I was recently seated beside a New York gallerist at a dinner in Al-’Ula, Saudi Arabia. Since it was her maiden voyage to the region, she was preparing to fly to the UAE at the crack of dawn, ‘to see the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Alserkal’s galleries and the Sharjah Biennial’ in one day before catching a redeye back to New York.
I beamed thinking of the effort that people now want – indeed need – to make to see what our 51-year-old country has to offer culturally. Inevitably, our conversation moved from the Emirates being the only nation in the region that is home to three culturally active and creatively distinct cities in such proximity to each other, to the federation’s robust art scene.
Perhaps it isn’t widely known but, shortly after the Emirates were unified in 1971, the government issued art scholarships. Beneficiaries included Najat Makki, who studied sculpture at the College of Fine Arts in Cairo, and Hassan Sharif (1951–2016), known as the father of conceptual art in the UAE, who enrolled at London’s Byam Shaw School of Art (now part of Central Saint Martins). While their practices and philosophies ranged radically, this cohort constituted the pioneers of contemporary art in the UAE, with many choosing to return home following their studies, despite the non-existent local art scene at the time. These included Sharif, who, determined to share what he had learnt in London, set up the Al Marijah Atelier in Sharjah, where art enthusiasts could come together and deliberate. ‘He once said that he not only had to create his work, but also had to create an audience for his work,’ says Isabelle van den Eynde, whose namesake gallery, headquartered in Dubai, now runs Sharif’s estate.
In 1980, the artist became a founding member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, an entity aimed at supporting the local art scene. It was established in Sharjah, stronghold of the Al Qassimi ruling family and the Emirate that has ‘seen the premises of contemporary art expression’ according to Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator at the Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF).
Sharjah is a longstanding cultural center, where the roots of art appreciation and patronage run deep among the Al Qasimis – many of whom continue to uphold the Emirate’s positioning as a haven for the arts, beginning with its ruler HH Sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi. The intellectual octogenarian has been at the forefront of countless cultural initiatives: from national heritage and poetry to UNESCO affiliations, Arabic language drives, libraries, book fairs and, of course, the dynamo that is the Sharjah Biennial, the first edition of which took place in 1993.
Without a doubt, the biennial has helped boost and popularize many Arab artists. It now sits under the SAF, a powerhouse established in 2009 and presided over by the ruler’s daughter, Hoor Al Qasimi. Since she took over the reins of Sharjah’s cultural activities, the biennial and the major exhibitions staged by SAF have increasingly become gamechangers in both regional and international art scenes.
This year, the Sharjah Biennial marks its 30th anniversary. Conceived by the late curator Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor, the 2023 edition features over 300 works by more than 150 artists across five locations. ‘I was astounded by the breadth of artistic imagination, the interleaving histories, stories, sites, and so much more,’ says Kholeif, who co-curated the 14th Sharjah Biennial. ‘It will take me a long time to processit fully, and it will probably change the way that I conceive of the world as an exhibition-maker.’
Sharjah is also the principal home of the Barjeel Art Foundation (BAF), established in 2010 by the indefatigable and influential Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a columnist, researcher, and educator. BAF has, since its inauguration, both staged and exported exhibitions of its Arab holdings all over the world, including at London’s Whitechapel Gallery through ‘Imperfect Chronology’ – a ground-breaking, four-part show curated by Kholeif in 2015. An avid enthusiast of modernity in the Arab world, Al Qassemi recently published Building Sharjah (2021), the result of five years of research into the city’s architectural modernization.
Approximately 30km away is Dubai, where the ambiance, architecture, art, and almost everything else, is radically different. As Sunny Rahbar, co-founder of The Third Line, one of the city’s oldest and most progressive galleries, observes: ‘I think we suffered from Dubai being branded as a place of glamour and glitz, because it’s so much more. Yes, it has that side to it – performances by Beyoncé, the Atlantis hotel, fancy cars – but if you just saw that version of Dubai, you would have missed a lot.’
The city has always relied on trade, from the beating heart of the Khor Dubai that brought in goods from across West Africa, South Asia, Iran, and China to its bustling ports, it continues to act as a global magnet for multiple industries. And, true to its character, Dubai’s cultural position is a commercial one: the Emirate is home to galleries, auction houses, an art fair, and the lion’s share of collectors.
It was the expatriate community that propelled Dubai’s art scene. Some notable names include the late, Syrian-born gallerist Mayla Atassi who founded Green Art Gallery in 1995, now run by her daughter Yasmin, who stages bold exhibitions by regional contemporary artists. Iranian architect Dariush Zandi built The Courtyard Gallery in 1998 in Al Quoz, then a dusty industrial desertscape with warehouses and dirt roads. The fact is that the biggest slice of the Dubai art pie goes to expats: even Art Dubai was the brainchild of British co-founders Ben Floyd and John Martin.
Dubai has been Rahbar’s home for more than 40 years and the place where she launched the careers of artists such as Monir Farmanfarmaian, Hassan Hajjaj, and Youssef Nabil. She was among the first to open a gallery in Al Quoz in 2005 and, a little over a decade later, moved to Alserkal Avenue, a cluster of warehouses-turned-cultural district in the same part of the city.
The brainchild of the ever-jovial Emirati businessman Abdelmonem Alserkal, the Avenue’s evolution from industrial to artistic began with Ayyam Gallery, whose founder Khaled Samawi – keen on high ceilings, large exhibition spaces, and a feel akin to the Big Apple’s Meatpacking District – took a chance on a warehouse in 2006. Alserkal saw an opportunity and, today, the Avenue is a 47,000 m2 enterprise that, according to its website, hosts ‘a community of over 70 contemporary art galleries, visual and performing arts organizations, designers, home-grown and entrepreneur-led businesses, and community spaces.’
