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In Dubai, Efie Gallery Is Rewriting the Map of Contemporary African Art

"We really want to help change people's mindset on what African art is and expand the genre so African artists can be as audacious or as risk-taking as their counterparts."

“A lot of our artists are happy that we represent them because we are the same. As Africans, we understand what story they are telling and who they are talking to,” Kwame Mintah, Ghanaian cultural entrepreneur, collector and cofounder of Dubai-based contemporary gallery Efie, tells Observer. “There can be a disconnect between the person selling and what is being sold.” In 2021, Kwame, his brother Kobi and their mother, Valentina, opened Efie with the goal of supporting and showcasing the work of artists from Africa and its diaspora in the Middle East. Since then, they’ve extended the remit. “Often, what it meant to be a global artist was you exhibited in New York… the Middle East was almost ignored,” he says. “Even for our major artists—Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, El Anatsui and Abdoulaye Konaté—this is a new region unlocked for them. Then for the younger artists, the moment they exhibit their work here, they become international artists.”

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Efie Gallery hosted the debut Middle East solo exhibitions of renowned Afro-Cuban multidisciplinary artist Campos-Pons and Malian icon Konaté in April 2025 and October 2024, respectively. The gallery hosted Anatsui’s first Dubai solo in March 2020 and also the first gallery show dedicated to the work of pioneering Ghanaian photographer J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije (1899-1989) in December 2023. Efie Gallery also represents London-based Nigerian artist Slawn, Ghanaian artist Yaw Owusu, Kenyan sculptor Maggie Otieno and Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh, whose solo show is on view through April 5.

Starting a gallery was not necessarily something Kwame planned on doing. It happened inadvertently after the Mintah family was invited to participate in the All Africa Festival, an annual event........

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