• Douglas White: The Great Wave

    Leila Heller Gallery Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Throughout his practice, White approaches sculpture as a kind of material alchemy – discarded substances are reworked forms that appear uncannily animate: industrial debris becomes wave, tree, or cosmic surface, revealing unexpected continuities between natural forces and technological systems. Two [ ... ]

    Free
  • POSTPONED Artists’ Rooms: Kamruzzaman Shahdin

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    A monumental one-room installation that restages the Bangladeshi artist's The River Remembers. Originally commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and created in 2023, this large-scale textile work has handcrafted threads mapping the colour of the water of the Teesta and [ ... ]

    Free
  • Artists’ Rooms: Kamruzzaman Shadhin

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    This one-room installation restages Shadhin’s monumental The River Remembers. In this large-scale textile artwork, handcrafted threads map the colour of the water of the Teesta and the Brahmaputra, two rivers flowing through the Bengal delta. Engraved brass disks convey the [ ... ]

  • LAST CHANCE Kais Salman: Remnants

    New work by Kais Salman, who "places his audience among ruins ... his recent body of work acting as a pile of forgotten images buried beneath decades of historical buildup ... Faces emerge through Salman’s energetic brushwork, only to fade [ ... ]

  • LAST CHANCE Saher Nassar: Chronicles from the Storm

    Zawyeh Gallery Warehouse 27, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    In this new body of work, Nassar reflects on prolonged states of loss, endurance, and moral exhaustion, translating deeply personal and collective experiences across multiple mediums. Says the gallery: "Rather than seeking resolution or catharsis, the works dwell in a [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Noura Ali-Ramahi: I Am Not a Chair. Am I a Fox?

    Khawla Art Gallery Plaza 30, 12B Delma St., Abu Dhabi

    This solo show includes works created over several years, using acrylic, pastel, ink, charcoal, and found materials such as wood, fabric, and recycled objects. At the centre of the exhibition is the recurring image of the chair, appearing as a [ ... ]

  • LAST CHANCE :mentalKLINIK: Are You Human Enough

    Gallery Isabelle Unit 17, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Set within an environment of visual overload and compulsive accumulation, the work in this third solo exhibition at the gallery for the artist duo centres on the human figure at risk of dissolving into surface, interface, and pattern – a [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Past Through Here

    Maraya Art Centre Al Qasba, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    A student-curated exhibition developed by students from the American University of Sharjah under the mentorship of Sheikh Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, Founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, and drawing on works from Barjeel’s noted collection of modern and contemporary Arab [ ... ]

    Free
  • Move Pause Return

    Gallery Isabelle Unit 17, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Gallery Isabelle is celebrating its 20th anniversary, not least with this interesting exhibition that grew out of a conversation with Alexie Glass-Kantor, Curatorial Director at Art Dubai Group, around the notion of accumulation – as both a curatorial method and [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Anahita Razmi: The Task of the Mythologist

    CARBON 12 17th Street, Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Anahita Razmi's video, installation and performance works usually focus on issues of identity and gender and examine processes of cultural appropriation in which the meanings of existing images, artefacts and thus identities are put into question by situating them in [ ... ]

    Free
  • Abdulqader Al Rais: Al Nayed

    Opera Gallery DIFC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    A retrospective for one of the artists who have played a central role in shaping the UAE’s modern visual identity, featuring work from a career spanning more than five decades. Bridging heritage and modernity with authority, Al Rais’s paintings draw [ ... ]

    Free
  • POSTPONED March Meeting 2026

    Al Qasimiyah School Sheikh Saqr Bin Khalid Al Qasimi St, Sharjah

    Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual convening of artists, curators, scholars and arts practitioners from around the world to discuss issues in contemporary art focuses this time on effective responses to global challenges in social unrest, environmental degradation, systemic erasure and alienation. [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Bashar Khalaf: The Field of Dreams

    Zawyeh Gallery Warehouse 27, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Khalaf explores the relationship between self, object, and other through a focus on 'steel' in public spaces: The Field of Dreams, or "dreams as minefields", remind us of the modern structures of unbridled capitalism and the transformative domination of life. [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Abdelwahab Hawam: Solo Exhibition

