• Mallika Taneja: Do You Know This Song?

    Sharjah Performing Arts Academy Sharjah

    Surrounded by toys and objects from her childhood, Mallika Taneja uses a harmonium and a microphone to look for what she has lost – a singer and her songs. As she moves between this tale of searching, singing and grief, [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Matter of Light

    Dom Art Projects Al Khayat Avenue, Dubai

    A group show curated by Eugenia Kikodze, this exhibition brings together a multigenerational group of artists from across the Arab world and Eastern Europe, bound by a shared interest in metaphysics and its representation within art. The artists include Zaha [... more]

    Free
  • The Matter of Light

    Dom Art Projects Al Khayat Avenue, Dubai

    Dom Art Projects' third non-selling exhibition explores the formal and perceptual aspects of light through a variety of approaches from the 22 participants, "from rationalist modernism and expressionism to ironic conceptualism" as Dom Arts puts it. The artists are Akram [... more]

    Free
  • Kirill Makarov: Unveiled – Painting in the Age of Post-Produced Reality

    Dom Art Projects Al Khayat Avenue, Dubai

    Makarov's solo exhibition responds to the mediated nature of contemporary reality by reconstructing armed conflict environments from fragments of media imagery circulating in a post-analogue world. Working across figurative painting and digital media, Makarov explores the relationship between virtual and physical [... more]

    Free
  • Localized Futures: The Arts

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

    421's season of talks and panel discussions developed in collaboration with afikra, Localized Futures, explores the future of key cultural and civic sectors through a regional lens – challenging the dominant global narrative by looking at the complexities, innovations, and [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Comedy Lab @ Easy Tiger

    Al Ain Palace Hotel Corniche Road, Abu Dhabi

    Mad Cat’s standup team at their regular stop at the Easy Tiger bar in Abu Dhabi’s Al Ain Palace. The door price of AED 99 includes two drinks …

    AED 99
  • Fridge Concert Series 50: The Season 50 Special

    The Fridge Warehouse Warehouse 5, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    This special gig brings Concert Series alumni and fan favourites back to the stage for one-off collaborations and extended jams. The artists will be announced ahead of the night, and "you never know who might walk on next". Food for [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • MAWASIM: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art

    The Abu Dhabi Edition Al Bateen Marina, Abu Dhabi

    Christie’s first live auction of fine art in Abu Dhabi takes place on 1 November, preceded by two viewing days open to all. There will be more than 70 works from six decades of museum-quality art that traces the evolution [... more]

    Free
  • UAENO: One Big Family

    Cultural Foundation Qasr al Hosn, Abu Dhabi

    Celebrating the UAE Year of the Family 2026, the UAE National Orchestra brings audiences of all ages together for a joyful and interactive concert. Rhythm games, listening challenges and conversations with the narrator invite families and first-time concertgoers to become [... more]

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  • CLOSING TODAY Talal Moualla: The Table of Absence

    K Gallery Al Barari, Seventh Heaven, Dubai

    For more than five decades, the Syrian artist, poet, and critic Talal Moualla has approached the image not simply as representation, but (says the gallery) “as a form of thought ... Moving between painting, criticism, poetry and research, his practice [... more]

    Free
  • Joke Jam

    Pepperoni Comedy Club 25 Jump Street 25h Hotel, One Central World Trade Center, Dubai

    The Pepp's regular early-evening showcase of Dubai’s local comedy talent, always with four standups on stage.

    From AED 125
  • The Comedy Lab

    Radisson Red Dubai Digital Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai

    Mad Cat Comedy's regular Thursday stop in Silicon Oasis promises "insane laughs every week".  The door price of AED 99 includes one drink and popcorn.

    AED 99
  • CLOSING TODAY Hisham Sharif: Allusive Veil

    Ayyam Gallery B11, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Sharif’s first solo exhibition in the UAE presents an autobiographical and very personal series of works about the struggles of private and artist life in a closed society – "a vulnerable, nuanced presentation of life”. The Bahraini artist uses colour [... more]

    Free
  • Joke Jam

    Pepperoni Comedy Club 25 Jump Street 25h Hotel, One Central World Trade Center, Dubai

    The Pepp's regular early-evening showcase of Dubai’s local comedy talent, always with four standups on stage.

    From AED 125
  • Fouad Boussouf & Le Phare-CCN du Havre Normandie: Näss (People)

    The Arts Center @ NYUAD NYUAD Campus, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The energy of 1970s Moroccan music meets hip hop in this piece by choreographer Fouad Boussouf, performed by the company of Le Phare - Centre chorégraphique national du Havre Normandie (where he's been the director since 2022). Näss (People) orchestrates [... more]

    AED 105
  • Politically Incorrect Comedy

    Xandros Singature 1 Hotel, Barsha Heights, Dubai

    Mad Cat Comedy’s regular standup night at Xandros in Signature 1 Hotel, TECOM. The cover charge of AED 80 includes one drink.

