Dubai Efie Gallery Rewrites the Map of Contemporary African Art

“Many of our artists are happy that we represent them because we are the same. As Africans, we understand the story they are telling and who they are talking to,” Kwame Mintah, a Ghanaian businessman, collector and founder of the Dubai-based contemporary gallery Efie, told the Observer. “There may 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 aim of supporting and showcasing the work of African artists and their diaspora in the Middle East. Since then, they have expanded the release. “Most of the time, what it meant to be an international artist was shown in New York… the Middle East was almost ignored,” he said. “Even for our great artists—Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, El Anatsui and Abdoulaye Konate—this is a new region that has opened up for them. And for young artists, when they show their work here, they become international artists.”

Efie Gallery hosts the first exhibition in the Middle East of the famous Afro-Cuban artist Campos-Pons and the Malian icon Konaté in April 2025 and October 2024, respectively. The gallery hosts Anatsui’s first Dubai solo exhibition in March 2020 and the first gallery exhibition dedicated to the work of pioneering Ghanaian photographer JK Bruce-Vanderpuije (1899-1989) in December 2023. Efie Gallery also represents London-based Nigerian artist Slawn, Ghanaian photographer Yaw Owusuculp Ethiopian photographer Maggie Aggies Aggies Aggies Aggies Aggies Aggies Kenyan Oggies. Muluneh, his solo exhibition will be on view until April 5.

Starting a gallery was not something Kwame planned to do. It happened out of the blue after the Mintah family was invited to participate in the All Africa Festival, an annual event that celebrates all things African including fashion, music, food, films and photography. Kwame and Kobi considered showcasing rare vinyl records from around the world—pieces they had been collecting for years—before expanding the idea to include a visual art exhibit as part of the festival.

In October 2021, an exhibition curated by our brothers and Afia Owusua Afriyie was opened at Burj Plaza by Emaar in a space designed by Ghanaian architect Alice Asafu-Adjaye, with the work of Anatsui, Owusu, Otieno, Slawn, Betty Acquaomail, Lassah Isharry, Lassah Isharry, Lassah Isharry U Amuah, Kwaku Yaro and James Barnor. The show was well received and extended beyond the originally planned three days, and that success inspired the family to open a gallery. Efie means home in the Ghanaian language, and the Mintah family discussed opening in Ghana, where they founded Ananse, a library specializing in African literature that also hosts live literary events in East Legon and Accra Central. In the end they chose Dubai instead, citing the region’s potential to raise the profile and expand the practice of both established and emerging artists. It is also an opportunity to promote cultural exchange and highlight the shared values—such as a sense of community—that exist between Africa and the Middle East.

Efie Gallery opened a permanent location in March 2022 on Al Khayat Avenue, the hub of the arts, and almost three years later moved to a new two-story, 4,400-square-foot space that includes a 1,500-square-foot-flooring main exhibition space with 30-meter-high ceilings in the Alkas regional art area. The gallery has grown into a leading center representing and supporting contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, with programs that include exhibitions, a residency program, artistic participation and a Rekord Gallery, displaying thousands of vinyl and shellac records from the 1940s to the present, collected by Kwame and Kobi. This space also hosts screenings of films from Africa in collaboration with Bootleg Griot, a private library project, next to the library and cafe.

The Mintah family collects art, initially “more than passionately,” with a focus on Ghanaian legends such as James Barnor and Ablade Glover. The collection has since grown to include the work of artists from across the African continent and abroad—including African American and British Black artists—”which are in line with who we are,” says Kwame, in keeping with the gallery’s mission to “broaden what people see as African art.”

Kwame and Kobi also collect vinyl. A few years before they started Efie Gallery, they planned to launch a reissue label called Efie Records, with the aim of making old albums of African artists and groups—among them Nana Kwame Ampadu, Opambuo International Band and AB Crentsil—available on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. With their mother’s support, the brothers secured a deal with Crentsil’s Super Sweet Talks International. But the harsh world of music rights and licensing, especially for bands and artists who have passed away, forced them to put that dream on hold. “We were young at the time and we realized it was a completely different beast,” Kwame recalled. “We said ‘okay, we don’t really want to go down that route’ so we almost shelved that idea but then amassed a huge collection of vinyl records.”

In 2017, Kobi repurchased Ghanaian legend Ebo Taylor’s record label, marking the start of the brothers’ vinyl collecting journey. About two years later, Kwame heard the Afro-funk record “Only You” by pioneering Nigerian singer-songwriter Steve Monite at a friend’s house and mistook it for an American singer. “When I heard this song, ‘I was like, what is this?… so I started researching. And I said, ‘okay, how can I get these songs?… In almost 7 years, my brothers collected more than 2,000 vinyl records, most of them by African artists.

Efie Gallery’s recent exhibition “The Shape of Things to Come,” curated by Japan-based American curator Dexter Wimberly, included the work of Americans Carrie Mae Weems and Adam Pendleton. “We have been very intentional in our move to present African-American musicians as Africans, to present Egyptian musicians as Africans, to present black British musicians as Africans because we really want to make sure people understand how big Africa is as a continent and how influential we are. “We really want to help change that narrative and the way people think about what African art is and expand the genre of music so that African artists can be bold or take risks like their counterparts.”

Next up at Dubai’s Efie Gallery is the exhibit “In Abstracto, In Concreto,” curated by Brice Arsène Yonkeu, featuring contemporary practices that amplify both assimilation and abstraction. Scheduled to open on May 21, the exhibition will feature paintings and works on paper by Lagos-born, US-based Luke Agada; Nigerian artist born in London, New York, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones; Cameroon-born, US-based artist Ludovic Nkoth; and New York- and Accra-based Gabonese singer Naila Opiangah.

The gallery will participate in this year’s Art Dubai (now postponed to mid-May) with a group presentation featuring work by Abdoulaye Konaté, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Yaw Owusu, Maggie Otieno, Aida Muluneh, Samuel Fosso and Kelani Abass. A body of work by Campos-Pons, as one of the outstanding artists selected by the late curator Koyo Kouoh, will be on view at the Giardini as part of this year’s Venice Biennale. “We want to continue to empower our artists. When an artist says they are represented by Efie Gallery, we want that to mean something in the way we support them and in the art space,” said Kwame. “And almost like a collector’s stamp of approval, you don’t even need to see the work of the artist represented by the gallery; you know you’re going to get quality work.”

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