Art Basel Qatar is here. After much anticipation, some hesitation, and a lot of speculation, the fair opened with a splash on its VIP day, February 3rd.
Taking place in the Doha Design District, Art Basel’s first foray into the Middle East marks a new chapter in Art Basel’s history. With 87 galleries taking part, the fair is a fraction of the size of its other editions (the flagship Basel fair last year included 289 galleries). Plus, unlike the other Basel fairs where group booths are rife, this fair is dedicated entirely to solo artist “special projects,” as the fair’s communications put it.
These projects are mounted in response to the fair’s theme “Becoming,” devised under the artistic direction of artist Wael Shawky. “The opportunity to explore artistic practices from across the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region and beyond, within a framework that values research, narrative, and experimentation, is extremely meaningful to me,” the artist said in a statement.
Qatar, a country of just over three million residents, has in recent years grown into a global hub that brings together regional traditions with contemporary, international art, and creative industries. In particular, Qatar Museums has developed several important projects, like the Museum of Islamic Art and Katara Cultural Village. These new venues come alongside significant investment in public art, international exchange initiatives, and major events such as the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The fair is also overseen by Sheikha al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the sister of the country’s Emir, chair of Qatar Museums, and an instrumental figure in growing the country’s cultural initiatives.
The galleries at Art Basel hope to build on this momentum, connecting leading galleries with collectors and institutions and vice versa. “The fair offers a vital entry point into a largely untapped market for the global art world, and we are hopeful that our participation this year will foster new relationships with collectors from across the region,” said dealer David Maupin of Lehmann Maupin.
Indeed, on the VIP day, plenty of connections were being made, with a diverse and busy crowd of luminaries populating the fair’s three venues: the M7, Barahat Msheireb, and Doha Design District.
There were plenty of international visitors, among them Angelina Jolie, mega-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, and collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, all spotted in attendance. “The energy here is extraordinary,” art advisor Grace Wong Li told Artsy. “This isn’t a typical art fair—Qatar invited Art Basel as a statement of cultural transformation, becoming a true center for knowledge and creativity.”
Taking place under a blazing February sun, the atmosphere was energized and cheerful. Presentations of heavyweight artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Pablo Picasso added a distinctively Art Basel–flavored punch of blue-chip action. Meanwhile, several galleries presented bold installations that carried a distinctively institutional focus, from large-scale hanging sculptures at Cardi Gallery to a vast 3D Bruce Nauman digital projection at Konrad Fischer Galerie.
As for reported sales, the standard Art Basel reports from galleries appeared muted by the afternoon of the fair’s VIP day. A reflection, perhaps, that this really isn’t like its other fairs. Stay tuned on Monday for our roundup of sales and takeaways from the fair.
Here, we share our 10 best booths from Art Basel Qatar 2026.
Galerie Krinzinger
Booth M205
With works by Maha Malluh
Food for Thought "Fatawa II", 2023
Maha Malluh
Galerie Krinzinger
Keep Cool, 2016
Maha Malluh
Galerie Krinzinger
Galerie Krinzinger’s booth of Saudi artist Maha Malluh was literally blowing VIP visitors away on the fair’s opening day. In the center of the Viennese gallery’s installation is a hulking sculpture of 27 stacked “desert cooler” air conditioning units. These functional fans (just ask a gallery staffer to turn them on) stand imposingly, playfully resembling both a Rubik’s Cube while offering a canny commentary on global warming and energy consumption.
“It’s very typical for her work where she is working with found objects,” said gallery staffer Manfred Wiplinger. Also featured isFood for Thought “Fatawa II” (2023), a series of cassette tapes of recordings—including prayers and religious teachings—arranged to form a geometric pattern on the side wall of the booth.
Hafez Gallery
Booth D115
With works by Lina Gazzaz
Tracing lines Growth تتبع خطوط النمو, 2024
Lina Gazzaz
Hafez Gallery
Tracing lines Growth تتبع خطوط النمو, 2024
Lina Gazzaz
Hafez Gallery
Tracing lines Growth تتبع خطوط النمو, 2024
Lina Gazzaz
Hafez Gallery
Tracing lines Growth تتبع خطوط النمو , 2024
Lina Gazzaz
Hafez Gallery
Constructed from discarded crownshafts from royal palm trees, Lina Gazzaz’s installation Tracing Lines of Growth (2024) hangs from the ceiling of Hafez Gallery’s booth like a suspended skeleton.