    Fann à Porter The Workshop, Villa 45, St. 23b, off Al Wasl Road (opposite Box Park), Jumeirah 2, Dubai

    The debut exhibition in the UAE by the emerging Egyptian artist draws inspiration from Hawam's hometown of El Mahalla El Kubra in Gharbeya Governorate – its countryside, colours, and the faces of people who shaped his early life. Working in [ ... ]

    Free
  • All at Once

    JD Malat Gallery ACT 2 Tower, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Blvd 13A ,Downtown Dubai, Dubai

    A group exhibition that reflects on continuity, resilience, and quiet optimism at a time when the world can feel uncertain. Says the gallery: "All at Once speaks to the coexistence of multiple realities – personal and shared, fleeting and enduring, [ ... ]

    Free
  • Book club: The Development of An Art History in the UAE

    Kutubna Cultural Center Madina Avenues 17, Nadd Al Hamar, Dubai

    A discussion of Sophie Kazan Makhlouf's excellent exploration of contemporary art in the Emirates, led by Kutubna's founder and director Shatha Almutawa and Nora Qudah, curator of art exhibitions at Kutubna. Free to members; others pay AED 25.

    AED 25
  • LAST CHANCE Saif Azzuz: Invisible Fish

    Lawrie Shabibi Unit 21, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    This first solo exhibition in the Middle East for the SF-based Libyan-Yurok artist takes its title from a poem by Joy Harjo, which considers cycles of transformation across land, water, and time, moving from submerged environments to human settlement and industrial [ ... ]

    Free
  • Global Positioning System

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    A group exhibition dedicated to mapping and navigation systems, "telling stories of fast cars and donkeys, spinning globes and street barricades, cosmic highways and broken bridges ..." Curated by Indranjan Banerjee and Lucas Morin, the exhibition presents a wide range [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Nazilya Nagimova: Follow the Snail

    NIKA Project Space Unit 11 Al Khayat Avenue, 19th Street Road — Al Quoz 1, Dubai

    The first solo exhibition in the Emirates for the Münster-based Tatar artist Nazilya Nagimova brings together new works created specifically for her solo project at NIKA Project Space, plus selections from earlier projects. Nagimova explores memory, migration, and the search [ ... ]

    Free
  • Collector’s Entry Point

    Fann à Porter The Workshop, Villa 45, St. 23b, off Al Wasl Road (opposite Box Park), Jumeirah 2, Dubai

    A group show of works by emerging, mid-career and established artists priced at $3,000 and below, conceived as an accessible entry into collecting "whether you’re just starting or looking to expand your collection with thoughtful additions". The artists: Ahmad Kasha [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Jane Beveridge: Local

    XVA Gallery Al Fahidi Historical Neighborhood, Bur Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    The Dubai-based artist's first solo show aim to capture the essence of Dubai, and of belonging. Says the artist, who is currently Head of Art at Dubai College: "my visual palette and material inspiration are rooted in the streets. I [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Golden Ink: A Journey through Arab and Islamic Manuscripts

    Qasr Al Watan Ras Al Akhdar, Abu Dhabi

    This flagship travelling exhibition, run in collaboration with McGill University, Canada, is a great chance to explore the richness, inherent beauty, and global impact of the heritage of Arabic and Islamic manuscripts. The exhibition promises an exploration of the intellectual [ ... ]

    General admission AED 65
  • LAST CHANCE Abdulqader Al Rais: Al Nayed

    Opera Gallery DIFC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    A retrospective for one of the artists who have played a central role in shaping the UAE’s modern visual identity, featuring work from a career spanning more than five decades. Bridging heritage and modernity with authority, Al Rais’s paintings draw [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Sarah McEneaney: Creative Non-Fiction

    Taymour Grahne Projects Warehouse 31A, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    For nearly five decades, Sarah McEneaney has devoted her practice to a singular theme, the meticulous chronicling of her own life. This exhibition presents a series of paintings that chart the latest moments and milestones in a life – domestic [ ... ]