    AED 80
  • CLOSING TODAY Stephan Kaluza: From Dust to Bloom

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

    Stephan Kaluza’s practice is fundamentally concerned with depictions of nature, either as hyper-realistic oils or near-abstract renderings. These two modes of painting should be seen as different stages of the same subject in a process of transformation: disruptions creep in, and [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Oussama Diab: Reimagined

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

    A solo show for the Palestinian-Syrian-Dutch artist that reinterprets celebrated masterpieces from Western art. Diab revisits iconic works by artists including Picasso, van Gogh, Michelangelo and van Dyck, applying his own distinctive visual language to allow the images to speak [... more]

    Free
  • Salah Elmur: Just as the Heart of a Mango is a Stone

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Bringing together paintings, archival photographs, sketches and ephemera produced after 2018, this exhibition offers an immersive encounter with Salah Elmur’s world, "one where memory, landscape and identity merge and ripple through time" as the Jameel puts it. Through paintings that [... more]

    Free
  • Joke Jam

    Pepperoni Comedy Club 25 Jump Street 25h Hotel, One Central World Trade Center, Dubai

    The Pepp's regular early-evening showcase of Dubai’s local comedy talent, always with four standups on stage.

    From AED 125
  • Joke Hub

    Canopy by Hilton Dubai Al Seef Al Seef Street, Umm Hurair 1, Dubai

    A regular Mad Cat Comedy night – “Dubai’s wildest comedy show on Saturday” at “the first purpose built comedy room in the country”. The cover charge of AED 99 includes two F&B coupons.

    AED 99
  • Maria Hassabi: Us

    Cultural Palace Cutlural Square, Al Riqa Suburb, Sharjah

    A 6m bench along the front edge of the stage compresses the space into a narrow, linear runway. Five dancers trace this boundary through a sequence of calculated tableaus, their bodies caught between rest and anticipation. The bench acts as [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Valentina Danubio: I Love Them, But …

    Pepperoni Comedy Club 25 Jump Street 25h Hotel, One Central World Trade Center, Dubai

    An hour of new material from the always excellent Valentina, this time on the people we love, the things they do that drive us crazy, and all those moments that make relationships so complicated.

    From AED 160
  • CLOSING TODAY 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 [... more]

    Free
  • Salah Elmur

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Bringing together paintings, archival photographs, sketches and ephemera produced after 2018, this exhibition promises an immersive encounter with Salah Elmur’s world – "where memory, landscape and identity merge and ripple through time", exploring the artist’s shifting sense of belonging and [... more]

    Free
  • Promis le Ciel | Promised Sky: dir Erige Sehiri (2025)

    The Arts Center @ NYUAD NYUAD Campus, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Sehiri’s intimate drama follows four generations of Ivorian immigrant women as they find solidarity, conflict and sometimes a sense of displacement in one another’s company. We're dropped into the lives of Marie (Aïssa Maïga), Naney (Debora Lobe Naney) and Jolie [... more]

    AED 31.50
  • CLOSING TODAY Alaa Itani: A Momentum for the Horizon

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

    A visual meditation on the horizon as both boundary and promise, a visible line that remains perpetually distant. Alaa Itani's solo show brings together reverse glass paintings of horizons, blurred landscapes, and moving cloud formations; he explores landscape as acts [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian: I Bloom Where You Hold Me

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

    Collaborative works from Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian’s ongoing Flower series, unfolding across gallery walls covered with hand-drawn graffiti; rooted in the artists’ shared and individual experiences, the works consider what it means to care for, sustain and grow alongside [... more]

    Free
  • Cineolio’s Cinenights

    Alliance Française Dubai Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Founded by Emirati filmmaker and curator Nawaf Al Janahi in 2020, Cineolio‘s mission is focused on promoting short films and expanding their audience reach internationally. Its Cinenights screening series presents a diverse selection of short films on the big screen, [... more]

    AED 25 – AED 35
  • Recreating Gesture: Crafting a Gold Necklace from The Iron Age

    L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts Building 10, Dubai Design District, Dubai

    Following showings in Paris, Lyon, Seoul and Shanghai, this exhibition – "a strategic research project for L'ÉCOLE, at the crossroads of archaeology and the history of techniques, and goldsmithing craftsmanship" – demonstrates the skills and techniques in reproducing a Celtic [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Bénédicte Gimonnet: What We Carry Becomes the Terrain

    Aisha Alabbar Gallery Warehouse C19, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Aisha Alabbar Gallery’s newly renovated space reopens with a solo exhibition by the UAE-based French artist that features paintings, screen prints, drawings and textile works. The theme is a pivotal journey to Peru and a renewed engagement with the roots [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Bashar Khalaf: The Field of Dreams

