From October 23 to 25, 2026, Menart Fair returns for its 7th edition, centered on a fundamental question: “Where is home?”
Rich in its many connotations, the term “home” opens up a sensitive field of exploration into the various forms of belonging it evokes. Is it merely a place? Is the simple image of a house, a territory, or a place of return enough to grasp its full depth? In a world defi ned by mobility, immediacy, divisions, and multiple identities, “home” emerges as an open-ended, almost dizzying question. It reveals a fruitful tension between origin and becoming, memory and distance, heritage and transformation, dynamics that the invited artists will explore through their works. For this edition, the Project Room will be entirely dedicated to the Algerian artistic scene, offering an unprecedented focus on the richness and diversity of the country’s contemporary creation.
| “Where am I from?” There is no single answer to this question. On the contrary, it opens up a space for diverse narratives, overlapping layers, and multiple ways of inhabiting the world. The artists gathered for the 2026 edition of Menart Fair explore what, for them, constitutes as “home”: language, the body, memory, territory, faith, and transmission. Their works give shape to identities in flux, shaped by exile, movement, and encounters with the Other. Each medium becomes a sensitive vehicle for this exploration, and every artistic gesture helps to convey an experience that is both intimate and collective. In the contexts of the Middle East, North Africa, and their diasporas, these trajectories are by no means exceptional. They embody a contemporary reality marked by displacement, hybridization, and reconfiguration. “Home” is neither stable nor unequivocal; it is constantly redefining itself in an ongoing dialogue between heritage and aspiration, rootedness and movement. The show thus forms a constellation of positions, sometimes shifting, sometimes interdependent, much like a kaleidoscope. It conceives of “home” not as a fixed point of origin or return, but as a center of gravity to be built, again and again, a space open to dialogue, otherness, and both physical and intellectual mobility. Perhaps “home” is neither a place nor a moment, but rather a collection of emotions, layers, and tensions that shape us as much as they challenge us. The Project Room, curated by Wassyla Tamzali, founder of Ateliers Sauvages, Algiers For this edition, the Project Room will be entirely dedicated to the Algerian art scene, offering a unique focus on the richness and diversity of the country’s contemporary art, curated by Wassyla Tamzali. Born on July 10, 1941, in Bejaia, Algeria, Wassyla Tamzali is a lawyer, writer, and leading figure in Mediterranean feminism. A former director of the women’s rights program at UNESCO, she has devoted several decades to advocating for equality and exploring the relationships between culture, politics, and society in the Mediterranean region. Since the 2010s, her work has also focused on the arts and culture. In 2015, she founded Les Ateliers Sauvages in Algiers, an independent art center dedicated to contemporary creation, artist residencies, and the promotion of artistic practices. Housed in a former urban brownfield site of nearly 500 square meters in the heart of the capital, this venue quickly became a major player in the Algerian cultural scene and a space for artistic freedom in the city’s historic center. Conceived as a laboratory for creation and reflection, Les Ateliers Sauvages hosts artists in residence for periods of two to four months. Since opening, nearly sixty artists – primarily from Algeria, but also from France, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Greece, and Tunisia – have developed their projects there. Public presentations, exhibitions, performances, and open houses are key opportunities for engaging with the public. About Menart Fair Founded in 2021, Menart Fair is the first international art fair dedicated to modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa. Held annually in Paris, it brings together galleries, artists, and collectors around a carefully curated selection of approximately 100 artists, most of whom are well-known in their home countries. The fair showcases a rich yet still largely overlooked scene in Europe, while fostering intercultural dialogue. It highlights artists from the Levant, the Gulf, and North Africa, ranging from the modern era to the young contemporary generation, characterized by its diversity and its perspective on today’s world. The 2026 edition will take place during Paris Art Week, a key event in the international art market. Menart Fair thus offers galleries a strategic platform to increase their visibility and meet new collectors. While the global art market remains largely dominated by a few major hubs (the United States, the United Kingdom, and China), the art scene in the Middle East and North Africa is forcefully asserting its uniqueness and potential. Recent reports on the art market also highlight the persistent underrepresentation of these regions in major international statistics, despite the richness and vitality of their creative output, which is now supported by renowned museums and institutions. In this context, Menart Fair plays a key role by providing greater visibility for these artists and their galleries in the heart of Paris. Now more than ever, art is emerging as a space for dialogue and sharing, bringing together a community committed to these scenes that are gaining widespread recognition. About Laure d’Hauteville, founder and director of Menart Fair Laure d’Hauteville is an art consultant and curator specializing in the art scenes of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). A former cultural journalist, she has been working between France and the Middle East since 1991, developing in-depth expertise in the region’s modern and contemporary art. In 1998, she founded Artuel in Beirut, the region’s first international fair for modern and contemporary art, which she directed and curated until 2005. At the same time, she served as curator for 12 editions of JABAL, a platform dedicated to promoting emerging young talent in Lebanon. She launched and co-directed the first two editions of ArtParis–Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (2007–2008), then created and directed the Beirut Art Fair (2010–2019) and the Singapore Art Fair (2014). From 2012 to 2018, she co-launched a photography prize in Lebanon, propelling numerous artists onto the international scene. In 2021, she conceived and developed Menart Fair in Paris, the first fair exclusively dedicated to galleries representing artists from the MENA region. CONTACT – Agence Dezarts: agence@dezarts.fr |