To create the works, the Saudi artist hand-stitched red threads to the palm tree’s inner vascular roots, wrapping some around and letting others cascade and pool at the bottom like streams of blood.
“There’s also this idea of hair,” noted the gallery’s head of international art fairs, Kenza Zouari. “As Gazzaz was unrolling the threads and brushing them, she was like ‘Oh my God, I feel like I’m brushing my own hair!’”
The poignant installation also muses on themes of resilience, the palm referred to by the artist as “lyrical instruments of time.”
Sprüth Magers
Booth M202
With works by Otto Piene
Light Room with Mönchengladbach Wall, 1963–2013
Otto Piene
Sprüth Magers
Light Ballet, 1960
Otto Piene
Sprüth Magers
Untitled, 2014
Otto Piene
Sprüth Magers
Untitled (Yellow), 1984
Otto Piene
Sprüth Magers
Interferenz, 1957/1991
Otto Piene
Sprüth Magers
Untitled, 1957/63
Otto Piene
Sprüth Magers
Tucked away in a darkened side room in the M7 plaza, Otto Piene’s Light Room with Mönchengladbach Wall (1963–2013) is a hypnotic diversion from the fair bustle outside.
Constructed from six light sources, cardboard, wood, aluminum, and motors, this work bathes the room in shadow-play patterns of undulating spirals, circles, and softened tones. Automatic timers regulate the light sources so that brightness varies between almost total darkness and brightened radiance.
The work was created in the 1960s when Piene, a founding member of the influential post-war art collective Group Zero, explored complex mechanized light sculptures in his practice. Often involving metal screens, discs, motors, timers, and rotating electric lights, these installations create an almost theatrical experience.
Nature Morte
Booth D11
With work by Imran Qureshi
Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi reimagines traditional Charpai bed-weaving in this bright installation from Indian powerhouse gallery Nature Morte.
Charpai, a traditional, lightweight, woven bed, is a common part of domestic life in the Indian subcontinent. In this installation, Opening Word of this New Scripture (2024), the gallery’s booth is covered in gridded metal frames threaded with vivid nylon cord in various patterns, such as stars and chevrons. In the center of the booth, two weavers sit barefoot on the bright green and neon yellow floor, constructing the patterns in real time.
A symbol of domesticity here becomes a celebration of shared cultural resonance. “People from all classes could relate to it,” said the gallery’s sales executive, Nikita Singh. “[That’s] a very beautiful thing about it.” The installation is the latest in a string of recent regional appearances for Qureshi, including at the recent Islamic Arts Biennale in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.
Pace Gallery
Booth M310
With works by Lynda Benglis
Elephant Necklace 39, 2016
Lynda Benglis
Pace Gallery
Lucky Strike, 2024
Lynda Benglis
Pace Gallery
Elephant Necklace 41, 2016
Lynda Benglis
Pace Gallery
Elephant Necklace 61, 2016
Lynda Benglis
Pace Gallery
Winged Victory, 2024
Lynda Benglis
Pace Gallery
Pace Gallery’s CEO and president, Marc Glimcher, was part-art dealer, part-steward of his gallery’s presentation, a ring of 37 elemental floor sculptures that make up Lynda Benglis’s Elephant Necklace Circle (2016).
The pieces, arranged in the center of the M7’s first-floor lobby, were quite the obstacle course for VIPs on the fair’s opening day. Those who stopped to inspect were rewarded: The works are part of a late-career series by the pioneering American artist, who is about to open a show at London’s Barbican Centre later this month.
Best known for her freeform wax paintings and poured latex sculptures, Benglis is an artist who creates visceral forms that nudge between organic shapes and abstraction. The raw, glazed ceramic works that make up Elephant Necklace Circle continue the artist’s preoccupation with movement and fluctuation: Some of the forms, like 39, appear to twist, while others, like Aqiu, look vaguely amorphous, as though they’re trapped in a scream.
ATHR
Booth M207
With works by Ahmed Mater
Makkah (or “Mecca”), Islam’s holiest city, is the subject of Ahmed Mater’s ongoing photographic series “Temporal Migration,” on view at this booth from Saudi gallery ATHR.
In these photographs, the city—home to the annual Hajj pilgrimage and the Masjid al-Haram (Sacred Mosque)—is depicted as an evolving site in which construction, mass movement, and a changing landscape continue to shape its topography.
