The Beninese Dimitri Fagbohoun, raised in Cameroon but for years in France, is one of the six artists exhibited.

One of his installations, nine black masks surrounding a red heart bristling with spikes, dominates the audience.

It is "undeniable" that "more and more African artists" are present "in France and in Parisian galleries", he said a few weeks later, interviewed by AFP in his studio located near Paris. .

"You would have to be blind not to see it", continues the artist, while reworking enlargements of photos taken during the French colonial presence.

Behind him, traditional African statues that he has heavily revamped seem to contemplate him.

"There is a boom in the African scene in Paris", opines Marc-Antoine Fortuné, former French footballer turned art collector, met at the opening.

The Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, where the event was held, is located just a few minutes from the Champs-Elysées and the "golden triangle", where luxury is sold and exhibited in the capital, he points out. .

Another structure devoted to black and African art has recently moved nearby.

"This district is becoming an important district for contemporary African art," says the former sportsman.

"Giant step"

Paris comes a long way compared to New York or London, where the African diasporas bet much earlier on artists from their countries of origin, explain experts to AFP.

If the French capital has hosted several major exhibitions of contemporary African art since 2000, their too irregular programming, linked to a certain hexagonal reluctance, have harmed the rooting of the discipline, they continue.

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"It was a fight to survive until the mayonnaise took", recalls the French of Cameroonian origin Carole Onambélé Kvasnevski, who opened her gallery in Paris in 2010. At that time, "I was told: +There is no market for that, no customers, no collectors+."

Cécile Fakhoury, a Frenchwoman who created a large structure ten years ago in Côte d'Ivoire, then a second four years ago in Senegal, before settling in Paris last year, recounts the "giant steps “of a sector which “started from not much”.

African art is "bubbling, exciting, things are getting organized little by little. Awareness is growing", she enthuses.

“The look has been transformed” on African artists, formerly victims of “condescension” and “clichés”, their art often being perceived only as “traditional”, opines its Parisian director, Francis Coraboeuf.

Now they speak "on an equal footing with American, European and Asian creators", he rejoices.

Especially since art is structured and growing on the African continent.

Lagos, Kinshasa or Dakar have their Biennale, Le Cap or Marrakech their fair.

Galleries are springing up everywhere.

Thanks to the internet, many artists have made their reputation online.

As soon as one of them "breaks records at auction or is presented in a major museum, we destroy a little more this glass ceiling", rejoices Mr. Coraboeuf.

Post-Brexit repatriation

In Paris, things have also accelerated thanks to Brexit.

When the United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union, "there was a repatriation of activities to Paris", underlines the gallerist Carole Onambélé Kvasnevski, France having remained in the common market, while doing business since London now requires cumbersome steps, she says.

"All the biggest galleries have opened branches in Paris if they didn't already have one. It's Paris that shines!", says Victoria Mann, the founder of AKAA ("Also known as Africa" ​​- Also known as Africa, editor's note), a fair dedicated to contemporary African art that it has been organizing since 2016.

In this new environment, "the art market devoted to African scenes has rushed into the breach", she continues.

Several dedicated structures have opened.

Many others, more generalists, now represent African artists.

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"Paris is a very beautiful city, it is a city that knows how to welcome" ... buyers, observes the sculptor Dimitri Fagbohoun.

But for the artists, the workshops are rare and the refusals of visas by the French authorities even affect recognized creators, he squeaks.

Between Africans who better monetize their creations and a France that has become more competitive thanks to Brexit, the advent of African art in the French capital therefore responds, according to him, to contingencies "which go beyond art".

"Simply" mercantile: "Money moves and we follow the money".

© 2022 AFP