The Gulf Art Scene Is Showing Its Global Force

Competition is a Western concept,” said Qatar’s Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani during a panel discussion at Art Basel this past June. Sheikha Al Mayassa is chairperson of Qatar Museums, one of the largest buyers of contemporary art internationally, and she was responding to a question about the forthcoming launch of Art Basel Qatar in 2026 and the Gulf region’s increasingly crowded art-world calendar. In the cool months of November to March, headlining cultural events come almost week by week: Abu Dhabi Art, the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale (or, every other year, the related Islamic Arts Biennale), Noor Riyadh, Desert X AlUla, Misk Art Week, Art Basel Qatar, Art Week Riyadh, Art Dubai, Culture Summit Abu Dhabi, Dubai Design Week, and the Sharjah Biennial. As the Gulf nations continue to build their contemporary art scenes, time—more than money—is becoming a finite resource.

The number of collectors is also surging. In what locals refer to as the “Covid bounce,” from 2021 onward numerous high-net-worth individuals immigrated from Europe and India, trading inflation and red tape for the tax-efficient shores of Dubai and Doha. In 2024 alone, according to various reports, 6,700 millionaires relocated to the United Arab Emirates. The Gulf has also become an accessible gateway for artists and curators looking to the so-called Global South, with the preview days of the Sharjah Biennial this year crowded with both new and returning visitors.

Institutional buying is on the rise as well, making this moment one of genuine potential as permanent collections are being built in real time. Abu Dhabi is preparing for the opening of its long-awaited Guggenheim (and still buying, sources say); Qatar Museums is acquiring work for its own contemporary museum, the Art Mill; and Saudi Arabia is buying for multiple planned museums across the country. With new art districts, free zones, residency programs, and educational initiatives also in the works, the Gulf’s starchitect-designed institutions are just the most visible assets in the huge state investments in the art sector at large.

“There’s a growing interest in developing culture as a means of diversifying the economy,” said the Lebanese-French businessman Elie Khouri, one of Dubai’s most prominent collectors. “The focus used to be mostly on real estate. Now, culture is seen as a way to drive economic growth, attract tourism, and enhance overall quality of life.”

LONG-TERM COLLECTING

Though many museums, biennials, and art fairs in the Gulf arrived as franchises—the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Desert X AlUla, Art Basel Qatar—the Arab Gulf states maintain a small but deep-rooted independent market. Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed Al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, put together a superb collection of Arab modern work, which he donated to the country’s Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in 2004. In Jeddah, a group of 12 influential families, led by Princess Jawaher bint Majid Al Saud, formed the nonprofit Saudi Art Council in 2013, supporting the influential yearly festival 21,39 Jeddah Arts, and each individually forming major collections of both Saudi and international art. In Dubai, which has the most active market, many of the long-standing patrons are Arabs or Iranians who have lived in the city for decades, among them Farhad Farjam, Mohammed Afkhami, and Khouri. Other collectors in the UAE are Emiratis who buy not only contemporary art but traditional Islamic artifacts and manuscripts, including Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Sheikha Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, the late Sultan bin Ali Al Owais, and the Palestinian Emirati Zaki Nusseibeh. For years, these and a handful of others (along with institutions such as Art Jameel and the Sharjah Art Foundation) were the main buyers, a static number that rarely grew, gallerists often grumbled, despite the vast wealth in the Gulf.

The influx of investors to Dubai has shifted the landscape. Many new residents, such as Andreina Pérez-Cisneros, had already collected art elsewhere, while others have started buying in the Arab region as a way to put down roots. Like Dubai itself, the group of recent collectors is profoundly international—from longtime Dubai residents Lindsey and Michael Fournie, who are originally from the United States, to Chinese buyers such as Snow Li—and they are buying art both globally and in the Arab region.

“There is a traditional understanding that Indian collectors collect Indian art, and that is true to an extent,” said Benedetta Ghione, Art Dubai Group executive director. “But some of the top, top, top collectors who are Indian are moving here, and with that comes an international collection. These new collectors, and ones coming from Europe, also support home talent.”

