Art Dubai Highlights the City’s Growing Appeal with Asian Collectors Arun Kakar

“We have reached a moment of maturity,” Ghione told Artsy. “The scene is really thriving, and the quality and quantity of artists who base themselves here—whether they be local talent or talent that chooses to make Dubai their home—is increasing.

“On the one hand, you want to show that and celebrate the fact that Dubai is a growing local hub, but also that it has this huge reach and is home for the market and the art of the region.”

The result of this blossoming is a fair that takes its role seriously as a bastion of regional art, aided by a diverse outlook that mirrors a city where some 90% of citizens are expats. This year’s edition of Art Dubai was organized with the idea to expand the definition of the “Global South” beyond its traditional geographic and economic boundaries: Shared histories and diasporic narratives were a consistent theme across the fair. “We are uniquely positioned at the junction of East and West and that is an opportunity to be the place of discovery,” Ghione noted.

So what did visitors discover? They might not have found many of the names that are fixtures at Western art fairs, or the de rigeur styles of figuration and sculptures that are typically found there, too. Instead, the fair’s prioritization of “discovery” was at the fore.

A case in point was the fair’s Modern section, which focused on the relationship between the former Soviet Union and its connections with Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian artists, many of which took part in cultural exchange programs during the Cold War. At Meem Gallery’s booth in the section, highlights included Iranian artist Mahmoud Sabri’s abstract paintings with Marxist and symbolic references; visceral paintings by Dia Azzawi, one of Iraq’s most acclaimed artists; and a series of playful works on paper by Iraqi artist Jewad Selim.

Founded in 2007, Meem Gallery is among the most established dealers in the city. Managing partner Charles Pocock observed the changing demographics of the collector base. “We’re finding a lot more [visitors from] South Asian markets [such as] Singapore, Hong Kong, and China,” he said, also noting the strong presence of Indian and Pakistani visitors.

The range of visitors was a factor noted by many of Dubai’s long standing galleries, many of which were keen to bring the breadth of their programming to the fair. At Lawrie Shabibi, which was founded in Dubai in 2011, co-founder Will Lawrie pointed out that the gallery, which tends to exhibit solo booths at international fairs, favored a group presentation on home turf.

Its booth featured works from Asad Faulwell, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Mehdi Moutashar, Hamra Abbas, and Mandy El-Sayegh, who is currently having a solo exhibition at the gallery. Lawrie was full of praise for the Malaysian British artist, who was recently listed as one of Artsy’s most influential artists of last year, and staged a solo performance the night before the fair’s VIP opening. “This was something where we had maybe 150 people inside the gallery watching this show, and it was absolutely phenomenal,” he said. “It’s one of these things where you realize why you get up in the morning, it’s to do that kind of show.”

Lawrie Shabibi is among a cluster of local galleries based in Alserkal Avenue in the Al Quoz industrial area, a hub of more than 70 contemporary art galleries that includes Zawyeh Gallery, Custot Gallery, The Third Line, and Leila Heller Gallery, among others. Much like Dubai itself, the area’s influence continues to grow in prominence, encompassing visual and performing arts organizations, designers, independent businesses, and community spaces. It also has its own foundation and exhibition space, where a large-scale installation by Nalini Malani is currently on view.

“If you were coming to this fair 15 years ago, the art scene was completely different than what it is today, constantly growing, constantly motivating artists to fit in and to exchange cultural identities, and it is fantastic,” said Kristian Khachatourian, co-founder of AKKA Project, another gallery based in the district. Its joint booth of Congolese artist Alexandre Kyungu and South African artist Turiya Magadlela was a highlight of the fair, featuring unusual materials such as pantyhose and rubber.

For the international exhibitors at Art Dubai, it was clear that the fair occupies a unique geographic position. “It’s a very good barometer of what’s happening worldwide in this particular region,” said Conor Macklin, a director at London’s Grosvenor Gallery, which has been exhibiting at the fair for more than 15 years. The gallery exhibited works by three Pakistani artists, Rasheed Araeen, Zarah Hussain, and Mohammad Ali Talpur. A series of geometric works by Araeen, informed by the artist’s preoccupation with Islamic history, will be familiar to those who saw his installation at the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern last year; meanwhile, Talpur’s minimalist, often abstract works focus on calligraphy and language.

Similar concepts were on view at the standout booth of Bolognese gallery Galleria Studio G7, which was returning to the fair for a second time. Its highlights included a trio of pensive sculptures by Gregorio Botta; Flavio De Marco’s abstract landscapes; and a charcoal, textile, and acrylic work by Giulia Dall’Olio, which explores man’s relationship with nature. “It’s a statement of the gallery,” said Studio G7’s director, Giula Biafore, of the presentation. “Even if [visitors] don’t know the artists, they perceive the quality.”

