Just before the 2016 edition of Abu Dhabi Art gets under way, a new Fair Director has been appointed to look after the event from 2017 on. Dyala Nusseibeh has been given the job.
Dyala Nusseibeh is one of the most prominent UAE-connected individuals in the international art scene. Her Palestinian-born father Zaki was Sheikh Zayed’s adviser and interpreter, settling in Abu Dhabi in 1967 and currently on the board of many arts and cultural organisations here. He is also a noted collector who obviously imbued his daughter with an enthusiasm for art.
She graduated a decade ago from Cambridge (in Social Anthropology, but we all have to start somewhere) and completed an MA in Contemporary Art at Christie’s Education, on the highly rated course run with and accredited by Glasgow University. She then worked at London’s Saatchi Gallery for some years, responsible for the Education Programme designed to foster young talent, and in 2013 she was named the director of the new modern and contemporary art fair Art International Istanbul.
That must have been a challenge; there is no shortage of art fairs in the world, and some are supported by big bucks (Art Basel) or government (Abu Dhabi Art). Istanbul had to make its own way. But the city is a natural crossroads with an inherently cosmopolitan outlook, and Art International ran with increasing prominence for three good years.
By 2015 it had 88 galleries, only 13 of them local, and attracted around 25,000 visitors. You could count it a success, despite the increasingly complicated political landscape – Taksim Square, the Kurdish issue, Syria, Erdogan’s approach to nationalism. But earlier this year it was announced that the Istanbul fair’s fourth edition, scheduled for September 2016, had been postponed following concerns from the organisers and (reportedly) some galleries about lower than expected attendance and the safety of the public.
Dyala Nusseibeh resigned, perhaps dodging a bullet. It’s not clear even now that Art International will happen again; one of the two co-organisers said they “very much hope to stage the fourth edition of the fair in 2017”.
Istanbul’s loss looks like being Abu Dhabi’s gain. Nusseibeh is widely regarded as an energetic and respected arts pro who has built good connections among international galleries and has direct experience of running a show of similar size to Abu Dhabi Art. And it’s obviously an opportunity for her too: as she points out, “Abu Dhabi is undertaking extraordinary transformations in the field of art and Abu Dhabi Art will have a distinct role to play in supporting these important cultural innovations”.
We wish her well. Rita Aoun-Abdo, who has effectively been the fair director for 2016, will presumably return to her day job as Executive Director for the Culture Sector at TCA Abu Dhabi.
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