As a media partner for this year’s 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Nataal picks five highlights not to miss

Ibrahim El-Salahi (Vigo Gallery / Kamal Lazaar Foundation)
1-54’s third annual Courtyard Commission is this year in the capable hands of Ibrahim El-Salah. The legendary Modernist painter has created his first sculpture, Meditation Tree, which expresses the artist’s love of the Haraz acacia tree from his native Sudan. This splendid outdoor centerpiece reminds us mere mortals of our affiliation to trees, with all of their peculiarities, strengths and weaknesses.

Leasho Johnson and Monique Gilpin
Brixton’s 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning partner with curator Suzie Wong to host Required Reading, an exhibition by young Jamaican artists Leasho Johnson and Monique Gilpin. This trio use Stuart Hall’s 1990 essay, Cultural Identity and Diaspora, as their source material to consider loss and reconstruction in relation to the black body. Johnson uses graphics, cartoons and street art to delve into dancehall culture and its overly sexualised portrayal of both sexes. Gilpin uses porcelain to create bodily objects that speak to the tensions between the physical and psychological in contemporary life.

Athi-Patra Ruga
The acclaimed South African artist will open his first solo UK show at Somerset House in association with 1-54. Of Gods, Rainbows and Omissions (4 October 2018 – 6 January 2019) continues Athi-Patra Ruga’s odyssey into his own fantastical world inhabited by powerful characters that parody his country’s post apartheid promises. The show brings together three bodies of work, The Future White Women of Azania (2012-15), Queens in Exile (2015-17), and The Beatification of Feral Benga (2017-present). Through photography, sculpture, performance and tapestry, he also confronts hetero-normative social constructions of African history and knowledge.

Larry Achiampong (Copperfield Gallery)
Larry Achiampong has masterminded a mixed media installation that fuses the domestic and the divine. The British Ghanaian’s candid and highly relatable works often gives rise to discussions around the post-plantation identity of the African diaspora within Western societies. In this case, he creates a living room setting within which to present his Sunday’s Best (2016) video, a painting from his Holy Cloud series and the celebrated Glyth (2013) photo series. Together they explore Christianity’s role in colonialism and its ongoing impact on cultural pride and beliefs.

Forum
Curated for the first time by writer and critic Ekow Eshun (chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group and creative director of Calvert 22 Foundation), Forum is a series of talks and screenings bringing together curators, critics and artists. This year the overarching theme is Freefall, which is used "as point of departure from which to explore black artistic practice as a strategy of innovation, resistance and liberation.” As part of the programme, Nataal will chair a panel on Friday 5 October, 2.30-4pm, looking at recently surveys of African photography around the globe. The talk will focus on female voices and brings together Renée Mussai (senior curator and head of archive and research at Autograph ABP), Lebohang Kganye (artist), Marie-Ann Yemsi (art consultant and curator) and Ruth Ossai (artist), moderated by Helen Jennings (co-founder and editorial director of Nataal).