1-54 New York adds Afro-Brazilian work for the first time

May 13. The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair opened its New York edition yesterday with a first: Afro-Brazilian artists on the floor.

The fair has run since 2013, originally in London, with a focus on work from Africa and the wider diaspora. This year's New York show includes galleries from São Paulo and Rio presenting artists who haven't had visibility at 1-54 before. The shift is structural, not just a one-off booth.

Among the new inclusions: Jaime Lauriano, whose work maps historical violence through archival documents and colonial imagery, and Rosana Paulino, known for textile-based pieces that trace lineage and memory. Both are showing with Mendes Wood DM, a São Paulo gallery that's been working the international circuit but is new to this fair.

The Brazil addition matters because 1-54 has historically leaned toward anglophone and francophone African art scenes. Adding lusophone work from the Americas changes the geographic balance. The fair now covers three continents with real depth instead of nodding to diaspora as a curatorial afterthought.

Tokyo galleries haven't entered the fair yet. The circuit still runs London, New York, Marrakech. But the Brazilian galleries arriving this week suggest the frame is widening past the usual art-fair rotation.

The show runs through Sunday at Industria in the West Village. Thirty-one galleries total, eleven of them first-timers.