Hannah Traore Is the Rule-Breaking Downtown Gallerist With Style to Match

Growing up in Toronto, Canada, gallerist Hannah Traore was surrounded by art. “My mom really made sure that me and my three siblings were lovers of art,” says Traore, who is now based in New York. As an adult, she knew she wanted to work with art in some capacity. When she was left with “a lot of time to think” in 2020, she made the swift decision: She was going to start her own gallery. Sure, she realized starting any business during a pandemic was a gamble, but after interning at museums such as the Museum of Modern Art and Fotografiska, the 27-year-old Malian-Canadian felt she was finally ready to step out on her own. “I realized I had a lot of connections,” she says, “and a lot of ideas that were quite fleshed out—so I thought, why wait?”

On January 20th, she opened the Hannah Traore Gallery in New York’s Lower East Side. Only a few weeks in, she’s already proven that she’s one of the art world’s most exciting up-and-comers (with the cool, downtown style to match). She focuses on showcasing BIPOC, immigrant, female, and queer artists. “It’s really important to not only give these artists a voice, but give them a genuine voice,” says Traore. “A lot of artists of color are forced to work with gallerists who see them as their ‘woke ticket.’” Instead, she wants to create a space where these artists have the freedom to showcase their work how they see fit. “Artists of color are so often forced to talk about their race or identity in their work, or else it’s not considered ‘viewable,’” she says. “I’ve spoken to many artists who feel like no one cares about their work, because you can’t tell that they’re Black.”