Harvest Season in Paris: Ibrahim Mahama Takes Over the Fondation Cartier as Art Basel Paris Returns
If 2026 has a defining artist, it may be Ibrahim Mahama. And this month, his story lands on my doorstep in Paris.
On October 22, the Fondation Cartier opens Le Temps des récoltes (The Time of Harvest), a major exhibition by the Ghanaian artist that fills every level of the foundation's new home on Place du Palais-Royal. It runs through February 28, 2027. The next day, Art Basel Paris opens its doors under the glass roof of the Grand Palais.
Who is Ibrahim Mahama?
Born in 1987 in Tamale, in northern Ghana, Mahama is best known for monumental installations made of stitched jute sacks. Those sacks carry cocoa for export, then get reused for rice, maize and charcoal. Draped over buildings, they turn architecture into a record of labor, trade and colonial economics.
His rise has been remarkable. In 2025 he became the first African artist to top ArtReview's Power 100, and he received the gold medal at the inaugural Art Basel Awards. In 2026 he added Kassel's Arnold Bode Prize. His career runs through documenta 14 and Ghana's first-ever pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Why this show is different
The Time of Harvest is not a solo victory lap. Mahama built it with nine collaborators, including the legendary Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, painter Gideon Appah, textile artist Zohra Opoku, and the Congolese plantation workers' collective CATPC. The exhibition draws on the three art centers Mahama founded in Tamale as spaces for making and teaching.
The title speaks to patient cycles: planting ideas, passing on knowledge, gathering what a community grows together. Expect new works made for the Fondation Cartier, reimagined versions of earlier installations, and themes of restitution, industry, and Ghana's possible futures.
For anyone who follows ART|unknown, that model matters. Mahama shows what happens when an artist's success is reinvested at home — in studios, archives and young artists — rather than simply exported.
Meanwhile, at the Grand Palais
Art Basel Paris runs October 23–25, 2026, with preview days on October 21–22. It is the fair's fifth Paris edition and the first under new director Karim Crippa, with more than 200 galleries from 41 countries and territories.
One booth already has my full attention: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and Jeffrey Deitch are pairing Beauford Delaneywith Alteronce Gumby. Delaney, the African American modernist who spent his last decades in Paris, was James Baldwin's mentor and friend. Seeing him in conversation with a younger abstract painter, in the city he chose as home, is exactly the kind of cross-generational story I care about.
On October 23, Mahama will also speak with Aby Gaye-Duparc, curator of the Cartier exhibition, as part of the fair's public program.
If you go: The Time of Harvest is at 2 Place du Palais-Royal, 75001 Paris (Métro: Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre). Tickets are €15, or €10 reduced. Go on a weekday to avoid the crowds. I'll be out covering Paris art week — follow along for dispatches.
Sources: Fondation Cartier 2026 programming (PDF), Paris je t'aime, Sortir à Paris, Artprice, MCH Group, Sortir à Paris — Art Basel events