  • LAST CHANCE John Dilg: Found and Lost

    Taymour Grahne Projects Warehouse 31A, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    The Iowa-based artist John Dilg represents scenic panoramas as earth-toned paintings that feel immediately familiar yet poignantly dreamlike. Having specialised in abstraction early in his career, Dilg’s evolution towards landscape painting retained an especial awareness of spatial relationships – "a [ ... ]

  • Shezad Dawood: Skin of Dreams

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Shezad Dawood’s 25-year career spans painting, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, film, performance and digital media. Fascinated by ecologies and architecture, his work connects art, science, music, environmentalism and technology to explore both alternative histories and futures, through a process of continuous [ ... ]

    Free
  • Move, pause, return: gathering

    Gallery Isabelle Unit 17, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    The culmination of Gallery Isabelle's 20th anniversary 20-day exhibition welcomes artists, contributors, and friends (the full exhibition, during which one work has been unveiled each day, remains on view until 28 May). Those involved: Artists: Hassan Sharif, Bahman Jalali, Mohammed [ ... ]

    Free, but RSVP
  • Maggie Otieno: Sojourner – The Difference Is the Same

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Otieno’s first solo presentation with Efie centres on her signature transformation of reclaimed and distressed materials. Working across wood, metal, and mixed media, her semi-abstract forms explore layered narratives of history, memory, human interaction, and environmental survival. To 16 May. [ ... ]

    Free
  • Anthony Akinbola: Get Well Soon

    CARBON 12 17th Street, Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Durags are stretchable fabrics worn over the head to shape and protect the hair; in Akinbola’s practice, they are both culturally loaded objects and a material he can reconfigure. For this solo show, Akinbola assembles durags into compositions that are [ ... ]

    Free
  • Unfixed ground

    Lawrie Shabibi Unit 21, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    A group exhibition that approaches 'ground' as "something continuously produced: fractured, inscribed, and held in tension between erasure and persistence ..." The first of two spaces has works by Mandy El Sayegh, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Omar El Gurg, and Rand [ ... ]

    Free
  • Samar Hejazi: In Circulation

    Aisha Alabbar Gallery Warehouse C19, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    For her first solo exhibition in the UAE, curated by Nadine Khoury, Samar Hejazi presents a body of work that explores how forms shift, unravel, and reassemble over time. Working across textile, printmaking, and spatial intervention, her practice suggests that [ ... ]

    Free
  • All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset

    Green Art Gallery Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    "All the lands from sunrise to sunset", a phrase attributed to the Mesopotamian king Sargon of Akkad, graphically invoked his claim to total dominion. Taking this assertion as both point of departure and provocation, this exhibition includes works by Alla [ ... ]

    Free
  • Alserkal Art Month: weekend 1

    Alserkal Avenue Al Quoz 1, Dubai

    Alserkal Avenue's Art Month (18 April to 19 May) includes a raft of individual events, mostly at the weekends, alongside the usual gallery opening hours – most of those we have listed separately in the Agenda. Here’s the schedule for [ ... ]

    Free
  • The importance of staying quiet: Fahd Burki II.a

    Grey Noise Unit 24 Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    In 2014, an exhibition was held in Hong Kong under the title The importance of staying quiet; conceived by Saira Ansari and Umer Butt, it was an attempt to find a minimal vocabulary within Pakistani art. A decade later, The [ ... ]

    Free
  • Alserkal Art Month: weekend 1

    Alserkal Avenue Al Quoz 1, Dubai

    Here’s the schedule for the first Sunday of Alserkal Avenue's Art Month (18 April to 19 May): 3-4pm Project Space KIDS' WORKSHOP Animal Comic Creations Participants (aged 7+) design their own comic-style story, inspired by an animal of their choice [ ... ]

    Free
  • Déjà Vu

    Concrete Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Described as "the UAE’s first collaborative gallery exhibition", this 14-day selling show features more than 50 artists represented by 20 of the UAE’s leading contemporary art galleries. The intention is to provide a commercial opportunity for the galleries, which have [ ... ]

    Free
  • White

    XVA Gallery Al Fahidi Historical Neighborhood, Bur Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    The annual Faculty exhibition of the Academy of Visual Arts at the University of the Arts, Sharjah. The curator is Tor Seidel, filmmaker and lecturer in photography and video at the Academy, and his statement includes this summary of the show: [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Rays, Ripples, Residue

