In 2010, Imane Farès founded the eponymous gallery in Paris, with the ambition to promote the practices of contemporary artists from the African continent and the Arab worlds. This strong commitment to artistic scenes that are rarely put forward, resonates with her dual Lebanese and Senegalese identity.
The gallery has been recognised by its peers as a precursor of this transformation of the art world’s cartography and now represents nine artists, whose work spans a wide range of media: installation, public sculpture, film, photography, drawing, but also fiction and theatre writing, as well as curating. It systematically organises these artists’ first solo exhibitions in France.
In order to accompany their work, the gallery makes it a point to provide them with unconditional material support and to encourage the creation of critical discourse around their projects.
The gallery regularly collaborates with various cultural actors: with museums and art centres that co-produce exhibitions (Beaux-Arts de Paris, Rmn – Grand Palais, WIELS, Smith College Museum of Art, …); with producers who ensure the development and distribution of short and feature films, often presented in international festivals (Locarno Film Festival, IFFR, CPH:DOX…); with French and foreign publishers (Dilecta, Autograph, Kerber Verlag…) that co-publish ambitious monographs.
A journal is published for each exhibition, and curators and art critics are invited to contribute to it. Among them are Lotte Arndt, Roxana Azimi, N’Goné Fall, Loïc Le Gall, Simon Njami, Smooth-Ugochukwu C. Nzewi, Natasa Petresin-Bachelez, and Akram Zaatari.
The gallery is proud that the works of artists represented are part of major public and private institutions, namely: Tate Modern (London), MAXXI (Rome), Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Museum Für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), Rietberg Museum (Zürich), MCA Chicago, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Art Jameel Collection (Dubai)… and that they also participate in major international exhibitions (biennales, documenta, Festival d’Automne à Paris).
