United Arab Emirates - Amid Desert and Future

Enso-Noon (2017) by Adel Al Abbasi

The United Arab Emirates gained its visibility on the international art scene primarily through Dubai’s rapid rise as a regional commercial center for international art, which dates back to the opening of Christie’s and Art Dubai, in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Notwithstanding these pivotal first steps in establishing the Dubai’s reputation as an important destination for art fans, these two institutions started having in mind regional collectors and offered them access to a much closer market for Iranian, Egyptian, Palestinian and Syrian art. The emerging art scene in the United Arab Emirates has slowly become a safe haven for artists from the surrounding Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region, as well as a center for a number of international expatriate communities that call the United Arab Emirates their home.

Patriotism of the 70’s (2017) by Afra Alsuwaidi

The earliest of these diaspora groups to move to the United Arab Emirates in the 1970s and 1980s were Iranians and Lebanese fleeing revolution and civil war in their homelands and South Asian business families with long histories of trading in the Indian Ocean and in the Arabian Gulf port cities. Amongst the latter were several art patrons who brought their commitment to the arts with them and helped to shape the United Arab Emirates’s creative community and market. Whilst a number of galleries already existed in Dubai in the early 1990s and 2000s, it was at the time of the of Christie’s first sale in May 2006 that the surge in the number of galleries and collectors took off. The Iranian artist, collector and curator Fereydoun Ave boosted Dubai’s early market for Iranian art and drew more Iranian artists to the United Arab Emirates by founding a gallery in Dubai’s historic Bastakiya quarter in 2007 in conjunction with XVA Gallery.

Little Women (2017) by Ali Hussain Merza

As did the Pakistani expatriates Arif and Fayeeza Naqvi who translated their passion for collecting art into a major corporate philanthropy initiative, the annual Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2009 in partnership with Art Dubai. At the same time, we see a rise in the efforts to educate the local audience and nurture United Arab Emirates-based artists, which resulted in an important new stage of development for the wider United Arab Emirates arts ecosystem. Led by the younger generations of the United Arab Emirates ruling families, the art scene gradually becomes the focus of this young nation and its unique evolving culture.

Untitled (2017) by Alyazi Salem

In 2003 Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi took over the direction of the Sharjah Art Foundation, and rapidly developed its main activity, the Sharjah Biennial, from a quite local art event into a world-class platform for regional and local art communities to engage with their international counterparts. In 2005, her cousin, Sheikh Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, through his Barjeel Art Foundation, opened to the public his private collection of over 1000 pieces of modern and contemporary art by Arab artists.

Grandpa’s Garden (2017) by Amira Al Awadhi

In 2008, Sheikha Lateefa bint Maktoum founded Tashkeel in Dubai to support the United Arab Emirates’s creative community through studio facilities, artists’ residencies, international fellowships and professional workshops. In 2010, Her Highness Sheikha Salama Bint Hamdan Al-Nahyan created the homonymous foundation in Abu Dhabi with the aim to “invest in the future of the United Arab Emirates by investing in its people” through a wide range of strategic initiatives in education, arts and culture.

Untitled (2017) by Aziz Al Kooheji

The younger generation of the Al-Nahyan family is interested in satisfying the main needs in the artistic field: nurturing and supporting the emerging local creative community. Passionate art collector, His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Bin Khalifa Al-Nahyan founded Unlimited Arab Exploration (U.A.E.) in 2015 to support a new generation of emerging artists from the Emirates and United Arab Emirates-based and recently organized an exhibition of commissioned works at the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah.

Untitled (2017) by Fuad Rudainy

It is not just the collectors who have been active in opening up the local art scene of the Emirates. Local artists from the Emirates such as Hassan Sharif (1951-2016) believed since the mid-1980s that artists from the Middle East needed to write their own history of art. And his legacy as a pioneer of conceptual art in the region and the United Arab Emirates lives on. There have been dramatic changes over the last 50 years and the preference for multi-disciplinary and experimental practices by United Arab Emirates-based artists reflects the need to respond to the historic and cultural shifts, to the lack of governmental art structures to support artistic production, to the uniquely cosmopolitan residents and on- going debate on the question of ‘belonging’.

Personal photo (2017) by Maryam Al Sindi

Alserkal’s vision is inspired by his family’s long tradition of art collecting, as well as by his experience in the vibrant Chinese districts in New York and, more recently, in China. Major expansions in 2015 have transformed this district of Al Quoz into a flourishing creative community with around 20 galleries including two private collections and a growing public audience. Alserkal Avenue has created a partnership with Art Dubai through free transportation between the spaces for visitors and collectors during Dubai’s art season. In 2017 it organized the exhibition and fair RCA Secret Dubai.