    421 Arts Campus Mina Zayed, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    This major exhibition marks the ten-year anniversary of 421 Arts Campus and offers a chance to reflect on emergent artistic practices in the UAE, their possibilities, and challenges for the future. Featuring video, performance, installation, and multimedia works, it invites [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Memoryscape: Contemporary Visions Across the Arab Diaspora

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

    A group show for six contemporary artists of Arab descent: Gilbert Halaby, Hanibal Srouji, Hussein Baalbaki, Richard Hearns, Sarah Alagroobi, and Soraya Abu Naba’a. Says the gallery: "At the heart of Memoryscape lies a shared inquiry into how our surroundings [ ... ]

    Free
  • Noor Al Suwaidi: The Sky Forgets, the Heart Remembers

    Maraya Art Centre Al Qasba, Sharjah

    In this exhibition of a new body of work, curated by Cima Azzam, Noor Al Suwaidi approaches colour as a field of sensation where form appears and dissolves within shifting tonalities – "figures hover at the edge of abstraction; colour [ ... ]

    Free
  • Salmah Al Mansoori: Who I Become

    Maraya Art Centre Al Qasba, Sharjah

    Curated by Cima Azzam and featuring artworks loaned by Firetti Contemporary, this exhibition reflects an ongoing exploration of memory, material, and place by Salmah Al Mansoori, an Emirati artist from Abu Dhabi. Her practice begins with acts of noticing: fragments, [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Shamsa Al Omaira: Hard Like Tears, Soft Like Glass

    Iris Projects Studio 20, Madar 39, MiZa, Port Zayed, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A solo exhibition for Shamsa Al Omaira, an Abu Dhabi based multidisciplinary artist and designer. Evocations of duality occupy a prominent position in her work; childhood bedding and memories of jelly desserts morph into soft-looking sculptures laced with hidden or overt [ ... ]

    Free
  • BAM Auctions Inaugural Sale

    Bayt AlMamzar House 2, 26 Street, Al Mamzar, Dubai

    The inaugural auction of what is described as “a secondary market platform focused on mid-range contemporary works from the UAE and the wider region” will consist of a “tightly curated” sale of 21 lots. The organisers, from the Bayt AlMamzar [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Ahaad Alamoudi: Sunkissed

    Al Mureijah Square Sharjah

    Alamoudi’s snapshots of contemporary Khaleeji aesthetics playfully capture the give-and-take between developmental goals and their real-world manifestation. Viral memes, talking falcons, automated toy cars and insect light traps all function as tools to process accelerating change; together, these works explore [ ... ]

    Free
  • Supermarket

    Foundry Downtown Boulevard Crescent, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Boulevard, Dubai

    A great idea from Foundry Downtown – a group exhibition featuring artists based in the UAE who are not (currently) represented by galleries. The organisers describe it as “for the first time, a selling exhibition structured around accessibility, discovery, and [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Douglas White: The Great Wave

    Leila Heller Gallery Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Throughout his practice, White approaches sculpture as a kind of material alchemy – discarded substances are reworked forms that appear uncannily animate: industrial debris becomes wave, tree, or cosmic surface, revealing unexpected continuities between natural forces and technological systems. Two [ ... ]

    Free
  • A Return to Presence

    Oblong Contemporary Art Gallery Al Khayat Art Avenue, Al Quoz, Dubai

    Described by the gallery as "a significant new exhibition" and "a return to the essential experience of art as presence, encounter, and shared space", this show features a curated selection of 50 newly arrived 2D and 3D works by Annalù, [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Déjà Vu

    Concrete Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Described as "the UAE’s first collaborative gallery exhibition", this 14-day selling show features more than 50 artists represented by 20 of the UAE’s leading contemporary art galleries. The intention is to provide a commercial opportunity for the galleries, which have [ ... ]

    Free
  • LAST CHANCE Aïda Muluneh: This Bloom I Borrow

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    A new series of images by the Ethiopian art photographer, her second solo exhibition at the gallery. The show includes 10 works that have never been seen before. Muluneh has been a distinctive voice in contemporary photography throughout her 25-year [ ... ]

    Free