On its way to two decades of life, Art Dubai celebrated its 18th edition from April 18 to 20 at the Madinat Jumeirah complex, an opulent citadel with orientalist airs that looks like something out of One Thousand and One Nights. Outside, temperatures hovered near 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), but inside the fair, gallerists and visitors filled the aisles with enthusiasm.
With more than 100 galleries—primarily from Asia, Africa and the Middle East but also from Europe and the United States—the fair reaffirmed its global character with a firm commitment to representing the Global South and offering an alternative to traditional circuits. “Here you can see what no other fair in the West can,” summed up artistic director Pablo del Val.
The postcard was typical: women in black abayas and men in white kandoras shared space with Western suits, luxury handbags, champagne glasses and a babel of languages, especially during the VIP days, April 16 and 17.
Sales remained strong across the five days of the fair, including Sunday evening ahead of closing. Experimenter Gallery reported its best opening day in nearly 20 years, selling more than 80 percent of its presentation to private and institutional collections. Brandstrup (Oslo), participating for the first time, placed works by Diana Al-Hadid for more than $300,000. Richard Saltoun Gallery (London/Rome/New York) sold out a series by Samira Abbassy and placed multiple works by Greta Schödl, while Zawyeh Gallery (Dubai/Ramallah) sold pieces by Nabil Anani ranging from $100,000 to $650,000.
The big draw was Mother Earth by Turkish collective OUCHHH Studio—an artificially intelligent data sculpture with intercontinental projection—acquired by a collector who had traveled to Dubai specifically to see it. Also notable was the strong presence of local galleries such as Efie Gallery, evidence of the steady growth and consolidation of the art scene in Dubai.
“There is an energy here, a momentum, that is gaining more and more attention. It’s not like any other fair,” said Benedetta Ghione, executive director of Art Dubai. In its 18th edition, the event reaffirmed its role as a platform for urgent narratives and diverse voices from the Global South. “What you see at the stands is a reflection of this moment,” said del Val. “A reading of what is happening in the world: the displacements, the migrations, the causes that provoke them—from political conflicts to climate change. But also, a powerful preservation of the culture and identity of each region.”
Of the more than 100 presentations, these five booths stood out.
Comptoir des Mines Galerie, Marrakech
Participating for the fifth consecutive year, Comptoir des Mines brought a solid selection of modern and contemporary Moroccan artists who explore artivism as an aesthetic and political language. Works by post-war icon Mohammed Kacimi—deeply influenced by the sea, the desert and global conflict—coexisted with pieces by Mustapha Akrim, Khadija Jayi, Fatiha Zemmouri and Mohamed Arejdal, the latter with sales to collectors from Bahrain, Beirut, Rabat and Marrakech. With prices ranging from $20,000 to $26,000, the booth centered around a poetic question: how can poetry be reinvented in a world overshadowed by desolation?
BREAKFAST, Ace Art Advisory, New York
BREAKFAST—a key figure in digital and kinetic art—presented a solo booth with limited-edition works, including pieces from the Warming Seas series, which translates oceanic data into dynamic visualizations, and Interwoven Existence, an installation of more than 6,000 kinetic discs previously shown at the 2024 Venice Biennale. His monumental sculpture Carbon Wake welcomed visitors at the entrance to the Digital section. The booth attracted Dubai-based collectors, who purchased several kinetic pieces ranging from $30,000 to $80,000—reaffirming interest in his innovative crossover between art, data and environmental awareness.
Galería RGR, Mexico City
In its first showing at Art Dubai, RGR offered a thoughtful curatorship linking Latin American geometric abstraction with contemporary practices inflected by the symbolic, the spiritual and the political. Historical works by artists Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Rafael Soto and Julio Le Parc entered into dialogue with recent pieces by Jeppe Hein, Francisco Muñoz and Magali Lara. Standouts included Hein’s mirrored sculpture, a Cromointerferencia by Cruz-Diez that shifts viewers’ perception of color in real time and Hamilton’s Atacama collages, which merge landscape and historical memory.
Pinksummer, Genoa
In the “Bawwaba” section—Arabic for “gateway” and dedicated to solo presentations from the Global South—Italian gallery Pinksummer presented a mesmerizing installation by Argentinean artist Tomás Saraceno. Known for his transdisciplinary approach that fuses science, art and ecology, Saraceno showed a piece from his Foam series: suspended sculptures made of colored Plexiglas that simulate bubbles floating in a shaken glass. With transparent, geometric forms—some dodecahedral, some irregular—the works create an optical experience that evokes shifting constellations or cellular patterns.
Dastan Gallery, Tehran
Returning for its 11th participation, Dastan brought together a multigenerational presentation of contemporary Iranian artists. Pooya Aryanpour’s untitled sculpture ($160,000)—a large-scale, fuchsia piece with a fragmented surface that evokes both organic forms and architectural structures—stood out for its reflection on spirituality in the contemporary era. Works by Reza Aramesh, Taher Asad-Bakhtiari and Farrokh Mahdavi rounded out the booth, which celebrated both aesthetic richness and conceptual depth. Prices ranged from $700 to $160,000.
