All Day

Marwan Bassiouni: New Western Views (Preview)

Lawrie Shabibi Unit 21, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

This first solo exhibition in the region for Bassiouni offers a first look at an ongoing international project that reframes landscape photography through the lens of lived Muslim presence in the contemporary West. Each of these photographs – taken from [ ... ]

Free

The Only Way Out Is Through: The Twentieth Line

The Third Line Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Shumon Basar curates this project marking the gallery’s 20th anniversary, a look back on "two decades of The Third Line’s story in relation to global cultural, political, and economic shifts". The exhibition component features both early and more recent works from [ ... ]

Elias Izoli: Inside Out ‘25

Ayyam Gallery B11, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

After a long break from painting, Izoli has returned with a new body of work centred around "the circus of life" – Izoli uses the circus as a metaphor for the unpredictability and complexity of life as a Syrian citizen. [ ... ]

Free

Abdelkader Benchamma: Rumors from the Skies

Gallery Isabelle Unit 17, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Says the gallery: "Drawing on literature, philosophy, and astrophysics, Benchamma transforms celestial phenomena into symbolic landscapes that invite us to move beyond the material and the real, into dimensions where the rational and the fantastical coexist". For his third solo [ ... ]

Free

Mahmoud El Safadi: Personal Sea

Gallery Isabelle Unit 17, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Exhibiting for the first time in Dubai, Lebanese artist Mahmoud El Safadi is showing a collection of miniature paintings on playing cards, a series of works that reflect on the Mediterranean as a site of memory, inheritance, and continuity – [ ... ]

Free

Mona Al Khaja: Caravan of Colors

Aisha Alabbar Gallery Warehouse C19, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

A retrospective celebrating over four decades of work by the Sharjah-born artist. It traces Mona Al Khaja’s journey from her studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo to her continued exploration of abstraction, symbolism, and colou, featuring works [ ... ]

Free

The Narrative of Decline

Carbon 12 Dubai

Bernhard Buhmann curates this group show based on the idea that plunging downwards is both terrifying and liberating – the gallery quotes Andrea Roelig: "We stand between death and life, and decline is dangerously enticing because it also carries an [ ... ]

Free

Gail Spaien: Arranging Flowers

Taymour Grahne Projects Warehouse 31A, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

The inaugural show of Taymour Grahne's new project space in Dubai features the Maine-based painter, the recipient of numerous fellowships amd now (after 30 years as faculty at the Maine College of Art and Design) a full time artist. Her [ ... ]

Free

Edges of Perception

Waddington Custot Dubai

A group show of paintings, sculptures, and photographs by a number of well-known contemporary artists that explore contrasts of material, form, and colour. The artists: Kenia Almaraz Murillo Nick Brandt Ian Davenport Hubert Le Gall Umberto Mariani Landon Metz Marc [ ... ]

Free

Heritage, Memory & The Body

Artbooth Gallery Centro Capital Center, Al Khaleej Al Arabi Street, Abu Dhabi

A group exhibition for four distinguished Palestinian women artists – Rania Amoudi, Dina Matar, Fatima Abu Rumi, and Marwa Alnajjar – that offers a powerful counterpoint to static portrayals of femininity and nationhood. Grounded in place yet transcending borders, the [ ... ]

Free

Amina Illuminati

Rarares Galllery Zone C, Gate Avenue, DIFC, Dubai

Says the gallery: “In an era of visual noise and the relentless pace of modern life, Amina Illuminati offers a moment of stillness — a space where matter becomes light, and form becomes revelation”. It’s a group show for work [ ... ]

Free

Bahman Mohasses: The Existential Grotesque

Leila Heller Gallery Dubai

The gallery describes Mohasses (d.2020) as "one of Iran’s most enigmatic modern artists … A painter, sculptor, and translator, Mohasses carved out a unique space in Iranian art, setting himself apart through his radical embrace of European modernism and a [ ... ]

Free

LAST CHANCE Bahman Mohasses: The Existential Grotesque

Leila Heller Gallery Dubai

The gallery describes Mohasses (d.2020) as "one of Iran’s most enigmatic modern artists … A painter, sculptor, and translator, Mohasses carved out a unique space in Iranian art, setting himself apart through his radical embrace of European modernism and a [ ... ]

Free

Lala Rukh: The importance of staying quiet

Grey Noise Unit 24 Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

The first exhibition of the new iteration of The importance of staying quiet, a survey of Pakistani art, features photographic archives from Lala Rukh’s years at the University of Chicago (1974–76). It includes early works that carry a cinematic sense [ ... ]

Free
Ongoing

Hester Street: dir Joan Micklin Silver (1975)

Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi

Carol Kane is extraordinary as a Jewish immigrant arriving in late 19th-century New York with her young son Yossele (Paul Freedman) to join a husband (Steven Keach) who she hasn’t seen in three years. He's embraced the new world and [ ... ]

Free, but pre-register

La Bohème

Dubai Opera

Dubai Opera opens its new season with with a genuine opera epic done in the grand scale. Puccini’s tale of artists, dreamers, and lovers in 19th-century Paris is presented by the Hungarian State Opera, directed by Kálmán Nádasdy with set [ ... ]

From AED 240

The Laughter Factory Premium Comedy Club

The Bay, Al Hamra Golf Club Al Hamra, Ras Al Khaimah

A new Ras Al Khaimah gig for the September Laughter Factory tour, albeit minus Peter Flanagan (who's doing the Dubai and Abu Dhabi stops). The acts" Dana Alexander The Canadian standup is a Laughter Factory favourite with material drawn from [ ... ]

AED 160