Georgina Adam points out that the Tate is putting more emphasis on African art with the appointment of a specialist in the field and the formation of an acquisitions committee:
African art is generating more and more interest, although the lack of a strong gallery infrastructure in many countries is a handicap. One of the most acclaimed parts of the recent Paris Photo fair was that devoted to African photography, with images from this year’s Bamako photography festival and from the Walther Collection, a German gallery largely devoted to African portraiture.
“A commitment such as Tate’s [to African art] is very meaningful,” says Joost Bosland, a partner in the Cape Town gallery Stevenson. But, he adds, for a market to thrive, it needs collectors: “The quick rise in values of Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Latin American contemporary art is to a significant degree attributable to the growth of the number of serious collectors in these regions. Africa has not witnessed such a growth.”
The Art Market: The Art of the State (Financial Times)
