The End of a Chapter, the Beginning of the Next: Abu Dhabi Art 2025

By Nicolò Venelli

Published on December 4, 2025

Abu Dhabi Art has closed its 17th edition, which is also its last before rebranding into Frieze Abu Dhabi. This moment naturally invites a deeper reflection on what the fair has come to represent. It has been a central part of Abu Dhabi’s yearly cultural calendar and has grown into an institutional cornerstone of both the local and regional fine art scene.

What has truly set Abu Dhabi Art apart from other fairs? What creates the particular energy around it? These are not abstract questions. They speak directly to what is at stake in the transition to Frieze.

1. Above: Rizq Art Initiative, booth at Abu Dhabi Art 2025. Image courtesy of Camelia Mohebi. Below: Taymour Grahne Projects, booth at Abu Dhabi Art 2025. From right to left, works by Roudhah Al Mazrouei, Latifa Alajlan, and Camille Zakhaira. Image courtesy of Taymour Grahne Projects.

The fair began in 2008 as an offshoot of the now-defunct ArtParis. Since then, it has continuously refined its footing and gradually shaped an identity that feels distinct, one that plays by different rules and cultivates a different kind of ecosystem.

Located on the islands of museums, Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, home to institutions such as Louvre Abu Dhabi and the upcoming Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, it becomes easy to understand the deep interconnectedness between the art market community and the institutional environment around it. From Maktoum Al Maktoum’s work in the Beyond Emerging section, which feels like a quiet response to the newly opened Museum of Natural History, to the after-fair soirées at Louvre Abu Dhabi where familiar faces come together, the fair cannot be read as an isolated commercial event. It lives inside a wider cultural machinery, one that depends on constant movement between institutions, galleries, and individuals.

2. Maktoum Al Maktoum, Osteomutosis: A Gap Analysis, 2025. Installation view at Beyond Emerging, Abu Dhabi Art 2025. Image courtesy of Abu Dhabi Art.

The fair cannot be read as an isolated commercial event. It lives inside a wider cultural machinery, one that depends on constant movement between institutions, galleries, and individuals.

So what truly sets Abu Dhabi Art apart? This is not a fair dominated by blue-chip players. Instead, you see corridors dedicated entirely to newcomers, and special projects that spotlight emerging or locally rooted talent. The fair’s gravitas leans more towards the operators who make art possible than the galleries that usually define such events. By art operators, I mean the people who hold the ecosystem together, from artists and curators to gallerists, assistants, and the many individuals who build their experience through the day-to-day work of the industry. This is where its character lives.

3. Inside Abu Dhabi Art 2025, photos by Global Art Daily.

The fair’s gravitas leans more towards the operators who make art possible than the galleries that usually define such events.

4. Satahanan Co., Seeds of Memory, 2025. Exhibition view at Abu Dhabi Art 2025. Image courtesy of Abu Dhabi Art.

This is also the fair where you run into Anna Bernice Delos Reyes as she wraps up an edible work in this year’s Gateway exhibition titled Seeds of Memory, a show including Filipino diasporic collective Sa Tahanan, and you end up talking about how small the art world really is. It is a community made of people, people who care before anything else about the work itself. The fair extends beyond the booth. Almaha Jaralla’s pieces shown by Tabari Artspace in the main space that connects the halls captures this feeling with precision. The paintings show a party in which each individual engages in their own ways, from dancers in motion to quiet figures observing the room. A visual metaphor for what Abu Dhabi Art does best: a fair that allows individuals to be part of a larger whole without losing their own presence.

5. Above: Almaha Jaralla, Henna Night, 2025. Oil on canvas. 150 x 270cm. Below: Almaha Jaralla, Wa aeesh ahbk, 2024. Oil on canvas. 150 x 250 x 5 cm. Both courtesy of Tabari Artspace.

A visual metaphor for what Abu Dhabi Art does best: a fair that allows individuals to be part of a larger whole without losing their own presence.

It is also the one occasion when the gallerists of Alserkal Avenue in Dubai collectively move to Abu Dhabi. The Third Line, Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Efie Gallery, Zawyeh Gallery, Firetti Contemporary, the recently arrived Taymour Grahne Projects, and others, all attend because they consider it essential. This is one aspect the Frieze rebranding cannot afford to mishandle. If the shift is not seamless for these galleries and if their participation is disrupted, it would break the delicate balance between the event and the people who give it life. That balance is the soul of the fair. At the same time, the rebranding has an opportunity to give the fair a new level of visibility on the international scene, which could bring long-overdue attention to an already vibrant community.

6. Some of the booths from Alserkal Avenue galleries at Abu Dhabi Art 2025.

Abu Dhabi Art is also a point of entry for international galleries exploring the Middle Eastern market. Speaking with first-time attendee Saya Lee from the Japanese gallery LEESAYA, who presented works by Shusuke Tanaka, revealed the lesser-known experience of the royal preview. The first opening of the fair begins with the gallerists standing silently while H.H. Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan completes a walkthrough and inaugurates the event. Saya described the atmosphere as solemn and quiet, a moment that changes the mood in the halls and sets a different tone before the fair fully comes to life. It is a ritual that communicates the fair’s unique positioning inside the city’s cultural and institutional landscape.

