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 seven 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 (Palazzo Pitti, Vienna Secession, Institut Giacometti, Frac Bretagne, 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 Karim Kattan, 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: MoMA (NYC), Pinault Collection (Paris, Venezia), Mathaf (Doha), Art Institute Chicago (Chicago), 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).

Stéphanie Pioda, Imane Farès a développé un modèle de galerie à part, La Gazette Drouot, April 2023
Galerie Imane Farès, Fifth Chukker Magazine

Team

Imane Farès, Founder

"Imane Farès became a gallery owner belatedly, not out of conformism but out of curiosity. Driven by enthusiasm, she knows how to reassure visitors intrigued by the works, sometimes cutting-edge, arranged behind her large glass window. (...) In 2010, a space becomes available in front of her home, she makes this crazy bet: to open a gallery. She doesn't know many people in the art world. With tenacity and a sure eye, she gave a chance to conceptual artists from Africa and the Arab world (...). With those who pass through her doorstep, she knows how to find the words to lead them to elsewhere. In her image, singular and whole, the team receives with patience, seeking to learn as much as to transmit about art and the world that is spinning".
— Roxana Azimi, extract from Guide Hazan de l’art contemporain 2019, Éditions Hazan, Paris, 2018

Martina Sabbadini, Director

martina[at]imanefares.com

Samah Slim, Registrar

samah[at]imanefares.com

Léonore Chirol, Chargée de coordination

leonore@imanefares.com

Social networks


Legal

Copyright © 2020 Imane Farès and the artists, all rights reserved.

Design by Cyril Makhoul