Another major change, many gallerists say, is not just in the number but in the tenor, as even casual buyers are thinking more seriously about the scope of what an art collection can be. Pérez-Cisneros, the granddaughter of Cuban-Venezuelan collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, moved to Dubai 12 years ago and began acquiring Middle Eastern art by artists such as Shaikha Al Mazrou from Dubai and Dana Awartani from Jeddah—both of whom work in geometric idioms. For Pérez-Cisneros, there was an obvious connection to the Latin American histories of abstract geometry that were already a part of her collection.

“There’s a lot of common ground between Latin America and the Middle East, even though they seem far apart religiously and culturally,” Pérez-Cisneros said from her airy Dubai villa. “But historically, Arab culture had a huge influence on Portugal and Spain. When they went over and colonized Latin America, they brought many of those influences with them, which can be seen architecturally and through motifs used in Spanish cathedrals and churches in Mexico.”

Ultimately, Pérez-Cisneros said she wants to support programming or possibly establish a foundation that could further explore these links. It’s a typical move for Dubai, where private initiatives have always outpaced the public sector, and where the state never established an art museum of its own. Unlike in the West, where MoMA or Tate Modern quietly lobbies collectors for donations, major collectors in the UAE tend to set up their own foundations. Khouri is currently in conversations with leadership in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai about the possibility of a bespoke home for his works. Another of the country’s major cultural figures, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, is looking for a permanent space in Sharjah for his Barjeel Art Foundation. And the Dubai government is reportedly seeking to create a free zone where large collections can be granted tax-exempt status, to encourage major collections to come to the UAE.

“People are moving more and more to the Middle East from Europe, bringing their collections,” said Khouri. “When the big collectors come, they buy homes, they go to museums, they buy art. More becomes more.”

The Abu Dhabi government, according to sources I spoke with, has also been in discussion with a number of prominent collectors to set up foundations across the capital, allegedly offering them former schools as exhibition spaces. If enacted, the move would be surprising for the emirate, where investment has always been state-led, as has been the case for the five museums of the Saadiyat Cultural District, an initiative of the capital’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT). But Abu Dhabi has several private collectors with extensive holdings who might be persuaded to go public and, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, the head of DCT, has told me, it wants to foster a more open sector, encouraging new creatives to live and work in the capital. Already, the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation, established by a Lebanese collector and longtime UAE resident, has a space within the Saadiyat Cultural District.

A persistent problem has been that the laws and regulations in the Gulf do not readily support foundations or charities. The UAE has strict laws around charitable giving in order to curtail any possible donations to militant Islamist groups. And because the Gulf countries were fully tax-free for so long, rules around tax exemptions, subsidiary entitlements, and bequests were never worked out. Changes to this legislation, as well as a visa system that enables artists and curators to work more easily as freelancers, are issues currently being considered, government sources told me. In Saudi Arabia, the Visual Arts Commission recently introduced a structured licensing system for galleries and creative studios, and Dubai is in talks to build a freeport. This past May, the preeminent Saudi gallery ATHR opened a high-spec art storage depot, built in partnership with the German logistics company Hasenkamp. It is a small but important step in the humid environment of the Gulf, especially as more and more significant artworks arrive in advance of  the forthcoming museums (including Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi, whereabouts still officially unknown).

THE VIEW FROM SAUDI

The landscape of Saudi Arabia differs markedly from that of Dubai. The country—almost the size of France, Germany, Spain, and the UK combined—is emerging from three decades of cultural isolation, and is both a more chaotic and friendly place than its international image might suggest. The art scene’s big events, which have unrolled as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, have been a welcome change from the strict rules against entertainment of the country’s pre-reform era. Already, many of its art events are as well-attended as ones in Qatar and the UAE, despite the two smaller states having developed theirs earlier. The first Art Week Riyadh, a noncommercial version of typical art weeks around the world, reported more than 17,000 visitors over its seven days in April, while the inaugural 2023 Islamic Arts Biennale tallied 600,000 visitors during its four-month run.

“Saudi has been for many years a sleeping giant in the region,” said Edward Gibbs, chair of Middle East and India for Sotheby’s and a longtime visitor to the Gulf. “It has finally woken up, and you can see its impact in the ripple effect across the region. The Saudi 2030 Vision has triggered an extraordinary expansion in cultural programming, which is supported by budget, resources, and manpower.”

