For its 12th edition, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair New York 2026 returns to the Starrett-Lehigh Building this Art Week with over 20 galleries spanning 12 countries across the U.S., U.K., Caribbean, and African continent. Located on the ground floor and accessible directly from the street, the fair feels unusually open and communal, with booths rich in imagery, texture, and material experimentation. Beyond the presentations themselves, special projects encourage visitors to linger, read, and engage with the works in a tactile way rather than simply observe them from afar.
Meanwhile, a partnership with Office National Marocain du Tourisme brings a Moroccan lounge to the fair, complete with tea, nuts, and decadent Moroccan cookies that create a lively gathering point between booths. The result is a vibrant fusion of cultures, languages, and artistic perspectives, with artists spontaneously guiding visitors through their own presentations. Whitewall highlights five standout booths not to miss this year.
Adegbola Gallery
Aaron Kudi, “The Dance of the Dyrads,” 2025, Oil, enamel, pigment, oil stick, house paint, ink on cotton duck canvas, 170 x 220 cm. Courtesy of Adegbola Gallery.
This year marks Adegbola Gallery’s first time at 1-54 New York 2026, featuring Nigeria-born, London-based artist Aaron Kudi. Centered around paintings charged with psychological and moral weight, the artworks draw in part from the Garden of Gethsemane, carrying a quiet sense of endurance where suffering is absorbed rather than outwardly performed. Kudi constructs his surfaces using glazed tarpaulin and cotton duck canvas layered with liquid metal, ink, enamel, and acrylic. Through processes of settling, cracking, erosion, and repair, the paintings slowly take shape, balancing restraint with material intensity.
There is a palpable patience to the practice, both technically and emotionally. Set within ornate antique gold frames, the works enter into dialogue with European institutional traditions, modernist abstraction, and religious iconography, while biblical titles further deepen the tension between spirituality and suffering.
What we love: The emotional force of Kudi’s paintings unfolds gradually. At first the surfaces feel restrained, almost quiet, before the weight beneath them slowly rises to the surface. Even after walking away, the artworks linger, translating pain and endurance into something hauntingly intimate.
Blond Contemporary
Sulette van der Merwe, “Pretending,” 2021. Acrylic paint on board, 93 x 93 cm. Courtesy of Blond Contemporary.
Returning from London, Blond Contemporary brings together works by several artists, including Tafadzwa Masudi, Sulette van der Merwe, and Sophia Bounou. Zimbabwean-born and now based in Cape Town, Masudi creates colorful portrait paintings that focus less on physical appearance and more on human desire, joy, and aspiration. Balloons appear as recurring motifs throughout the works, underscoring a sense of optimism and possibility rather than dwelling on hardship or pain.
Meanwhile, van der Merwe introduces a surrealist sensibility through trompe-l’oeil paintings that initially resemble collages despite being entirely hand-painted. The works blur the boundaries between digital aesthetics and traditional painting while maintaining a distinctly dimensional quality. French-Moroccan artist Sophia Bounou rounds out the presentation with bold, patterned abstractions whose layered compositions and vivid contrasts evoke batik fabrics, merging references to art, fashion, and cultural traditions.
What we love: The expansive booth allows each artist’s distinct visual language to breathe while still complementing one another through shared themes of pattern, materiality, and illusion.
KATES-FERRI PROJECTS
Samuel Nnorom, “Tracing the Unfamiliar, 2025. African Print Fabric, 85.43 x 66.92 x 11.81 in. / 217 x 170 x 30 cm. Courtesy of the artist and KATES-FERRI PROJECTS.
New York-based KATES-FERRI PROJECTS brings together “Mirrored Histories and Woven Futures,” a trio presentation featuring works by Damien Davis, Samuel Nnorom, and Dana Robinson. The booth explores Black identity, memory, and representation through material-driven practices that shift between sculpture, installation, and image-making.
Samuel Nnorom presents two large-scale installations at 1-54 New York 2026, made from African print textiles stitched, bundled, and layered into sculptural forms. What was once tied to commerce and domesticity becomes monumental, with surfaces evoking maps, landscapes, bodies, and cultural memory all at once. Brooklyn-based Dana Robinson reworks vintage Ebony magazine advertisements into linoleum print compositions, stripping away their original commercial context to reconsider consumer culture, representation, and resilience within Black identity. Meanwhile, Damien Davis uses precision-cut plexiglass to reinterpret traditional barbershop imagery through industrial materials and futuristic forms. Hovering between painting and sculpture depending on the viewer’s position, the works question masculinity and the evolving narratives surrounding Black male identity.
What we love: Davis’s openness to interpretation feels especially compelling. Rather than offering fixed conclusions, the artworks leave space for identity and meaning to continuously evolve alongside the viewer.
Filafriques
Gavin Goodman, Vela #4, 2025, Mixed media with hand painted finish on canvas, 105 x 140 cm. Original + Edition of 3 +2 AP (Fuji archival photo print under acrylic glass). Courtesy of FILAFRIQUES.
With works by Gavin Goodman, Alexis Peskine, Joseph Eze, and Reggie Khumalo, Geneva-based Filafriques, owned by Carine Biley, brings together artists exploring cultural identity within a contemporary cosmopolitan world. The booth feels deeply responsive to people and portraiture, with each artist approaching the subject through distinct materials and emotional registers.
Joseph Eze’s paintings are threaded together through luminous gold leaf accents that slowly reveal themselves to the viewer. Flat bobbin threads appear throughout the works, at times hanging directly from the painted figures’ hair, which itself becomes a recurring motif. Meanwhile, Alexis Peskine creates spiritually charged portraits using hammered nails of varying sizes embedded into wooden boards. Reggie Khumalo’s striking portraits stand against a rich red backdrop, with garments so voluminous they spill beyond the canvas and onto the floor. Gavin Goodman rounds out the booth with stunning black-and-white photographs celebrating beauty and fashion.
What we love: Each artist approaches identity through radically different materials and visual languages, yet together the booth feels cohesive, intimate, and deeply human.
Galerie Myrtis
Lavett Ballard, “Sister Circle,” 2026. Mixed media collage on reclaimed wood panel, Diameter 45.72 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Myrtis.
Baltimore-based Galerie Myrtis brings together works by Lavett Ballard, Damilare Jamiu Kanyinsola, and Megan Lewis, at 1-54 New York 2026, all drawing inspiration from African textiles, patterns, and philosophy. Across painting and mixed-media practices, the artists engage with African aesthetics not simply as decoration, but as vehicles for identity, history, spirituality, and the contemporary Black experience. Throughout the booth, pattern becomes both structure and language, creating a layered exploration of memory and cultural continuity.
Lavett Ballard’s richly layered portraits fuse decorative abstraction with historical references, often incorporating wallpaper-like motifs into the compositions. Nigerian artist Damilare Jamiu Kanyinsola approaches painting through lived experience and philosophical reflection, informed by his apprenticeship under Muyiwa Williams. His works center authentic African narratives through an African Realist lens. Meanwhile, Megan Lewis introduces a more painterly and expressive counterpoint with figurative works pulsing with color and movement, adorned with textile-inspired geometric forms influenced by Ankara fabrics encountered during her travels to South Africa.
What we love: Each artist offers a distinct perspective on the African diaspora, responding to heritage, memory, and cultural identity through entirely different visual languages while remaining deeply interconnected.