Dubai is also home to an increasing number of independent spaces and initiatives, such as Gaith Abdulla’s passion project, Bayt Al Mamzar – a gallery and artists’ space he started in his late grandmother’s home together with Khalid Abdulla that has been oversubscribed since its November launch. ‘Everyone we knew was practicing out of makeshift studios at home,’ says the graduate of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. ‘This is how art develops: before it’s ready for a gallery, you need to test it in a community.’
Two Dubai entities come to mind when I think of the term ‘community-based’. Firstly, there is Alserkal, which the words of its Executive Director Vilma Jurkute ‘is a self-editing organization’ that places importance on continuously ‘reinventing’ itself. The other is the Jameel Arts Centre, established in 2018 by Saudi art patrons the Jameel family, and headed by Antonia Carver, former director of Art Dubai.
The Centre sits on the bank of Jaddaf Creek and is punctuated with Anouk Vogel-designed gardens, featuring more than 140 species of plants. It regularly presents projects, commissions, and exhibitions, which sometimes draw works from the Art Jameel Collection. Describing the changes she has seen in recent years, Carver cites the number of young and upcoming artists. Supported by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth, Jameel Arts Centre has recently launched Creative Careers Days – an annual festival for teens and young people that offers advice on starting a career in the creative sector.
Dubai has been home for some time to Carver and, while she believes that the local art scene is a story ‘under-told and under-studied’, she feels that it is in the UAE where serious conversations can be had. ‘Here, the arts really matter, have something to say, something that’s integral to how we think about ourselves and how we figure out some kind of future,’ she says.‘It’s from here that we can really bring an urgency and fresh perspective to some of the artworld’s current preoccupations – including, for example, the climate crisis, material heritage and restitution, globalization, and representation.’
And then, of course, there is the capital, Abu Dhabi, home to mega-museum projects such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the soon-to-be-opened Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, as well as to the recently opened Abrahamic Family House – a David Adjaye-designed, interfaith complex on the beautifully landscaped Saadiyat Island. Sometimes referred to as ‘the institutional Emirate’, Abu Dhabi has a different vibe. Where Dubai feels ‘pop’, Abu Dhabi feels strategic. Almost every aspect appears to pay tribute to the values and virtues of the late, great Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Founder of the UAE. Among his many attributes was his consideration of others’ needs – a quality seemingly reflected in the acute sense of civic duty felt by the capital’s denizens.
Historically, the city’s creative nucleus was its Cultural Foundation (CF) which, in line with the nation’s early patronage of the arts, was conceived in 1971, the same year that the UAE was formed. CF is headed by Reem Fadda, former Guggenheim Museum curator, who runs a visual arts program of shows, workshops, and events, most recently staging a mini exhibit of some of Jordan’s leading female modernists. In addition to a residency program, CF is home to an incredible children’s library complete with immersive spaces. The UAE’s first cultural center, CF continues to attract the city’s creatives, including leading Emirati visual artist Afra Al Dhaheri, a graduate of and professor at another Abu Dhabi powerhouse, Zayed University. ‘I went back to teach because no one had taught me about people like Sharif and his cohort,’ says Al Dhaheri. Other academic institutions include the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and NYU Abu Dhabi.
Located just a short drive away from Saadiyat Island, in the Mina Zayed district of downtown Abu Dhabi, Warehouse421 describes itself as ‘an independent, anti-disciplinary platform dedicated to emerging artists and creative practitioners in the UAE and across the region.’ Headed by the ever-passionate Faisal Al Hassan, Warehouse421 sits under the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation (SHF), a non-profit entity established in 2015 and named after the wife of the UAE President. SHF is the Commissioner of the National Pavilion of the UAE at the Venice Biennale and, like its founder, is widely perceived as a reliable patron eager to cultivate a greater awareness of and appreciation for the arts.
So, how will things continue to change? ‘The key word is maturity,’ says Shumon Basar, Commissioner of Art Dubai’s critically acclaimed talks program, the Global Art Forum. ‘There’s a sense of the future being more urgent than history here and that, if you are curious and enthusiastic and willing to work hard, you can be part of that future. That’s what really stands out for me.’ And what of the UAE’s position as a capital of culture? It’s a contested question to ask. We all acknowledge the prized cities of Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Shiraz and Damascus, but Basar says he believes in a ‘a multi-polar world.’ ‘I hope that there can be several capitals,’ he adds. ‘And the UAE is definitely one of them.’
I think back to that New York gallerist, and how difficult it will be for her to select what to see in each of the Emirates the next time she visits. One day certainly won’t be enough.
Myrna Ayad is a Dubai-based editor, writer, cultural strategist, and art advisor, as well as the former director of Art Dubai (2016–18). In addition to her articles appearing in The New York Times, Vogue Arabia, and The National, she is the author of Sheikh Zayed: An Eternal Legacy and Dubai Wonder (both Assouline, 2021) and editor of Contemporary Kingdom: The Saudi Art Scene Now (Canvas Central, 2014), among other books.
Published on March 1, 2023.
Caption for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: 1. Event at Warehouse421. Courtesy of Warehouse421. 2. Installation view of Manal AlDowayan’s exhibition ‘The Eternal Return of the Same’, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai, 2021. 3. Installation view of Sara Naim’s exhibition ‘Rose Tinted’, The Third Line, Dubai, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Third Line. 5. View of Alserkal. © Lester Ali. 6. Installation view of Hajra Waheed’s artwork Hum II, 2023, Sharjah Biennial 15, Al Mureijah Art Spaces, 2023. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation; supported by Canada Council for the Arts, Ottawa. Photograph by Motaz Mawid. Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.