Abu Dhabi Art has joined the Frieze group as the result of a deal that will see Abu Dhabi Art become Frieze Abu Dhabi from next year’s edition.
The partnership agreement is between DCT Abu Dhabi (which is responsible for Abu Dhabi Art at the moment) and the owners of the Frieze group (which runs seven art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles, Frieze Seoul, Expo Chicago, and The Armory Show – plus the Frieze magazine and a London gallery space).
Frieze Abu Dhabi will be the only fair in the Frieze portfolio that is not owned outright. The partnership model is DCT Abu Dhabi’s preferred modus operandi, enabling it to retain some influence (if not control) and a chunk of profit.
As is also the way with DCT Abu Dhabi, the commercial arrangements have not been made public. News of the Abu Dhabi venture comes the same week as the American sports and entertainment tycoon Ari Emanuel (right) actually finalised the deal to buy Frieze from Endeavor, the entertainment company he once led; the acquisition is going through a company called MARI Holdings, incorporated in the famously business-friendly low-regulation state of Delaware and this is not listed on any stock exchange at this time – so there are unlikely to be any officially-required corporate filings that might give a clue to the arrangement.
Emanuel is no stranger to Abu Dhabi, of course. His former company Endeavor was supported financially by Mubadala when it bought the UFC for $4.2bn (UFC events now run regularly on Yas) and Mubadala’s head Khaldoon Al Mubarak was described in a 2021 New Yorker article as a “longtime friend” of Emanuel (he’s also the older brother of Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi). When Emanuel acquired Frieze though MARI, the deal also includes a portfolio of tennis tournaments among which is the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open.
Emanuel raised $2bn in equity for MARI’s acquisitions, and the investors include Abu Dhabi’s IMI Media Group (which handily owns The National). Incidentally, the other investors include QIA, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
When there was talk last year of Art Basel buying into Abu Dhabi Art, the sum of $20 million was bandied about as the price of entry. It was never clear though whether this is what Art Basel would have to pay to acquire a stake in Abu Dhabi Art, or what DCT Abu Dhabi would have to pay Art Basel to run the fair and expand it.
We’ll probably never know the details, but it’s clear that Frieze Abu Dhabi represents a significant statement of confidence in the Gulf art market – and in the Abu Dhabi market in particular. Abu Dhabi Art has been running for 17 years, and this is the first time it has overtaken Art Dubai in terms of exhibiting galleries.
Asmaa Al-Shabibi (right) of Lawrie Shabibi, one of the local galleries that will surely be targeted for participation, said she felt excited and energised by the news. “It feels like the centre of gravity is shifting, and we are no longer seen as on the sidelines of the art world … I hope these new fairs will translate into new collectors visiting the UAE and more interest in Arab/regional artists”.
Kourosh Nouri of CARBON 12 shares that optimism. “We see it as extremely positive. It is in a way a form of international recognition, a logical move that was bound to happen”.
Al-Shabibi also sees it as a realistic step for the art fair behemoths. “We can see that there is pressure on Art Basel and Frieze to expand their brands into new markets, and the Middle East is being touted as the next growth centre for contemporary art. So it makes sense that Abu Dhabi, with its own home-grown fair, would be on the cards for Frieze once Art Basel was announced in Qatar.”
Certainly the growth of Abu Dhabi Art has confirmed that the local market is no longer limited to the Emirate’s royal family and friends. Lawrie Shabibi for one has had a lot of success at Abu Dhabi Art with a client selection that Asmaa Al-Shabbibi describes as “quite diverse … I think Abu Dhabi Art has really nurtured a love of art and collecting shared by expats, locals, regional visitors and corporate collections.”
She expects that Frieze Abu Dhabi will add more international visitors – “my wish is to see more institutions, curators and museums”. The proximity of the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the imminent arrival of the Guggenheim and (to a lesser extent) the Zayed National Museum create a ready-to-go institutional market anyhow, and Frieze fairs frequently collaborate with museums or acquisition funds for specific events. For Al-Shabibi, the game changer could be the opening of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi: “collectors need more than just an art fair to visit, and the presence of world-class museums will be a big draw”.
