From a Luanda-based couple championing Angolan artists to a Sicilian gallerist dedicated to activist art, there’s a host of dealers making their debuts at Art Basel in Basel this year. Here are seven newcomers to watch, presenting works in the Galleries, Feature, and Statements sectors.
Jahmek Contemporary Art
Luanda, Angola
Throughout Mehak Vieira’s childhood in the port city of Luanda, the contemporary art scene was nothing like it is today. ‘I remember growing up without ever going to a gallery, or an art museum,’ recalls the gallerist. ‘The opportunity to change that for the next generation is a huge deal for us.’ Jahmek Contemporary Art has built a reputation for its ambitious programming featuring emerging and established artists with deep ties to Angola since Vieira opened the gallery with her husband in 2018. In this year’s Statements sector, they will be showing South-Africa based printmaker and performance artist Helena Uambembe. The daughter of an Angolan soldier who fled the country's long civil war (1975–2002), Uambembe’s work grapples with the experiences of her father, who was part of a military unit within the South African Defence Force. She also pushes to the surface collective memories about South Africa’s wars waged against Angola and Namibia and the painful legacy that continues to linger in these countries today.
Jenkins Johnson Gallery
Brooklyn and San Francisco, United States
Karen Jenkins-Johnson opened her first gallery in 1996 in San Francisco: ‘I was a Black businesswoman looking to open a gallery, but not one focused on Black artists. After three or four years however, I became frustrated with the systemic racism that was implicit in the interactions and the inaction I was witnessing [in the artworld],’ she says. Quickly realizing that Black American artists were grossly undervalued and lacking representation, she decided to take action. Today she has become an ardent advocate for overlooked artists of the African diaspora. Her San Francisco gallery and second space in Brooklyn champion names ranging from 20th-century masters such as Gordon Parks and Wadsworth Jarrell to contemporary artists like South African Mohau Modisakeng. Highlights of the gallery’s group presentation in the fair's main sector include evocative prints from the early 1990s by pioneering New York-based photographer Ming Smith and monumental abstract canvases by 80-year-old West Coast painter Mary Lovelace O’Neal.
Laveronica arte contemporanea
Modica, Italy
Tucked away in the historic city of Modica in southeast Sicily, the gallery sits adjacent to a 12th-century Byzantine church. ‘The space is small, but has great character – it is suggestive of a cave. We also use it for performances and video projections,’ says founder Corrado Gugliotta. His roster of politically-engaged Italian and international artists – including the likes of Adrian Paci, Alejandra Hernández, and Jonas Staal – often stage exhibitions and events in public venues throughout the picturesque Baroque city. A few years ago, for instance, artist Marinella Senatore invited hundreds of locals to perform in a four-hour long theatrical musical procession winding through Modica’s labyrinthine streets. At the fair, the gallery will be showing a series of paintings and a puppet show performance titled The Brightness of Greedy Europe (2022) by Peruvian artist Daniela Ortiz. Seen together, the works tell the disturbing story of a young migrant miner searching for gold who is threatened by an avaricious European prince. Deliberately unsettling, Ortiz’s work confronts viewers with the horrors of forced migration.
PM8 / Francisco Salas
Vigo, Spain
Based in Vigo, a city on Spain’s northwest coast, dealer and curator Francisco Salas sees the artists he works with as his extended family. PM8 represents a global network of emerging and established artists, including Elena Narbutaitė, Gabriel Borba Filho, and Rosalind Nashashibi. Beyond running a commercial space, Salas is deeply invested in researching and writing about his roster himself. He is also interested in resurrecting post-war figures such as Lithuanian photographer Algirdas Šeškus, whose works he will present in the Feature sector. On view will be melancholic images from the 1970s and 1980s, offering a rare glimpse of daily life in Vilnius under Soviet occupation. Salas describes it as ‘a historical moment which has never before been so transcendental in its resonance with the current state of the world.’
Mariane Ibrahim
Chicago, United States and Paris, France
French-Somali dealer Mariane Ibrahim is known for her program focused on artists from Africa and its diaspora. Since launching her eponymous gallery in Seattle a decade ago, she has championed voices that once sat at the margins of the artworld. Today, the gallerist runs two spaces in Chicago and Paris. Ibrahim’s group presentation at the fair, titled ‘Blue Notes’, touches on ideas of fluidity and rhythm.‘The selection emulates water [in terms of its] symbolic, philosophical, and cultural aspects, but also other elements, bodies, and sounds,’ says Ibrahim. Showing in the fair's main sector, the gallery will showcase new work by Vienna-based, Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo, Mexico-based mixed-media artist Clotilde Jiménez, and Ugandan painter Ian Mwesiga, among others.
Ivan Gallery
Bucharest, Romania
Fifteen years ago, when Marian Ivan took over a tiny artist’s studio in Bucharest and turned it into a gallery, many of Romania’s most esteemed artists like Geta Brătescu didn’t have gallery representation. ‘Neither did the young artists. The only spaces where you could exhibit were state-owned. There was almost no market at all,’ recalls Ivan. Fast-forward to the present and the dealer now represents many of the country’s biggest names – including Lia Perjovschi, whose works he will present in the Feature sector. In the 1980s, Perjovschi staged several subversive performances in the confines of her apartment. Using her body as her medium – binding herself up with string and drawing on her skin – she confronted issues of control and life under a repressive communist regime. Alongside photographs of these works, Ivan Gallery’s booth will display her Costumes (Maps of Impressions), sculptural mixed-media garments made out of textiles, papier-mâché, newspapers, and books which she wore for public performances.
Athr Gallery
Jeddah and AlUla, Saudi Arabia
Founded by collector Mohammed Hafiz and artist Hamza Serafi, Jeddah-based Athr Gallery is one of the most progressive art spaces in Saudi Arabia. Acting as an incubator for local talent, the gallery has been instrumental in helping nurture emerging Saudi artists to develop their practices and broaden their reach. Last year Athr opened a second outpost in Jeddah at the new multidisciplinary art hub Hayy Jameel, and earlier this year the gallery launched a third space in the ancient city of AlUla. Their Statements sector booth will feature new work by rising Saudi artist Ahaad Al Amoudi, whose vivid performances and videos delve into Saudi heritage and her personal experiences living in the country.
View all exhibitors participating in the show's Galleries, Unlimited, Statements, Feature, Edition, Parcours, and Magazine sectors here.
Payal Uttam is an independent writer and editor who divides her time between Hong Kong and Singapore. She contributes to a range of publications including Artsy, The Art Newspaper, South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal.