A group show in the Renaissance Business Bay’s lobby for “a diverse roster of Dubai based artists” that is “defined by variety rather than a single style" and linked “through colour, emotion, and storytelling”. To 27 January.
The first part of this series, Lala Rukh I, presented a selection of photographs from the artist’s archives during her years at the University of Chicago (1974-76). Its speculative framework helped us to stage the evolution of Lala’s photographic sensibility, [... more]
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 [... more]
The third Third Line solo exhibition by Spanish-Moroccan artist Anuar Khalifi comprises a new body of large-scale paintings and works on paper that represent an evolution in Khalifi’s practice, with increasingly intricate and carefully composed settings expanding the pictorial field. [... more]
In this new body of work – paintings, drawings, and sculpture – Alia Lootah continues an exploration of how form moves, shifts, and transforms ("a form is never finished, only paused"). Shapes stretch, collapse, and reappear altered, "existing in a [... more]
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 [... more]
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 [... more]
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, using techniques developed through Muluneh's recent residency at Efie. Muluneh has been [... more]
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 [... more]
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 [... more]
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 [... more]
This mid-career retrospective marks the first institutional survey in the region for Ala Younis. It includes archival installations, textiles, murals, mosaics, and drawings spanning the last two decades of her hybrid practice as an artist-researcher-curator. There will also be some [... more]
A landmark monographic exhibition that traces Picasso’s lifelong preoccupation with the human form. Included are more than 130 artworks from the Musée National Picasso-Paris and other institutions, as well as Louvre Abu Dhabi, DCT Abu Dhabi, and other regional collections [... more]
An expressionist exploration of the city that captures Dubai as it is felt, rather than as it is seen. "Through expressive brushstrokes, colour becomes a language, revealing the city’s complexity – its energy, diversity, and profound contradictions." To 5 February.
A two-week pop-up in the lobby of Rixos The Palm presented in collaboration with Art Factor UAE and BKR Events. It features 14 artists: Jasmine Mohammed Rizvi Bindu Krishnan Roy Varsha Saju Nair Anjini Prakash Laitu Ahmed Al Awadhi (Rukni) [... more]
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 [... more]
One of the best films about Picasso, a documentary that captures his creative process by using novel filming techniques. The artist produced around 20 drawings and paintings specifically for the film, using inks and paints that bled through the paper, [... more]
More than 30 new paintings, offering a comprehensive survey of the artist’s recent work. This show approaches ancestry as a living presence rather than a distant past, reflecting on civilizations whose surviving traces – clay tablets, systems of law and [... more]
An exhibition on the rich heritage of the Mamluk Sultanate, a dynasty that ruled a vast expanse of territory encompassing the most significant Islamic holy sites for more than 250 years (1250–1517), with more than 270 works gatheredfrom 34 museums [... more]
This focused retrospective surveys over six decades of practice by the Tunisian multimedia artist Nja Mahdaoui, an influential figures in Arab modern art who repurposed Arabic calligraphy into a visual and abstract contemporary art form. This show, o-curated by Michaela [... more]
In response to the Nja Mahdaoui retrospective in the main gallery at BFAF, this exhibition presents loans from the Ministry of Culture’s Al Burda exhibitions from 2008 to 2023. Al Burda was/is an annual exhibition where contemporary artists engage with [... more]
This NYUAD Institute talk considers how artworks operate across different contexts, from museums and galleries to public spaces and digital circulation. Drawing on over 15 years of experience, Bahia Shehab reflects on how audience engagement shifts when art is encountered [... more]
This exhibition is described by the gallery as “a visual dialogue, suspended between Occidental heritage and Oriental sensibilities” and “rooted in the belief that love is a direct conduit to the Divine – a state that dissolves societal constructs and [... more]
Based in New York, Alkadhi has academic degrees in art, engineering, and design – and as a result brings a multidisciplinary approach to a practice that engages with the cultural and political realities of global and Middle Eastern events. This [... more]
Rooted in Indo-Persian mythology, Ancestral Algorithms feature a series of drawings, paintings, and sculptural works that merge organic and mechanical forms to reimagine the legendary Talking Tree (Derakht-e Sokhangoo) – a mythical being that could speak, listen, and connect the [... more]
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 [... more]
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 [... more]
New work from the Saudi artist, who has been exhibited all over the Middle East since 1999. His practice is shaped by poetry from the Arab world and "the complex intersections between modern spaces and personal freedoms"; he aims to [... more]
An expressionist exploration of the city that captures Dubai as it is felt, rather than as it is seen. "Through expressive brushstrokes, colour becomes a language, revealing the city’s complexity – its energy, diversity, and profound contradictions." To 5 February.
A group show with Adel Abidin, Daniele Genadry, Ali Kaeini, Katya Muromtseva, and Melissa Rios that explores "how landscape is transformed in an age of post-human thought, climate disruption, and hybrid perception ... This is a space where nature is [... more]
Huma Shoaib has always been an interesting, thoughtful artist, creating patterns from sacred geometry and looking for analogies in life and nature. She often uses paper cut silhouettes layered with detailed graphite drawings that typically adds three-dimensional depth to otherwise [... more]
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 [... more]
The most comprehensive solo exhibition to date of Brazilian artist Leda Catunda outside her home country. Sharjah Art Foundation is presenting four decades of Catunda’s practice, tracing the transformation of her art from figurative painting to hybrid forms that explore [... more]
More than 30 new paintings, offering a comprehensive survey of the artist’s recent work. This show approaches ancestry as a living presence rather than a distant past, reflecting on civilizations whose surviving traces – clay tablets, systems of law and [... more]
While Jorge Tacla was only an adolescent during the 1973 coup against Chile’s democratically-elected socialist president Salvador Allende, the upheaval left an irrevocable mark on his politics and practice. Titled after a line from a TS Eliot poem, Tacla’s "most [... more]
The motifs of the sun and its intense heat as well as the sand and its pervasive orange hue often serve to represent and condense the Gulf’s complex ecologies and aspirations. This selection of recent and newly commissioned works by [... more]
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 [... more]
The debut solo exhibition in the Middle East for the Chinese-born London-based artist, known for her luscious sweeps of colour and a mordant wit (“Good Girls Go To Heaven, Cool Girls Go Everywhere”). This show presents a new body of [... more]
Works resulting from a year of profound transformation initiated by the artist’s journey to Nepal, "where inner awareness and self-observation became central to her practice". Radchenko’s visual language combines painting, collage, symbolism, and layered cultural references, creating compositions that are [... more]
Inspired by the experience of living and working alongside people from across the globe in the UAE, this exhibition by the UAE-based Guatemalan artist on a theme that will resonate with many expats – where actually is 'home'? It features [... more]
Modern and contemporary works from Syria, Lebanon, North Africa, and the UAE selected from the impressive private collection of Fairouz and Jean-Paul Villain – a pair of collectors for whom the acquisition of works has been a way of engaging [... more]
Khozema Al‑Aaed's solo exhibition reimagines cartographies, reminding us that land absorbs our movements, our wounds, our hopes, "becoming a living archive of human presence" as the gallery puts it. "The compositions resemble traces of cities once inhabited, imagined, or departed. [... more]
New work by the Spanish artist, which the gallery says marks a pivotal moment in his practice. They were created in his new studio in Cádiz, surrounded by olive, almond, and orange trees, allowing nature to enter physically and psychologically; [... more]
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 [... more]
Works by Yoshi (Aisha Al Ali), Ammar Al Banna, Ahmed Al Kuwaiti and Shaikha Al Shamsi. The theme is time as both a material and emotional presence, expressed through processes of transformation, memory, repetition, and decay – so time not [... more]
Bassam Freiha Art Foundation continues its monthly lecture series led by Dr Michaela Watrelot, BFAF Curator and Director of Exhibitions. This time the focus is on one of the most transformative movements in modern art, using works of Monet, Renoir, Degas, [... more]
An extended solo exhibition for the Syrian-French artist, curated by Art Jameel’s Lucas Morin. Self-portrait with a cat I don’t have is Bady Dalloul’s first institutional solo exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. Blending autobiographical anecdotes with stories of individuals [... more]
A group exhibition with 15 Arab artists that explores the element of air and its various states through the lens of Arabic terminology, specifically Sukoon, Hawaa, Naseem and Riyah. The exhibition, curated by Dirwaza Curatorial Lab, invites audiences to reconnect [... more]
A solo show celebrating the work of Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, a massively influential figure in the development of contemporary art in the UAE. He was part of the UAE's first generation of contemporary artists from the late 1980s, an avant-garde [... more]
This exhibition of works from the Dubai Collection features artists whose art reimagines landscape and invites a slower, more attentive way of seeing. To 8 March. The fourth edition of Dubai Collection Nights will take place during the second week [... more]
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