Art shows focused on African, Oceanic and Indigenous Art move online

The two regional showcases which focuses on African oceanic Indigenous Art, The Tribal Arts Show and the American Indian Art Show, moves online as a combined show. The art shows used to take place in San Francisco for the past three years. But due to the situation of pandemic, the show has been moved online. 130 Exhibitors from nine countries will participate in the fair.

The co-directors of fairs, Morris and Martindale, began to plan their 2021 edition over the summer. Though the pandemic had still limited large-scale in-person gatherings and nonessential travel at the time, they were optimistic about staging an in-person fair in February. As 2020 wound to a close, it became clear that they would also have to pivot to an online experience for their exhibitors and visitors. Typically, exhibitors from Europe and Australia are weary of traveling to San Francisco with their offerings.

When setting up the servers for their online viewing rooms, Morris and Martindale opted for a commercial-grade one that could handle 50,000 hits an hour, but it proved not to be enough. The traffic was more than expected and the server reached its capacity very quickly. due to this the fair has to go offline for several hours. As a result, the two fairs, which operate on separate websites, have been extended until Wednesday, March 3.

In the online fair, Pace African & Oceanic Art, a division of the international gallery that was established in 1971, is showcasing a group of early 20th-century African sculptures, like a seated Bakongo paternity figure priced at $90,000. Another object the gallery is offering is a Bakongo staff from the Democratic Republic of Congo, featuring a seated figure holding a medicine jar, valued at $30,000.Carlo Bella, Pace’s director of African and Oceanic art, first became involved with the Tribal Arts Fair as a buyer before taking part as a dealer. Since 2010, the gallery has focused on selling works on the higher-end of the scale, in the seven figures, but the pandemic’s economic tumult forced Pace to refocus its attention to selling at lower price points as well.

Claes, who operates in Belgium, last participated in the fair in 2018. For this year presentation, Claes s focusing on early 20th-century Nigerian sculptures, headlined by a wooden Igala figure from a Swiss private collection that is new to the market. The piece is estimated to fetch $25000.

Paris-based Galerie Flak is offering a Baule portrait mask from Côte d’Ivoire, dating to around the turn of the 20th century priced at $60,000. In addition to African antiques, the gallery is also offering artifacts attributed to makers in the American Southwest, Canada, Papua New Guinea, and Alaska at prices between $800–$38,000.

Arizona-based dealer Mark Sublette is offering a rare early Navajo textile priced at $35,000, made between 1870 to 1900. The piece has never been sold before and comes from the family collection of Lorenzo Hubble, a 19th-century Mexican-American dealer of Navajo art who ran a successful trading post business throughout the Southwest in the 1880s–’90s. Elsewhere in the online fair, Australian and Toronto based dealers Chris Boyan and Jessica Phillips are selling a set of Papua New Guinea Phantom Shields, from the 1960–70s at prices between $6,000–$8,000.

The market for the objects that the Tribal Arts Show and the American Indian Art Show offer is on the rise, Martindale said. Though prices vary widely, with few surpassing the $1 million mark, he is optimistic the fairs will give the category a broader audience.