    Zawyeh Gallery Warehouse 27, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Two series of works, Junk Garden and Protective Shield, from the Ramallah-born artist. “The Field of Dreams is an exploration of formations of ‘steel’ in the public space from the perspective of the relationship between the self, the object, and [... more]

    Free
  • Waterlands, Elemental Dreams

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Guided by Jumana Emil Abboud’s practice and drawing on practices of performance, storytelling, and material research, and drawing on his ongoing exhibition The Storyteller and the Obedient Tide, this symposium brings together artists and practitioners to discuss the mythological and [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Rana Begum: Taking Form

    The Third Line Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Rana Begum brings her textile works to The Third Line for the first time. Her fifth solo exhibition at the gallery features a new body of large-scale wool tapestries presented alongside works on linen, paper and MDF, all reflecting the [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Azza Al Qubaisi: Between Land and Sea

    Leila Heller Gallery Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    A mid-career exhibition dedicated to the work of the Emirati multidisciplinary artist, curated by Aysha Al Hemeiri. Ranging from intimate jewellery pieces to large-scale public works, Al Qubaisi's practice invites audiences to encounter the UAE's natural resources through space, structure, [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Manish Nai: In Search of Material Within Material

    Leila Heller Gallery Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    A solo exhibition by the Mumbai-based artist; much of his work comes from what he has seen and handled there. Nai works with jute, newspaper, cardboard, used clothing, mosquito mesh and corrugated metal; he cuts, folds, compresses and layers these [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Karima Al Shomely: Between a Fold and a Memory

    Leila Heller Gallery Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Karima Al Shomely's work draws from the clothing, textiles and adornments of Emirati women. The burqa is a recurring subject, appearing in works that look at how it was made, worn and passed down through generations; Al Shomely also works [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Ahmad Tallaa: The Living Archive

    Firetti Contemporary Unit 29, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    A solo exhibition by the Syrian artist that includes large-scale portraits, a tile installation, sculptures, artist books, and works on paper. At the centre of Tallaa's practice is the face, not as portrait or likeness, but as witness; this exhibition, curated [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAYAhmad Tallaa: The Living Archive

    Firetti Contemporary Unit 29, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Built from layers of sand collected in the UAE, chalk powder, pigments, and acrylic, the surfaces of Ahmad Tallaa's large-scale portraits at the centre of this show are dense and almost sculptural – as the gallery puts it, "Faces do [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Ahmad Tallaa: The Living Archive

    Firetti Contemporary Unit 29, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    Built from layers of sand collected in the UAE, chalk powder, pigments, and acrylic, the surfaces of Ahmad Tallaa’s large-scale portraits at the centre of this show are dense and almost sculptural – as the gallery puts it, “Faces do [... more]

    Free, but RSVP
  • CLOSING TODAY Katia Kameli: The Canticle of the Birds

    Taymour Grahne Projects Warehouse 31A, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    A solo presentation by the French-Algerian artist and filmmaker that reinterprets The Conference of the Birds,a 12th-century epic poem by Farid ud-Din Attar, in which a flock of birds search for a mighty ruler and ultimately find their strength within [... more]

    Free
  • CLOSING TODAY Dalal Al-Obaidi: Frogs, Jazz & Blisters

    Taymour Grahne Projects Warehouse 31A, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

    A new body of 15 paintings by the Kuwaiti artist that takes us into a life split between two worlds, London and Kuwait– considering what it means to live in two places, or "to be two Dalals" as the artist [... more]

    Free
  • Afrah Shafiq: Nobody Knows For Certain

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Afrah Shafiq’s Nobody Knows for Certain is a multimedia game that draws on the illustrated children’s books that were distributed widely in India by the USSR, highlighting a little-known chapter of Cold War-era cultural exchange. These richly illustrated Soviet fairytales [... more]

    Free
  • Sebastian Mayer: Hannibaby and Zarafa

    Sharjah Art Foundation, Bait Obaid Al Shamsi Arts Square, Sharjah

    A public artwork, performance and community project, Sebastian Mayer’s Hannibaby draws from an absurd family adventure. Structuring a life-size baby elephant puppet around his toddler’s carrier, the duo covered a 70km-distance from France into Italy through the Cottian Alps in [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • CLOSING TODAY Maggie Otieno: Sojourner – The Difference Is the Same

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

    New works by the Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno, her first solo show here since the gallery began representing her in 2024 . Otieno’s practice centres on the transformation of reclaimed and distressed materials.; working across wood, metal, and mixed media, [... more]

    Free
  • Artist’s Room: Bani Abidi

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Bani Abidi’s Artist’s Room displays a single body of work, Trembling hands (2024) – a series of portraits of artists, journalists, politicians, lawyers, doctors and civil society leaders who publicly spoke out against the genocide of Palestinians, often using public platforms [... more]

    Free