“I’m surfing in a different geographic zone. I deal with contemporary,
but I deal with art from the African continent, and the African diaspora,” the gallerist told an art-fair audience in Paris this year, going on to criticise the city’s institutions for the lack of opportunity given to artists from the Global South. Frustrated by the art scene in France, Ibrahim turned to the US, opening her gallery first in Seattle before moving to Chicago in 2019. Last year she felt France was at last ready for her and opened a three-storey premises in the capital. Consequently her artists – who include portraitists Amoako Boafo (whose first European solo exhibition took place at Ibrahim’s Paris outpost this year) and Raphaël Barontini – have been accruing market and institutional attention, while Ibrahim herself is becoming a permanent fixture at art-fair talks and on best-booth lists. Why? ‘We take the risk of nurturing young artists; mega galleries won’t change diapers,’ the gallerist informed The Art Newspaper at her debut showing in Art Basel.
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Most influential people in 2022 in the contemporary artworld
62
Mariane Ibrahim
Gallerist - Focusing on works that tend towards figuration and the politics of depicting Black life
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