7. Installation views at LEESAYA booth, Abu Dhabi Art 2025. Paintings by Shusuke Tanaka, image by Global Art Daily.

Alongside newcomers are returning international galleries. Aicon Contemporary with Projjal Dutta was celebrating a decade of consecutive participation. Their selection included Jagannath Panda’s work Dancers of the Celestial Realms, a piece where celestial figures move across a complex spatial plane that feels chaotic yet somehow aligned. The mood of the work speaks to the moment. There is a harmony inside the complexity and each element finds its place. This mirrors what could be considered the fair’s strongest feature: its ability to hold different worlds together.

8. Jagannath Panda, Dancers of the Celestial Realms, 2024-2025. Acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas 78 x 108 cm. Image courtesy of Aicon Contemporary.

The return of galleries is part of a broader regional push to promote Arab and Middle Eastern art both locally and internationally through art fairs. In this context, Abu Dhabi Art operates as a platform where the diffusion of Arab art meets a market increasingly ready to embrace and sustain its industry.

Abu Dhabi Art operates as a platform where the diffusion of Arab art meets a market increasingly ready to embrace and sustain its industry.

9. Installation view, Raya Kassisieh solo presentation at Wadi Finan booth at Abu Dhabi Art 2025. Image Courtesy of Wadi Finan Gallery.

It is important to acknowledge the role of individual pioneers driving this momentum, such as Suha Lallas of Wadi Finan, an Amman-based gallery that has spent decades championing regional artists across international fairs and platforms, including this year’s solo booth for Raya Kassisieh. In fact, it was during a conversation with Suha in 2024, while visiting Amman, that I understood the fundamental significance of presenting local art in international fairs: transporting and exhibiting it in new markets becomes an act of love and long-term commitment. Without this desire to build a collective voice for regional practices, we probably wouldn’t have an Arab art scene but rather a collection of individual Arab artists.

Without this desire to build a collective voice for regional practices, we probably wouldn’t have an Arab art scene but rather a collection of individual Arab artists.

Mirage, a group exhibition included in the official fair programming, assembled by Thaer Select and myself under Vertygo Art and hosted at Erth Hotel until 27 December. It brings together a wide selection of contemporary artists responding to a theme of desert and illusion. The show reinforces the idea that Abu Dhabi Art is not confined to its venue. It is an ecosystem that stretches into the city, creating moments where institutions, independent initiatives, and visitors fold into each other.

10. Installation view, Mirage, group exhibition at Erth Abu Dhabi, November-December 2025. Image courtesy of Thare Select and Vertygo Art.

All in all, this year’s Abu Dhabi art week has come to an end. Alserkal gallerists are back in the avenue and visitors have flown out. The only certainty is that next year we will meet at Frieze. Surely.

11. Jawad Al Malhi, Wa3den, 2025. Oil on canvas. 138 x 180cm. Presented at Salwa Zeidan Gallery, Abu Dhabi Art 2025.

^{Abu Dhabi Art 2025 ran from November 20th to 23rd, 2025, at Manarat Al Saadiyat, with preview days on November 18th and 19th.}
Nicolò Venelli is an entrepreneur and cultural producer working at the intersection of contemporary art and practice-led research, with a particular focus on artists from the Arab world and the SWANA region. Active as an organiser, producer, and curator, he is committed to supporting emerging voices and cultivating new modes of artistic production. He directs Vertygo, a production-focused residency program in the Italian Alps, where he is currently developing the 2026 programme. In addition to his curatorial and residency work, Venelli organises pop-up exhibitions internationally. He made his Dubai debut in April, followed by a new production presented in January, marking the beginning of a continued engagement with the region.

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The End of a Chapter, the Beginning of the Next: Abu Dhabi Art 2025

The fair cannot be read as an isolated commercial event. It lives inside a wider cultural machinery, one that depends on constant movement between institutions, galleries, and individuals.

The fair’s gravitas leans more towards the operators who make art possible than the galleries that usually define such events.

A visual metaphor for what Abu Dhabi Art does best: a fair that allows individuals to be part of a larger whole without losing their own presence.

Abu Dhabi Art operates as a platform where the diffusion of Arab art meets a market increasingly ready to embrace and sustain its industry.

Without this desire to build a collective voice for regional practices, we probably wouldn’t have an Arab art scene but rather a collection of individual Arab artists.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 09 –– RUH/JEDSpring 2025

E-09++ Fall 2025

E-Issue 08 –– SELSummer 2024

E-08++ Fall 2024

E-Issue 07 –– AUHWinter 2023-24

E-07++ Winter/Spring 2024

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

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E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

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🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

🔍 Legal

The End of a Chapter, the Beginning of the Next: Abu Dhabi Art 2025

The fair cannot be read as an isolated commercial event. It lives inside a wider cultural machinery, one that depends on constant movement between institutions, galleries, and individuals.

The fair’s gravitas leans more towards the operators who make art possible than the galleries that usually define such events.

A visual metaphor for what Abu Dhabi Art does best: a fair that allows individuals to be part of a larger whole without losing their own presence.

Abu Dhabi Art operates as a platform where the diffusion of Arab art meets a market increasingly ready to embrace and sustain its industry.

Without this desire to build a collective voice for regional practices, we probably wouldn’t have an Arab art scene but rather a collection of individual Arab artists.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 09 –– RUH/JED
Spring 2025

E-09++
Fall 2025

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer 2024

E-08++
Fall 2024

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

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Spring/Summer 2021

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