DUBAI: Art Dubai has opened its biggest art fair to date with more than 130 contemporary, modern, and digital gallery presentations from six continents and at least 30 first-time participants.
Open to the public until March 5, the event is being staged in the halls of Madinat Jumeirah and Mina A’Salam.
The fair, which has long concentrated on art from the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, is increasingly focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa and the digital realm.
This year’s digital art section, located in Mina A’Salam, features 22 participants and tech is also given an expanded presence in the inaugural Middle East editions of Christie’s Art + Tech Summit and the Art Business Conference, taking place simultaneously.
Art Dubai is considered a pivotal platform for so-called Global South countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania.
Benedetta Ghione, the fair’s executive director, told Arab News: “I think our proposition of really being a fair of discovery of foregrounding the Global South, of being a home for fresh, diverse, new, and exciting talent, is feeling really strong.”
Pablo del Val, the fair’s artistic director, said: “For nearly two decades, Art Dubai has been a place to discover and celebrate new trends, creating and facilitating conversations, and celebrating the strength of creative output across the Global South.
“Art Dubai is a truly global art fair. That so much of the program is once again drawn from the Global South highlights the increased interest in and appetite for collecting non-Western art, the strengthening of the gallery scene beyond the traditional centers of the art world, and the role Art Dubai plays as a platform for regions that are under-represented in international collections,” he added.
Other highlights include the return of the 16th edition of the Global Art Forum commissioned by British writer, editor, and curator Shumon Basar.
Staged under the title, “Predicting the Present,” it delves intellectually into an exploration through in-depth talks by leading curators, filmmakers, novelists, philosophers, historians, technologists, entrepreneurs, artists, and performers into the meaning of the present, pondering whether history is dead, what the future signifies, and ultimately, what will happen next?
Basar said: “The Global Art Forum offers instruments for these uncertain times. One session, for example, questions whether we have the cultural institutions we need for this change of times or whether the existing institutions are enough.”
