital forms. The 2025 edition is set to reaffirm the distinct role of 1-54 in the contemporary African and diasporic art platform to attract collectors, curators, museum experts and a wide range of public audiences.
This edition will feature a series of pop-up exhibitions launched by 1-54 Presents, The Fair, based on the directions of the Curatorial, introduced in 2023. Another postcard in the Caribbean, the first show in the Sparkling Islands, featured 13 artists from the region and its diaspora, challenging the portrayal of the Caribbean stereotypes, offering a complex and diverse view of its contemporary art scene. Curated by the late Khalil Evelis' crochet, the exhibition marked a crucial step in expanding the fair's focus and encouraging its involvement with the Caribbean perspective. The Caribbean spotlight for 2025 is continuously developed and will continue to advance the conversation that began in honor of its initiative and vision of Ivrisse-Crochemar.
As 1-54 celebrates the decade in New York, this edition reaffirms the fair's position not only as a commercial platform, but as a site of exchange, research and cultural connections. The inclusion of this year's Caribbean perspective provides a timely and important expansion of the fair's mission, setting the stage for deeper, more layered conversations about identity, transition, resistance and expression in the world of global art.
A fair overview
The 2025 edition of 1-54 New York features around 30 exhibitors and over 70 artists from 17 countries on five continents. First unveiled at Halo on 28 Liberty Street, the fair will be held at an impressive 30,000-square-foot venue in Manhattan's Financial District, offering a vast environment for a wide range of international curation visions.
New York will be exhibiting for the first time 18 galleries, including notable new participants, such as the Ternite Ala Eli and the Kubat Gallery from the Bahamas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The exhibitor list reflects a wide international reach with galleries based in cities such as Tokyo, Lagos, Johannesburg, Geneva and Paris. Participants include the Akka Project in Venice, Dubai and Lugano, Odaart in Lagos, Fridman Gallery in New York, the Gallery Carol Kvas Nevsky in Paris and New York, Jonathan Carver Moore in San Francisco, and the Article 15 Gallery in Washington, DC.
The diversity of geography and vision emphasizes 1-54's commitment to presenting an attractive cross-section of contemporary African art from both established and emerging spaces.
Several large presentations and artist-driven projects add even more depth to the 2025 edition. Gallery 1957 presents a powerful work by Yoo-Ous, fully constructed in our penny, rethinks the American flag and encourages reflection on freedom, economy and national identity. Almine Rech introduces the figures of Miracle, a raffia-based installation by Joël Andrianomearisoa, who explores memory, labor and tradition through material gestures and cultural symbolism.
When art comes first, projects that track African cotton heritage and weaving traditions as places of identity and resistance contribute to textile language. Forgotten Land creates the Afro-Caribbean Resource Library, a curated literary installation designed to promote deeper engagement with Caribbean thought, history and creativity.
The fair also celebrates the long-standing legacy of the David Krut project, who has introduced South African artists to New York audiences for over 25 years. Kalashnikovv Gallery pays tribute to the presentation of an artist who worked at the same Johannesburg workshop as William Kentridge, showing both established and emerging voices from the region.
Caribbean spotlight
1-54 New York's 2025 edition shows a meaningful continuation of fair engagement with the Caribbean, following the launch of Sparkling Island, another Caribbean postcard in 2023. It was announced as part of the 1-54 Person Program. Nuance and cultural idiosyncrasy. Curated by the late Khalil Evris' crochet, the Sparkling Islands laid the foundation for a more sustainable dialogue on Caribbean art within the fair's global platform. The 2025 Caribbean spotlight will serve as a homage to its vision and its curation heritage.
Curated by the Atlantic Arthouse, a collective based in the Mid-Caribbean Mid-Atlantic Ocean, the 2025 Caribbean spotlight brings together eight contemporary artists, whose works explore themes of migration, memory and cultural disruption. This presentation reflects a group's hybrid approach that combines exhibitions, e-commerce and community programming to increase the visibility of underrepresented artists working across the Caribbean, Afrodespent, Indigenous and Latinx communities.
Galerie Loeve & Co also contributes to this expanded story with group presentations that include a variety of contemporary artists, including Haitian painter Roland Dorsery. The inclusion of Dorsery, a pioneering Caribbean modernism, adds a historical layer to the presentation and opens up conversations about his influence in a broader modernist movement, including connections to African art history. The rest of the presentation focuses on French and African artists, but Dorcély's presence places the work in a broader transatlantic dialogue, reinforcing the interlinked narrative at the heart of this year's fair.
The Caribbean focus is further enriched by forgotten lands, and introduces the Afro-Caribbean resource library to the fair's lounge. The project features a collection of curated publications spanning poetry, fiction, political discourse and artistic criticism, promoting deeper engagement with the literary and theoretical frameworks that shape today's Caribbean creative practices.
Together, the Caribbean spotlight, the contributions of forgotten lands, and the Robe & Co presentation build on the foundations built by Sparkling Island, advancing the vast and inclusive vision of 1-54. By foregrounding both modern and historical Caribbean voices and highlighting the intersection with African art history, Fair opens up important new stories and reaffirms its commitment to global artistic dialogue.
Enlarging vision
The 2025 edition of 1-54 New York is set to be a powerful and vast moment in the city's fair's 10-year journey. This year's edition, held at Halo on 28 Liberty Street, will make the most of the new setting in the financial district and provide a spacious and adaptable venue for gallery presentations, special projects and curated interventions. With around 30 exhibitors from 17 countries on five continents, including the first New York exhibition, the fair will strengthen its position as a key platform for galleries to reach new audiences and engage with collectors, curators and institutions in meaningful ways.
It will continue to serve as a space for discovery and dialogue across contemporary African and diasporic art landscapes.
New additions to the programme, including the Caribbean spotlight by Forgotten Lands and the launch of the Afro-Caribbean resource library, bring additional context and curatorial depth. The presence of contemporary voices such as Roland Dorsery along with young contemporary artists points to a growing interest in more layered intergenerational narratives.
As 1-54 opens the 11th edition of the New York edition and prepares to celebrate the decade in the city, the fair focuses on expanding its scope and deepening its mission. Each edition is built on what has come before, reaffirming our commitment to advocating for contemporary African art in all forms, creating meaningful connections across continents, generations and perspectives.
