Art Dubai’s 15^th edition in March will feature over 100 contemporary and modern galleries from over 40 countries including more than 30 first-time participants.

Announcing the list of participating galleries, Art Dubai said it will be its most extensive to date. The fair will take place at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai from March 11 to 13, with previews on March 9 and 10.

The leading global platform for art and artists from the Middle East and Global South, Art Dubai will present galleries across four main gallery sections: Contemporary, Modern, Bawwaba and the new section, Art Dubai Digital.

The 2022 fair will include more than 30 first-time participants and over 50% of the gallery programme is drawn from the Global South, reaffirming Art Dubai’s position as the leading marketplace for art from this region.

The fair’s upcoming edition marks the debut of Art Dubai Digital, an innovative new digital art and NFT section that will provide a comprehensive, 360º introduction to this fast-developing landscape. This new physical section of the fair will showcase a curated selection of digital artworks presented by 17 leading international galleries and platforms, examining the context out of which NFTs, cryptocurrency, video art and virtual reality (VR) have grown since the rise of digital art in the 1980s. The programme will be accompanied by an extensive talks and education programme, including the 15^th edition of Global Art Forum and a series of introductory talks.

Art Dubai’s Artistic Director Pablo del Val commented: “Art Dubai is a truly global fair, and this is reflected in both the quality and geographic spread of the galleries participating in our 2022 edition, which will be our largest to date. That so much of the programme is 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 centres of the art world, and the role Art Dubai plays as a platform for the region. We are particularly pleased to launch Art Dubai Digital, which will provide an important and needed bridge between the rapidly-developing global crypto-sphere and the international art market.”

Art Dubai is held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and in partnership with ARM Holding. The fair is sponsored by Julius Baer. The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is the fair’s strategic partner.

Contemporary: This section will feature 77 galleries from 33 countries, and will welcome 15 first-time exhibitors. New participants will include Andréhn-Schiptjenko (Stockholm/Paris), FORO.SPACE (Bogota), Isla Flotante (Buenos Aires), MARUANI MERCIER (Brussels/Knokke/Zaventem), P420 (Bologna), Rhizome (Algiers) and Window Project (Moscow/Tbilisi).

Modern: This section is curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath and will feature solo presentations of museum-quality works by 20^th century masters from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Featured artists in 2022 will include Bibi Zogbé (Agial Art Gallery, Beirut); Mohamed Kacemi (Comptoir des Mines, Marrakesh); Aref El Rayess (Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg) and Rabin Mondal (DAG World, New Delhi/Mumbai/New York).

Bawwaba: Meaning gateway in Arabic and exclusively featuring works made in the past year or specifically for the fair, this section will feature 10 solo presentations, including six first-time exhibitors: TARQ (Mumbai), NATURE MORTE (New Delhi), VIGIL GONZALES (Cusco), Jahmek Contemporary Art (Luanda), Madragoa (Lisbon) and Rele Gallery (Lagos).

Following a successful debut in March 2021, Art Dubai has confirmed the return of its innovative Gallery Support Programme, where accepted galleries only pay booth fees based upon sales. For the 2022 fair, the scheme is open to galleries formed in the last five years and either based in, or representing artists from, the Global South.

Art Dubai Digital: As the art world continues to adapt and evolve in the digital and NFT realms, new communities are emerging to support these worlds, involving new creators and stakeholders.

Art Dubai Digital will include a dedicated gallery section curated by Chris Fussner, Web3 specialist and Director of Tropical Futures Institute (Cebu, Philippines), that will include leading international platforms working with NFTs; contemporary galleries with projects devoted to digital art and NFTs; galleries that have been working with digital art since the 1980s; and NFT e-commerce sites and organisations that are turning existing physical art into NFTs. The participants, representing a broad geographic base and featuring both traditional galleries and digital platforms, will include Institut, Postmasters, Bright Moments, HORIZONS by so-far and AORA, Cyber Baat, Emergeast and NFT Asia.

Alongside this commercial section, Art Dubai is launching Campus Art Dubai 9.0 Blockchain Edition, a new eight-week NFT strand within the fair’s education programme. Powered by Materia, the course is led by a host of local and global leading experts in the blockchain and NFT art sector, and will support 12 UAE and international artists who have a digital background.  

Additionally, an innovative Crypto Media Lab will function as a gathering space for the companies that support these communities, including cryptocurrency platforms, exchanges, and organisations providing the relevant tools to access the digital realm. The programme will also be supported by a new talks programme, which aims to give visitors more context about digital platforms, inviting guest speakers to explain more about the basics of cryptocurrency, digital media and NFT art.

The 15^th edition of Art Dubai’s celebrated Global Art Forum, entitled ‘This is the Picture,’ will examine the worlds of digital artefacts and crypto economies. Commissioned by Shumon Basar, Global Art Forum 2022 will invite artists, curators, creators, thinkers and technologists to consider a range of topics from NFT art and curatorial projects, pay-to-play gaming, metaversing myths, Web 3.0 hopes, and where legacy institutions might fit in to all the above.