Ibrahim Mahama

Ibrahim Mahama is one of the most influential voices in contemporary art and the first African artist to top ArtReview's Power 100. Since the early 2010s, his artistic practice has centred on large-scale installations that transform materials of labour and trade – jute sacks, timber, railway sleepers, and industrial remnants – into monumental works that address global economic systems, colonial histories and the circulation of commodities. Through site-specific interventions that often envelop entire buildings or public spaces, Mahama examines how objects carry memory and how material culture preserves histories of exchange, migration and transformation. In 2019, Mahama opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in Tamale, a museum space run by a group of artists and curators active in Ghana, followed by the opening of a vast studio complex, Red Clay, in September 2020. Comprising exhibition spaces, research facilities and an artist residency centre, both sites represent Mahama’s contribution to developing and expanding the contemporary art scene in his country. In April 2021, Mahama opened a renovated silo, Nkrumah Volini, in Tamale. In his forthcoming project with Galleria Barovier&Toso, in collaboration with Apalazzogallery, Mahama expands his practice by working with Murano glass for the first time, creating a dialogue between African clay vessels and glass objects that addresses tradition, memory and the preservation of material culture.

 

Chale Wote Street Art Festival, Accra (2012); Biennale Jogja XII, Indonesia (2013); 'Parliament of Ghosts', Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2014); 56th Venice Biennale, 'All the World's Futures' (2015); Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017); 'A Straight Line Through the Carcass of History', Kunsthalle Zürich (2017); 'In Dependence', Apalazzogallery, Brescia (2018); 'Soft Power', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019); 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); 'As the void, vali and voli', Apalazzogallery, Brescia (2021); 'Afro-Atlantic Histories', Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2021); 'The Musical Brain', The High Line, New York (2021); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2022); 58th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2022); 'Counterspace', Barbican Centre, London (2022); 59th Venice Biennale, 'The Milk of Dreams' (2022); Artistic Direction of 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts (2023); 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023); 'Purple Hibiscus', Gropius Bau, Berlin (2023-2024); 'Parliament of Ghosts', Aspen Art Museum (2024); Palazzo Diedo, Venice (2024); 'IF THESE ARE THE THINGS', Apalazzogallery, Brescia (2024); Desert X AlUla (2024); Kunsthalle Bern (2025); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2025); Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Skopje (2025); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2025); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2025); TPB Biennial, Phuket (2025); Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2026, forthcoming); ‘A Shea Garden’, Galleria Barovier&Toso with Apalazzogallery, Venice (opening April 2026, coinciding with the 61st Venice Biennale).

 

Prince Claus Award (2020); ArtReview Power 100 (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024); inaugural Sam Gilliam Award (2024); Art Basel & UBS Artist of the Year Award (2025); Gold Award in Established Artist category, inaugural Art Basel Awards (2025); ArtReview Power 100, ranked #1 (first African artist, 2025).

 

 

Mahama's works are held in major international collections including Tate Modern (London), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Sydney), Pérez Art Museum Miami, Baltimore Museum of Art, Blanton Museum of Art (Austin), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo), Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (Tamale) and Fondazione Barovier&Toso Collection (Venice). Mahama is represented by Apalazzogallery and White Cube.