AKAA Fair Returns to Paris with Expanded African Art Focus

The AKAA (Also Known As Africa) fair held its third edition from November 9-11, 2018, at Le Carreau du Temple in Paris, featuring 49 exhibitors—double the number from 2016. Organized by director Victoria Mann, who previously worked at the MET, Louvre, and Pace Gallery, the fair expanded beyond photography to include visual arts, design (notably from Burkina Faso), applied arts, debates, and live music. Italian galleries Galleria Continua, C-Gallery, and VisionQuesT4rosso participated. Notable artists included Soly Cissé, JP Mika, Roger Ballen (with a focus on his collaboration with Hans Lemmen), Adama Kouyaté, Amadou Sanogo, Gonçalo Mabunda, JLM Carracedo, Dominique Zinkpé, Alexis Peskine, Tony Gum, Kendell Geers, and Lavar Munroe (a Bahamian voodoo culture artist featured in Okwui Enwezor's 2015 Venice Biennale). The fair attracted 15,000 visitors over three days and was deemed a commercial success, though some questioned its market maturity. The event also included the Les Rencontres AKAA series of talks on collecting, publishing, cinema, diaspora (featuring Afro-Cuban artist Susanna Pilar's installation), and geopolitical maps, followed by concerts of Moroccan, Malagasy, and Afro-Colombian music.