This attitude also seemed to prevail at the booth of London gallery Ronchini Gallery, which bought the full heft of its program’s focus on Minimalism, Spatialism, and Arte Povera. “We’re always very warmly welcomed,” said sales associate Ruben Tanzi. The booth was anchored by a standout new work by Tanya Ling that exemplifies the artist’s signature style of line paintings, which appear to be in constant motion. Another highlight was Gianpietro Carlesso’s marble sculpture, a meditation on the concept of infinity. “We’re meeting some interesting and interested people,” Tanzi added.

Another fixture of the fair—and Dubai’s art scene more generally—is the presence of the Indian art world. Collectors, cultural figures, and galleries from India were a consistent presence across the concourse, a sign both of the country’s thriving domestic art scene and interest in Dubai as a regional hub presence in the region. “The Indian art market is quite robust at the moment,” said Ushmita Sadhi, director and head curator of Kolkata gallery Emami Art. “Most of the galleries also want this global platform for their artists—I think there’s a connection between the cultures as well.”

The gallery was hosting a strong solo booth of Debashish Paul, featuring drawings, photographs, and a costume and headdress from a recent performance. A series of photographs taken in Paris depict the artist in sculptural dresses, mirroring and performing the fluidity of their inner self and the body. Sadhi was bullish on Dubai’s prospects as a growing regional art capital. “The Middle East and Dubai are really becoming a gateway for the Global South to connect with the Global North,” she said. “It is also a platform where you see these disparate voices coming in, and coexisting.”

Nowhere is this coexistence more evident than at the fair’s digital section, Art Dubai Digital, which launched in 2022, and this year focuses on new trends in digital art such as AI, AR, VR, and robotics. At a time when the term “digital” has been tainted by the volatile NFT market, the section was a reminder of the potential that digitally experimental mediums continue to hold.

If there was a theme to be drawn from that diverse section, it is the fluid relationship between human and machine. At Gazelli Art House’s booth, for instance, a collaboration between Ana Maria Caballero and Melissa Wiederrect invited visitors to take part in “Miss Metaverse,” a project that takes inspiration from traditional beauty pageants, using a video camera to capture an image of the viewer, which was then distorted, and given a score on a number of humorous metrics (“she’s SUPER authentic,” read one). It was attracting ample attention throughout the fair. “It’s nice to have this work presented physically at a fair and recognized at the same level as traditional art,” said Anastasia Shapovalova, a sales assistant at the gallery. “People are very engaged.…It’s nice to see people are comfortable to actually approach it and experiment with it.”

At the London gallery Unit, Krista Kim explored human emotion and beauty in the digital realm through digital works such as a computer-generated image of an uncut gemstone, cast against a warm background; while Zach Lieberman investigated the poetic qualities of light, color, and space to produce trippy optical effects. “There are so many brilliant digitally focused galleries and projects in Dubai, and we’re delighted to fit into that,” said Alice Fry, an artist liaison at the gallery, which is participating in the section for the third time.

Making its debut at the fair was fellow London gallery HOFA Gallery, which presented a series of works by Sougwen Chung. The artist’s gestural paintings are made with AI-powered robots, and combine mark making by hand with machine learning techniques. The artist was named one of Time’s Most Influential People in AI, and upon looking at the strangely emotive works, it’s clear to see why. “Exhibiting at Art Dubai for the first time is a landmark moment for HOFA Gallery. It’s an opportunity to showcase the innovative spirit of our artists and the dynamic nature of generative AI art,” said Elio D’Anna, the gallery’s co-founder.

Another strong booth from the section was at Dubai gallery Tabari Artspace’s solo booth of the young Emirati artist Talal Al Najjar. His five-scene CGI video Petro-Ghareebo: NAUSEA (2023) is an uncanny exercise in manipulation, translation, and defamiliarization of images. Excavation sites are transformed into parking lots, and a video of creepy distorted dog watches over the booth to create an eerie sense of the familiar and alien. For the gallery—which also has a booth in the fair’s main section of women artists from the MENA region—expanding into the digital part was a natural move. “As the new generation comes through, it’s really interesting,” said Laura Beaney, director of communications at the gallery. “We always want to be capturing the contemporary concerns of people, and we are immersed more or less in a digital world now, so I think it’s important to bring forward artists that are focusing on that.”

And it’s this forward-looking attitude that perhaps characterizes the fair, which, almost two decades into its existence, continues to evolve at the pace of the city it is based in. One gets the sense that the growth of its art market, while remarkable, is merely part of an ongoing work in progress. “The majority of the flowers that are blooming today were seeds that were planted years back, and therefore the ideas have been with us along the way,” said Ghioni, the fair’s executive director. “But I would say that, yes, certainly, they’re coming to fruition now.”