Contemporary art from the African continent is in demand among collectors and museum curators. A look at the scene in Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg.
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Exhibitions of museum quality are also announced by the still young Hamburg gallery Melbye-Konan. This year, for example, it is showing works by Sess Essoh and Stacey Ravvero from the Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
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Stella Melbye-Konan also observes that "the trend towards the figurative, which was largely influenced by the Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo, has declined somewhat in recent months" and that "abstract and semi-abstract art" is in demand.
"Artists such as Michaela Yearwood-Dan and Jadé Fadojutimi are reaching and exceeding the million-dollar mark on the secondary market and are being offered for several hundred thousand dollars on the primary market." With hints like these, the gallery owner wants to lure buyers away from the auction market to the financially attractive gallery offerings. That does sound like a struggle.
After all, if the auction market is trying to overtake the galleries, then it is benefiting from what the gallery owners have done in terms of work. How this race for buyers' favour will turn out is currently completely open. At any rate, the galleries and the art fairs are still ahead.