In the diptych Black Stone (2025), for instance, Mater captures the collective rush of pilgrims moving towards the Kaaba, the stone building at the center of the mosque. Then, in quieter scenes that are no less impactful, images in “The Empty Land” show aerial views of silent roads, dormant military bases, and empty oil barrels, offering eerie meditations on landscape and power.
MASSIMODECARLO
Booth M318
With works by Matthew Wong
Matthew Wong’s paintings are always a treat to behold. One of several standout late artist presentations at the fair, Massimodecarlo’s booth presents six paintings from 2019—the year of Wong’s passing. All feature Wong’s familiar territory of landscapes, those that feel familiar but nonspecific. These are imagined depictions that hold a very real presence in their quietness and intensity. In THE HERMIT’S PATH (2019), a botanical, desert-like scene unfolds in front of the viewer with swirling earth tones. An altogether calmer mood emerges from A WALK BY THE SEA (2019), where a crimson and violet backdrop dwarfs two strolling figures.
“In dialogue with the fair’s theme, ‘Becoming,’ the works engage with change from within the act of painting, staying close to the discipline and intensity of Wong’s practice,” Ludovica Barbieri, partner and global director of artist liaisons at the gallery, told Artsy. “Emotion is shaped through a deeply art historical language, finding a form that feels personal yet universal.”
Ahead of Wong’s major showcase at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi in Venice later this year, these works are an apt reminder of the self-taught artist’s generational talent.
Tabari Artspace
Booth M307
With works by Hazeem Harb
Victims of a Map, 2025
Hazem Harb
Tabari Artspace
Future Archaeology, 2025
Hazem Harb
Tabari Artspace
1# Reformulated Archeology, 2018
Hazem Harb
Tabari Artspace
2# Reformulated Archeology, 2018
Hazem Harb
Tabari Artspace
5# Reformulated Archeology, 2018
Hazem Harb
Tabari Artspace
A group of mosaic tile fragments from the former Palestinian airport line one wall of Dubai gallery Tabari Artspace’s booth. The artist Hazeem Harb collected the remnants and scanned them in these prints, emulating the practice of archeological documentation, drawing attention to its role in cementing cultural value.
That theme recurs in a series of the artist’s “Reformulated Archaeology” works on paper, in which archival photography of landscapes, anatomical forms, and artifacts from locations across Palestine are loosely collaged against shapes of flat colors. Again fragmented, these images show how histories and locations can be moved and reclassified.
Taken together, it’s a moving and thought-provoking booth from Harb, whose works are in the collections of eminent museums such as Centre Pompidou and LACMA.
Lisson Gallery
Booth M315
With works by Olga de Amaral
Described by gallery partner Louise Hayward as a “mini-retrospective,” this presentation of works by Olga de Amaral is a pint-sized taster of an artist who has challenged the boundaries of craft and art for more than six decades.
The booth’s earliest work, 1969’s hanging wall piece Cintas entrelazadas, offers an early insight into the vibrant colors and interlacing forms that would go on to be recurring themes of de Amaral’s practice, in a vibrant palette of pinks, purples, yellows, and greens.
“It shows the very early influence of Indigenous communities in the Andes, inspiring different weaving techniques, which come from pre-Columbian traditions and heritage, so really stemming from the kind of roots of her own cultural legacy,” noted Hayward. Other highlights of the booth include Lienzo ceremonial III (1987), in which painted threads cascade, layer, and overlap like a waterfall.
Cardi Gallery
Booth M304
With works by Jannis Kounellis
Senza titolo, 2003
Jannis Kounellis
Cardi Gallery
Taking up a vast wall in the plaza space of the M7 center, Jannis Kounellis’s 2003 installation Senza Titolo is rearticulated to monumental effect in Cardi Gallery’s presentation.
The work must’ve been a nightmare to install, but any headaches it may have caused in logistics are more than made up for in the awe-producing spectacle of the work. Vertical sequences of suspended weighing scales each hold arrangements of various—mainly glass—found objects: vases, glasses, bowls.
The weighing scale is a recurring motif in the oeuvre of Kounellis, who passed away in 2017. A leading figure in the Arte Povera movement, his interest in how objects carry historical and symbolic meaning is displayed here with delicacy and dexterity.
