Touria El Glaoui

Mariane Ibrahim (Fig. 1) conducted this interview by phone in the summer of 2018, as Touria El Glaoui was preparing for 1–54 Contemporary Art Fair’s sixth iteration in London (Fig. 2).

Mariane Ibrahim (MI):

Okay, so tell us about your personal relationship with art and Africa in general.

Touria El Glaoui (TEL):

As you know, I am Moroccan … I was born in Morocco, so I feel very connected to the African continent in general because of my roots, but I am also very connected to art as I had a father who was an artist. He created a channel for me to learn about the arts in our family home and he gave me my first arts education. We would pose for family portraits in his studio; his art was always a complete part of our family and our family life. I also had the chance to travel with him to museums and see a lot of art, which is probably very unique because in Morocco as a child I didn’t have any of the museums or structure that you might find in Europe or the United States to cultivate this art education. I think living with an artist and being able to live with him through his different art experiences and adventures was really helpful, educational, and gave me a real love for art. I think later on, with this love for the arts and this passion, I was able to travel for work and form my own art education, discover some artists of my own and develop my own art taste. This led me to creating 1–54 and really wanting to be involved with art on the continent.

MI:

So, regarding that relationship that you had with your father and his artistry—being with a father who’s an artist is sort of different than being in the art business and being on the side of his representation and his market—so when was the first moment you decided to create an art fair?

TEG:

So, there were different moments, the things I did for my dad’s work, before creating the fair, they really helped me understand how to develop my own platform. For example, supporting his relationship with galleries and museums, as well as supporting him by starting a catalogue raisoneé —it helped me understand the early path of his career that I previously wasn’t really familiar with and how important visibility was while he was living in France or, of course, later when he lived in Morocco. I realized that this international visibility was part of the reason for his success. Beside his talent, it really helped with being more established in Morocco. At the same time, I supported him with a retrospective in Casablanca and then in London with an exhibition of Winston Churchill and my father’s works at a museum called Leighton House. It really helped me understand a bit more the big realm of the art world.

Obviously, those are experiences I have used to create 1–54. But 1–54 is also the product of my experiences traveling around Africa while working in telecoms, where I was developing and selling different technology solutions to different countries in Africa. These professional trips, in the five years prior to starting 1–54, helped me understand a lot more of the African art market. I was fascinated by the art scenes I was discovering, and I started thinking of putting it all together at the end of 2011–2012 when exactly at the same moment I was really enjoying myself creating and cocreating this show for my dad in London.

1.

Mariane Ibrahim, seated at her new gallery, Chicago.

Photo: Sofia Giner

2.

Touria El Glaoui speaking at 1–54 London, October 2, 2019.

Photo: courtesy Katrina Sorrentino

MI:

So why choose London over Paris, or a city in Africa? I know now, I mean I’m just going back in the past, not, think about the future.

TEG...