Market stakeholders are springing into action. Sotheby’s, which recently secured a £1 billion lifeline from ADQ, the newest of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds, launched a high-profile auction in Riyadh in February. The sale was perfect for Instagram: It took place in the open air, against a spotlit backdrop of a mud-brick amphitheater in Diriyah, Riyadh’s historic quarter. The small sale of 117 lots covering both art and luxury items achieved $17.28 million, with three lots selling for more than $1 million each. “We saw very deep participation, both locally and globally,” said Gibbs. “Forty-five countries participated in the auction. A third of lots were sold to buyers and bidders from Saudi or those typical of the demographic profile of Saudi Arabia. About 30 percent of those participants were under 40, and about one-third were completely new to Sotheby’s.”

The sale was in part a test case examining what these new buyers will go for. Collectibles are growing as a category in the Gulf, but the sale’s luxury offerings did not perform as well as the art portion—maybe because, as one source told me, Saudis don’t want to buy used jewelry. As for art, Sotheby’s seems to have hedged its bets by offering work by starry international names (Pablo Picasso and René Magritte) as well as major Saudi ones, such as Ahmed Mater and Abdulhalim Radwi. Sotheby’s also noted, in mind of building a sector, the noncommercial engagement during the eight-day event. A thousand people visited the exhibition of works on sale, they say, with 700 participating in their accompanying talks program, which introduced the practice of collecting and key modern Arab artists in panel discussions.

Christie’s, the main rival for market share in the Middle East, is not far behind Sotheby’s. Last September the house opened a dedicated office in Riyadh, with art adviser Nour Kelani as managing director, and in January produced the public programming for the Islamic Arts Biennale. Others note the rising influx of dealers who are arriving in the Kingdom to make contacts for potential future sales. While the attention is welcome, it also feels unseemly, many say: a familiar sense in the Gulf that the West wants their money but has little respect for their culture. A constant source of criticism is the so-called “consultancy culture,” where Gulf entities pay huge sums to firms such as McKinsey or BCG for imported advice, and some in the art scene are unconvinced by Western guidance on best practices.

“I’m honestly exhausted by the parade of gallerists flying in from London or New York, insisting that I must acquire a Bacon or a Picasso—as if that’s what Middle Eastern institutions lack,” said one collector from the region. “The irony, of course, is that many of their own museums are founded on Middle Eastern collections—just not the modern ones. We’re revered for our antiquity, our pre-19th-century splendor, but conveniently forgotten when it comes to our modern voice. It’s as if civilization paused when colonialism began.”

And for now, the market is not king in the Kingdom. It remains relatively small compared to those of other countries of similar size and wealth, and even to that of Qatar and the UAE. Only two galleries in Saudi show on the international fair circuit, ATHR and Hafez Gallery, which both predate the Vision 2030 reforms. The prevailing wisdom is that the Saudi government must build all the elements of an ecosystem before the country can support an independent market, and right now the priority is museums and non-commercial programming.

This is even the case for galleries. In 2022 ATHR set up a foundation to support grants, residencies, and offerings such as its long-running Young Saudi Artist program. Mohammed Hafiz, a cofounder of ATHR, told me that the foundation is as integral to its work as its commercial arm. The gallery’s artists are occupied—but mainly with large-scale commissions and projects from the country’s Ministry of Culture, such as Ashab Al-Lal, Ahmed Mater’s planned “mirage machine,” a colossal earthwork at Wadi AlFann in AlUla, and Muhannad Shono’s multiple biennial commissions. At art fairs, ATHR’s booth presentations have been more akin to exhibitions than pristine selling opportunities: Emirati artist Rami Farook curated two booths recently at Frieze and Art Dubai as artistic projects, with low-priced works for sale. ATHR has not let go of its former role as the linchpin of a grassroots art scene—and, financially, it hasn’t yet been forced to.

The Ministry of Culture, which is leading Saudi Arabia’s artistic transformation, itself seems to be tiptoeing around the market. The recent Art Week Riyadh was the Visual Arts Commission’s “new model” for such an event—one that is less focused on selling art and more on educating and engaging the public, as Dina Amin, the commission’s CEO, told me. International galleries were invited to show their work in a curated exhibition, albeit one set up with tables and chairs for dealers, rather than a fair. Some sales transpired, but by law all the work had to enter and exit the country on temporary-entry visas, instead of being able to leave the country with another owner—leading many to wonder if Art Week Riyadh had initially been conceived as a fair but changed tack at some point in the Ministry’s chain of sign-offs.

