Art Dubai opens 2025 edition with garland of curated initiatives
- 17 Apr 2025
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
Art Dubai, one of the Middle East’s leading international art fairs, has opened its 2025 edition (Apr.18 - 20, previews on Apr. 16,17) at Madinat Jumeirah, its traditional home. The fair is held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. This year’s programme features over 120 gallery presentations drawn from 65 cities and five continents, alongside a programme of commissions and installations, talks, conferences and special events.
The leading commercial platform for art and artists from lesser-represented geographies since its foundation in 2007, Art Dubai strives to be a model that is a catalyst and engine for the growth of Dubai’s cultural scene and creative economy. At the presser announcing the opening, Pablo del Val, Art Dubai’s Artistic Director, said that “this year’s line-up reflects the rapid maturing of the cultural scene in the Gulf region. Dubai is a unique, global city - one which is home to communities and peoples from all over the world, with different languages and traditions and, as we approach our twentieth year, the fair has become the main platform and commercial marketplace for galleries and artists from these scenes and geographies. We are proud to champion these voices, supporting a more diverse and global art world.”
Exhibitors include those taking part in Art Dubai’s Contemporary, Bawwaba, Modern and Digital sections. 30 first-time participants and the geographic breadth of the exhibitor line-up can be said to be a reflection of Art Dubai’s role as a gateway for discovery, learning and exchange, as well as a projection of its commitment to showcasing art and artists from less-represented geographies.
Continued strong representation from artists and art centres across the Middle East, the African continent, and West and South Asia, is being witnessed at the fair. The evolving expansion and development of Dubai’s cultural scene and the city’s status as the Gulf region’s financial and commercial hub, is also mirrored in the number of Dubai-based exhibitors (over 20) and a growing number of Emirati, UAE and GCC-based artists at the fair.
It is part of Art Dubai’s mandate to place untold and understated regional art histories and initiate dialogue between global art movements. Each year invites international academics, art historians, well-known international and regional curators to curate and oversee specific sections of the fair.
Bawwaba features gallery presentations of artworks made in the past year or specifically for Art Dubai, showcasing artists who hail from across the Global South. The 2025 edition is curated by writer and curator-at-large at Kunsthaus Zürich, Mirjam Varadinis. Many of her projects address developing formats of contemporary curating, asking the question: ‘How can we imagine new forms of coexistence, both amongst people and with our planet?’ The section shows artists who reflect on their own displacement in the current climate, imagining new models of living together.
Art Dubai Modern features presentations by the region’s Modern masters, exploring art historical research and under-investigated art histories. It is curated by Magalí Arriola and Nada Shabout, and features nine presentations that look into common concerns and empathies between West Asia and North Africa. Highlights include presentations by New Vision Group; Bertina Lopes; and Mehdi Moutashar. For the first time, Art Dubai Modern expands its remit to include Latin America, with the inclusion of Venezuelan artist, Darío Pérez Flores.
Art Dubai Digital is dedicated to the pioneering artists, collectives, galleries and platforms who are shaping the contemporary digital art world. The fourth edition this year is curated by Gonzalo Herrero Delicado. It is titled ‘After the Technological Sublime’, and features presentations that examine how artists and creative practitioners are working with advanced technologies – including artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality – to interrogate the key environmental, social and political challenges of the time.
Art Dubai Digital is complemented by an annual Digital Summit, presented in strategic partnership with Dubai Culture that convenes international and local industry leaders to discuss and debate the expanding digital art ecosystem and Dubai’s place in it.
The fair is also providing significant commissioning opportunities for local and international artists; convening the world’s brightest creative minds through innovative talks and conference programming; and supporting scholarship and professional development programmes to develop the region’s future cultural leaders.
Highlights also include a new series of performances and sculptural installations with Mexico-based artist Hector Zamora, inaugurating a new co-commissioning partnership between Art Dubai and Alserkal Avenue; a major new digital commission by Emirati artist Mohammed Kazem, presented by Julius Baer; and experiential installations by leading international artists including Breakfast, Ouchhh Studio and Ania Soliman.
Talks and conference programmes take place across five days of the fair. They include the two-day Global Art Forum, commissioned by Shumon Basar and curated by Y7 under the title The New New Normal. It features many of the world’s foremost thinkers, technologists, artists and forecasters, who examine how “change keeps changing”. Further highlights include a series of Collector, Artist and Art Dubai Modern Talks, as well as the second edition of Art Dubai’s Digital Summit.
Art Dubai is held in partnership with A.R.M. Holding and is sponsored by Swiss Wealth Manager, Julius Baer. The Watch and Jewellery partner is Piaget while culturally driven lifestyle developer HUNA, is a partner of Art Dubai. Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is the strategic partner of Art Dubai and Art Dubai Digital.