AKAA 2025: African art asserts itself in Paris

This anniversary edition displays a clear ambition: to put materials at the center of the game, whether pigmented, woven, enameled, or repurposed, in response to a changing world. This vision is brought to us by Sitor Senghor, the new artistic director, who is also a Franco-Senegalese curator, art dealer, and collector, a fervent defender of the African scene.

Known for his exhibitions at the IMA and the Mucem, Sitor Senghor, in his gallery on rue de Thorigny, next to the Picasso Museum, has placed AKAA in a reflection on memory, reinvention and the dialogue between heritage and contemporary creation.

AKAA 2025, at the Carreau du Temple, stands out as the new paradigm of global art, where the African scene rewrites the contemporary visual narrative. Under the leadership of curator Sitor Senghor, the 10th edition asserts itself as a critical manifesto: that of a plural continent that no longer imitates, but inspires. Faced with the uniformity of the global market, AKAA stands as a poetic and political counterpoint, a vibrant response to more standardized fairs.

The 40 guest galleries—including MOVART (Angola), 193 Gallery (Paris, Marais), and Primo Marella (Milan)—create a liberated map, rejecting any hierarchy. Between the spiritual ceramics of King Houndekpinkou (Galerie Vallois) and the monumental work of Serge Mouangue, the space becomes a sensitive and sensory field. The young Togolese artist Atsoupé, embodying a new avant-garde, engages with Joël Andrianomearisoa, Gavin Goodman, and Sophia Kacimi and her striking art-to-wear pieces.

What is striking here is the depth of a collective thought—that of an art “in movement,” conscious of its heritage and bold in its hybridizations. AKAA 2025 is no longer just a fair: it is a critical space-time where the South finally expresses itself with its own aesthetic syntax, transforming Paris into a platform for a de-Westernized global art.