The lack of focus on the market may shift if the state’s budgets falter. Already, funding for a number of Vision 2030 projects has been diverted because of Saudi’s having won contracts for both Expo 2030 and the 2034 FIFA World Cup, and from the growing pains of possibly having moved too far too fast. But the cultural plans are so extensive—and young Saudis so invested in the changes—that the Saudi market seems difficult for anyone to ignore, especially given the current softening in Europe and the US.

NEXT STOP: QATAR

Qatar was the first among the three main current players to invest in its art scene. It has some of the best curated shows and museums—including the only museum in the Gulf devoted to the former slave trade in the region, the Bin Jelmood House. But the state’s investment in a grassroots arts scene by way of initiatives that develop artists, collectors, or an art-focused public has made little headway. 

Yet recently the government body Qatar Museums has been busy: The network of eight museums and art spaces announced this past February that it will build the first new pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 30 years. It is also readying two other additions: the Lusail Museum, which will contain the superlative Orientalist collection put together by Al Thani collectors, slated to open in 2029; and the Art Mill, devoted to modern and contemporary art, due to open in 2030.

The headline news, of course, is the forthcoming Art Basel Qatar, which may signal the country’s renewed ambitions, and, for Art Basel, provide a foothold in the Gulf. “I think it’s a good sign that Art Basel is looking at the region,” Dunja Gottweis, a former Art Basel staffer—and current Art Dubai director—told me. “People go where the money is.”

The Swiss fair enterprise seems to be following a novel playbook. The first edition, scheduled for February, will “depart from the traditional booth model,” according to the fair application, and will be headed by well-established and critically acclaimed Egyptian artist Wael Shawky, serving as artistic director. The event will be kept small, with only 50 galleries participating, and Art Basel will subsidize part of exhibitors’ costs for the first edition, including accommodation and transportation for artists. Observers cattily remark that Art Basel Qatar needs to lure galleries because Doha has few buyers beyond Sheikha Al Mayassa and Qatar Museums, and building a sales infrastructure will have to be a priority for the venture.

“We know that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to develop the market,” Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s global director of fairs, told me. “But that’s exactly what we want to do, and that’s exactly what we think Art Basel has proved to [be able to] do over the last 55 years, in all the places where we’ve been operating. Our goal is to work in a 365-day operation with market development and development of the private sector as very important components of our presence.”

Whether international collectors might be scared off by recent unrest in the region remains to be seen. In a limited maneuver in June, Iran retaliated against US strikes by firing rockets at the US air base in the region, Al Udeid. Qatari and Emirati airspace were briefly closed. It was a short window but one that has the potential to resonate with US audiences, even if Art Basel Qatar remains months away.

For those in the region, however, the skirmish was just a high-profile moment in the ongoing tragedy in Gaza. It would be hard to overstate how much the siege in Gaza has affected the Arab world at large. Many collectors, artists, and curators have expressed devastation over the relentless violence, as well as the lack of criticism of Israel among US and Western governments. And though it is harder to quantify, as Sheikha Al Mayassa’s “competition is a Western concept” quip and Saudi’s skepticism of Western involvement suggest, the Gulf’s new confidence also contains a profound exasperation with the West and what is seen as its enduring—and discredited—sense of superiority.

There is also the question of how the changes in the Gulf have affected the artists. Along with spending on museums, the Gulf states have invested heavily in arts education, and the young generation has been flooded with development programs and opportunities. But the escalating attention around art is a double-edged sword. Artists describe to me a constant cycle of exhibitions and commissions they are making work for, many of them state-sponsored projects or luxury collaborations that come with a high level of publicity and scrutiny. There are few artist-run spaces where artists can experiment or young artists can emerge under the radar. Artists go quickly from “emerging” to “midcareer,” in terms of stature, opportunities, and even price (emerging being around $10,000–$15,000; midcareer more like $20,000–$40,000).

“The last 10 years were just so rigorous, and a lot of light was given to my generation in terms of attention,” Afra Al Dhaheri, an artist in Abu Dhabi, told me. In her mid-30s, she is already a senior figure in the UAE art scene. “It’s accelerated so fast. The state has supported our art and given us a spotlight and a platform, and that’s been great. But I also think: When do we have a moment to stop and consider what we are making?”