1‑54 Marrakech: An Art Fair in Conversation with the City

Arriving in Marrakech, I was struck by how much had changed – and at the same time, how much hadn’t. My last visit had been in 2012, and while the medina still folds in on itself with the same familiar architecture, sounds and smells, Gueliz is now dense with international high‑street brands, ubiquitous coffee shops and newly opened galleries. Hivernage, once quieter in my memory, now teems with nightclubs, casinos, designer boutiques, and a Nobu Hotel. The city, like most urban centres, has rapidly expanded outward and upward.

And yet, just beyond that sense of acceleration and inevitable globalisation, Marrakech still knows how to slow time. 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair Marrakech, whose seventh edition ran from 5 to 8 February 2026, takes place each year at La Mamounia, an icon that feels suspended in its own era. An institution of hospitality that has accommodated everyone from Roosevelt to Yves Saint Laurent, La Mamounia has been 1-54’s host partner since the fair launched its Morocco edition in 2018.

Founded by Touria El Glaoui, herself Moroccan, 1‑54 began in London at Somerset House in 2013 before expanding to New York and Marrakech. As Touria told me, discussing the Marrakech edition, “It’s not the largest fair in the world. It’s a very boutique fair, and it’s probably not big enough to attract collectors from around the world, especially from further afield, on its own. We needed to cultivate a programme.” That frankness is telling. The fair is not designed to dominate the city, but to converse with it.

Exploring the booths, what resonated with me most was how personal the experience felt. You could take your time. Conversations emerged naturally. The crowd itself was a compelling cross-section, collectors, curators and artists from across the African continent, alongside those from Europe, the US and beyond. Of course, the aim was to make sales, but the energy somehow felt less transactional than at other fairs – more porous, convivial.

For me, the fair became a site of genuine discovery. There were artists and galleries I already knew well, but many more that I didn’t, and that balance felt invigorating. Highlights included Mehdi‑Georges Lahlou, presented by Loft Art Gallery, whose sculptural palm totems in La Conférence des Palmiers transform the palm into a near‑human archive of migration, ecology and colonial history. Rachel Marsil’s paintings at Cécile Fakhoury quietly pulled you inward, mining family photographs with tenderness. Barthélémy Toguo’s solo presentation at space Un bridged Cameroon and Japan through ceramics and tapestry developed during his Nara residency, while Hamza Kadiri’s sculptural work at MCC Gallery translated inner states into wood, bronze and charcoal.

Behind this careful balance is a rigorous selection process. “For each of the fairs, we have different selection committees,” Touria explained. In Marrakech, that committee includes Miriam Sebti, editor‑in‑chief of Diptyk Magazine, South African curator Liese Van Der Watt, and Touria herself. “We’re very attentive in terms of which galleries we choose,” she said. “People remember what they see.” Alongside representing African and diaspora artists, which is to be expected, I observed a commitment to platforming a breadth of African galleries, with several Moroccan participants spotlighted through the fair.

What truly distinguishes 1‑54 Marrakech is how thoroughly it activates the city beyond La Mamounia. Touria traced this back to an earlier moment, the Marrakech Biennale, founded by Vanessa Branson and Abel Damoussi, which ran from 2005 to 2016. “It kind of got the city ready for when 1‑54 arrived,” she reflected. When the Biennale’s planned 2018 edition was cancelled, 1‑54 stepped into that gap, building a city‑wide programme of exhibitions, partnerships and off‑site projects.

“There was already this habit of Marrakech functioning like a biennial,” Touria said. “So when we arrived, we took on creating an interesting programme.” That programme now feels embedded. A gallery night in Gueliz brought me to Loft Art Gallery, Le Comptoir des Mines Galerie and Imprimerie Régionale’s pop‑up bookshop, stocked with collectible printed matter and ephemera. At DaDa in the medina, ABLAKASSA’s In Between Blues, curated by Roger Karera with Jean Servais Somian, used blue as a lens for memory, sound and gathering. Riad hotel IZZA presented État(s) de Passage, curated by Achraf Remok, foregrounding fluid identities and generational movement.

I noticed hotels, in particular, are important cultural hosts here. Touria is careful to distinguish between surface‑level participation and deeper commitment, pointing to El Fenn as a pioneer. Long before 1‑54, Vanessa Branson’s riad created space for contemporary art when few other venues existed. That legacy continues.

Jnane Rumi stood out as one of the most thoughtful hotel‑based projects this year. Curated by artist Samy Snoussi, The Garden of Encounters unfolded across the property’s lush grounds. “Jnane Rumi doesn’t behave like a white cube,” Samy told me. “The garden already has its own logic, light shifts, paths overlap, things appear slowly.” Rather than imposing a theme, he focused on synchronicity. “I wasn’t interested in a unified aesthetic,” he said, “but in bringing together practices that could coexist without competing.”

The works revealed themselves gradually. Mohammed El Hajoui’s Radici performance quietly reactivated the carpet as a symbol of hospitality and time, sifting powdered pigment into an ephemeral, woven form. Nearby, Loutfi Souidi’s large‑scale aluminium sculpture suggested a speculative terrain, shimmering, unstable, shaped by pressure. As Samy put it, “The dialogue isn’t verbal or didactic, it’s spatial. The garden becomes a kind of mediator.”

This approach echoed something broader about Marrakech. As Samy observed, “Hospitality here isn’t just functional, it’s cultural, spatial, and social.” Art meets people where they already are. By the end of the week, that felt like the core of 1‑54 Marrakech. Not spectacle, not scale, but attentiveness, to artists, to audiences, to the city itself. As Touria pointed out, “Marrakech is really a hospitality city,” one whose architecture is “perfect not only for showcasing art, but also to welcome artists… our role here is really to federate all those events… to make sure that we’re all in sync in a way.” The fair and it’s wider programme felt less like an event descending on the city, and more like a conversation it has been learning how to hold for years.



Feature image: Barthélémy Toguo presented by space Un at 1‑54 Marrakech. Photo: Keshav Anand