Atlanta Art Fair 2026: Elsewhere, Here
Elsewhere, Here
For its second year at the Atlanta Art Fair, Art of Contemporary Africa brings together nine artists whose practices move across places, generations and materials, creating a presentation shaped by movement between places and perspectives.
Painting, photography, sculpture and textile come together in a presentation that resists a single definition of contemporary African art — from Esther Mahlangu's Ndebele geometry and Pascal Konan's transformed denim to Amadou Opa Bathily's metal textiles and Clint Strydom's Johannesburg streets.
Elsewhere, Here considers the ways artists can carry histories, environments and experiences from one place into another. Rather than proposing a single narrative of contemporary African art, the presentation brings distinct visual languages into proximity — allowing connections and contrasts to emerge between them.
Art of Contemporary Africa presents Elsewhere, Here at the Atlanta Art Fair, 1–4 October 2026, Booth E13, Pullman Yards.
For its second year at the Atlanta Art Fair, Art of Contemporary Africa brings together nine artists whose practices span generations, geographies and mediums, creating a presentation shaped by movement between places and perspectives.
Elsewhere, Here considers the ways artists can carry histories, environments and experiences from one place into another. Rather than proposing a single narrative of contemporary African art, the presentation brings distinct visual languages into proximity — allowing connections and contrasts to emerge between them.
Dr Esther Mahlangu, whose work is held in museum collections worldwide, is presented alongside artists at earlier points in their careers, several exhibiting in the United States for the first time.
In painting, Alexis Daniel Onguene Tassi (b. 1995, Bafoussam, Cameroon) places stacked crates of local brews against colonial-era advertising in Behind the Cliches. Pascal Konan bleaches, draws and paints into denim, constructing a tree from human figures in L'arbre de la connaissance du bien et du mal (2024).
Photography offers contrasting approaches to place and presence. Clint Strydom's Big City Life series observes Johannesburg street life without staging its subjects, while Oscar Mawuli's Blue Night creates a more atmospheric encounter, with body-painted figures gathered beneath a bare tree at dusk.
In sculpture, Samuel Allerton and Carol Cauldwell work in bronze at intimate scale, their figures occupying a space between character and totem.
Amadou Opa Bathily (b. 1987, Bamako) stitches thousands of fragments of salvaged metal into surfaces that recall woven cloth, while Knox Clayton constructs hard-edged compositions entirely through wool needlepoint.
Together, these practices suggest a contemporary Africa that cannot be contained by a single geography, aesthetic or narrative. Elsewhere, Here brings these different worlds into one space, inviting viewers to consider what travels with an artist — and what changes when it arrives somewhere new.
Art of Contemporary Africa is a Pan-African contemporary art gallery at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco's Dogpatch, and sister gallery to The Melrose Gallery in Johannesburg.
Booth E13 · Atlanta Art Fair · 1–4 October 2026 · Pullman Yards, Atlanta · aocaart.com