The official word is that the “transition” to Frieze Abu Dhabi will build on the fair’s legacy, “reinforcing the emirate’s long-term cultural vision while extending the fair’s reach through Frieze’s international networks and expertise … [The collaboration] reflects a shared ambition: to underline Abu Dhabi’s position as a centre for culture and creativity, while giving Frieze a unique position in the Gulf’s most established art ecosystem”.
Simon Fox, Frieze CEO, said much the same thing: “We can amplify the emirate’s achievements while opening new possibilities for discovery, championing artistic practices from the region, and shaping the fair as a space for conversation and exchange”.
That makes a lot of sense to us, working well for both sides – Abu Dhabi’s status is burnished, Frieze gets a leg up in a growing regional market. And at a basic level, the Frieze association opens the door for multi-fair deals, encouraging more galleries to participate locally and giving more opportunities for UAE galleries to go to other Frieze fairs.
Also coming on board from 2026 is Deutsche Bank, Global Lead Partner of Frieze, which will be continuing a heavyweight collaboration that spans all Frieze’s fairs worldwide.
There may be more deals to come, too. Frieze fairs and magazine plus two exhibition venues and several related live events in sports and car auctions all operate as part of Mari’s global events business; Emanuel’s strategy reportedly centres on maintaining Frieze’s integrity as a cultural institution while expanding the scope of live and experiential events, and there would seem to be lots of scope there for future DCT Abu Dhabi collaborations.
Much of that could also apply to Art Basel, the only other big beast in the art fair business – the international reach, the collaborative initiatives, the willingness to invest. The details of Art Basel Qatar, which were announced just a few days ago – a coincidence, surely? – suggest that the Gulf art market is really waking up: Doha will see several blue-chip European and American galleries, more than was originally anticipated, and the semi-curatorial approach of having a single artist being shown in each of the gallery booths provides a novel approach to boosting the appreciation (and the value) of regional artists.
(Art Basel Qatar is another partnership deal, incidentally – the Gulf institutions aren’t keen to give too much away, which makes solid sense given that the art fair businesses are quote companies subject to the vagaries of investors.)
And where does this leave Art Dubai, for so long the local flag-bearer for the contemporary art market? Will it be able to compete against Frieze Abu Dhabi and Art Basel Qatar? Is the Gulf’s art market big enough for three 100-exhibitor art fairs – especially when its principal venue is a hotel rather than the kind of purpose-built exhibition space (and associated services, like good vehicular access) that the Manarat al Saadiyat and Doha’s M2 exemplify?
Kourosh Nouri of CARBON 12 thinks there is enough financial potential in the region for over 300 exhibitors spread over six months, and he sees some merit in the arrival of another date in the calendar. “As a gallerist my wish is that finally the collectors who have been running to dealers outside the region now start to really look into the amazing work our gallery and my other colleagues have been doing in the Gulf for years. They need to continue the art conversation with us for the entire year, and not only for the week of each art fair …”
More specifically, Art Dubai does have an identity that should stand it in good stead. As Asmaa Al-Shabibi notes, the fair has a track record of offering something different, notably the focus on MENA and the global south. “Art Dubai has never really focussed on attracting the kind of blue chip galleries typically found at Art Basel or Frieze – they distinguished themselves early on by creating a fair of ‘discoveries’ with a more diverse list of galleries and artists. I expect they will continue to build on that and to offer something different.
“As a Dubai gallery we feel it is really important to have a fair in our home city – plus Art Dubai is always so much fun!”
Indeed. There’s a buzz about Art Dubai that its competitors will find hard to match, not least because (whisper it) Dubai tends to have inherently more buzz about it than Doha or Abu Dhabi. The issue might be the ambitions of Frieze and Art Basel, and how much effort, money and time they’re prepared to put into their ventures in order to establish a local market dominance.
So this will be the last year for Abu Dhabi Art in its current form. The 2025 edition is scheduled for 19-23 November at Manarat Al Saadiyat. Around 140 exhibitors are confirmed, the fair’s largest edition to date. Information is here.
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