About Us
The first gallery in Portugal dedicated entirely to contemporary African art — founded by two collectors who saw a gap no one else had thought to fill.
AFRICAN|CONTEMPORARY was founded in 2005 by the collectors Ana and Nuno Salgueiro-Lobo, who had come to notice that no gallery in Lisbon — nor, indeed, anywhere else in Portugal — was dedicated to contemporary African art. They opened the gallery to close that gap, establishing the first specialist gallery of its kind in the country, and one of the first in Europe.
After several years of activity in Lisbon's historic centre, the gallery relocated to a larger space in 2009, inaugurating a regular programme of exhibitions under the name Influx Contemporary Art. The project ran alongside AFRICAN|CONTEMPORARY, which by then had already built an international reach of its own.
Influx showed the work of Soly Cissé, Tchalé Figueira and Mauro Pinto in acclaimed solo exhibitions and presented, for the first time in Portugal, solo exhibitions by Chéri Cherin, George Lilanga, George Afedzi Hughes, Misheck Masamvu and Ihosvanny and Mario Macilau.
Misheck Masamvu's exhibition, Disputed Seats, was an outright premiere — his first show outside Harare — and would later serve as a springboard for his selection to the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Mauro Pinto's exhibition, Maputo – Luanda – Lubumbashi, led to his participation in the prestigious BES Photo international photography award, while Mario Macilau's show at Influx marked his first major solo exhibition.
The programme included two landmark group exhibitions. South is the New North drew together painting, sculpture, photography and video by Afedzi-Hughes, Almighty God, Bodo, Cherin, Cissé, Ihosvanny, Lilanga, Macilau, Masamvu, Mucavele, Sadimba, Samba, Seven-Seven, Tchalé and Zinkpé. Africa 2.0 — is there a "contemporary african art"? gathered George "Afedzi" Hughes, Almighty God, Owusu-Ankomah, Bodo Pambu, Chéri Cherin, Soly Cissé, Jorge Dias, Mourad Gharrach, George Lilanga, Franck Lundangi, LucFosther Diop, Esther Mahlangu, Misheck Masamvu, Moke, Richard Onyango, Chéri Samba, Cyprien Tokoudagba and Dominique Zinkpé.
In partnership with LAC — Laboratório de Actividades Criativas, Influx also presented ROOTS, a group exhibition featuring A. Pedro Correia, Abraão Vicente, Fefe Talavera, Isabel Lima and Jorge Dias.
Influx also took part in the Arte Lisboa art fair in both 2010 and 2011.
Influx Contemporary Art closed its doors in 2012, when the gallery chose to refocus on the international market through the online presence of AFRICAN|CONTEMPORARY — anticipating a shift that was only just beginning to take hold across the art world.
Beyond the gallery's own exhibition programme, the founders have also curated numerous solo and group exhibitions at other venues in Portugal and abroad, featuring artists such as Reinata Sadimba; the Shona sculptors Fanizani Akuda, Bernard Matemera and Henry Munyaradzi; George Lilanga; Joseph Amedokpo; Chéri Samba; and Armand Boua and Yeanzi, among others.
Today, with more than two decades of experience in the international art market, AFRICAN|CONTEMPORARY carries that same mission forward: working with private collectors and institutions around the world, and representing some of the most significant names in modern and contemporary African art. Numerous works that have passed through the gallery are now held in major private and institutional collections, and documented in international auction provenance records.