As the city of Dubai continues to evolve, it also reshapes its role as a global centre for the art market. Founded in 2007, Art Dubai is the leading art fair in the Middle East. Each year, the Fair presents around 120 galleries from over 40 countries, highlighting the importance of learning and exchange and showcasing artists from global centres and less-represented geographies.
In this exclusive conversation, the Art Dubai director, Benedetta Ghione, reflects on this year’s focus on amplifying “stories of migrations and exchanges that are shaping the future world” while telling us more about how she sees the shift in the region’s art role reshaping its role as a global centre for the art market. And what makes Art Dubai the ideal space to showcase these stories.
Art Dubai has long been a leading platform for art from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. As Dubai continues to evolve, how do you see it reshaping its role as a global centre for the art market? In what ways does this shift impact the traditional narratives of center and periphery in the art world today?
Dubai has a palpable energy to it – it’s a dynamic and fast-moving city, and that dynamism is something we work hard to bring to Art Dubai. The rate of change and innovation here is astonishing, and it’s paired with a deep curiosity about culture and heritage. The cultural scene in Dubai is also maturing very quickly – more and more artists, collectors, and family offices are moving here from all over the world, having an impact on the market. New galleries are establishing a presence here all the time, and, coupled with the cultural investment across the UAE and the GCC, there’s a huge amount of potential here.
Art Dubai’s mandate has always been to reflect the global art scene as much as possible – to showcase and spotlight geographies and art scenes that other fairs do not. As well as galleries from major Western art centres, we are pleased to have strong regional representation from not only the Middle East and South Asia but also from central Asia, the African continent, and Latin America. Lots of these galleries have exhibited at Art Dubai for many years – such as Lawrie Shabibi, Almine Rech, Sfeir-Semler, Experimenter, Galerie Krinzinger, ATHR Gallery – and have grown in profile as the fair has. You also see this in the artists presented and their increased presence in international biennials like Venice, Lyon, and Sharjah, reflecting a shift in balance in the wider art scene and market. Visitors will also see the city of Dubai reflected in the fair, particularly in the curated sections. Art Dubai Modern has a specific remit to research and tell untold stories around Arab Modernism; Art Dubai Digital – which we launched in 2022 – is a truly unique platform that reflects the way artists are working with new technologies and Bawwaba, this year under the expert eye of Mirjam Varadinis, is focused on ultra-contemporary work in a series of solo presentations that imagine new forms of coexistence, both amongst people and with our planet.
Many people know Art Dubai as a successful week-long commercial platform and traditional art fair model. However, alongside our role in supporting the development of the market here, we also play a vital institutional role in helping to build the cultural scene here and helping it to thrive and be sustained. As with any rapidly developing city, there’s a need to constantly reinforce and support the wider cultural ecosystem, and we take our responsibility to work with the city’s other cultural institutions, businesses, and government very seriously.
How do you do that?
It’s important that the fair evolves each year. Whether it’s the contemporary, Modern and Digital gallery programmes, our commissions and installations, or our extensive talks programme, it’s important that Art Dubai continues to reflect the global art world as it changes and the axes shift. Part of this is developing the infrastructure here, often in partnership with cultural partners and businesses in a way that is very possible in Dubai.
The A.R.M. Holding Children’s Programme is an excellent example of this. It is developed in partnership with our lead partner and is now in its fifth year. It has become the largest cultural programme in UAE schools and has reached over 30,000 students with artist-led workshops. Another example is Campus Art Dubai, which is now in its 13th year and provides hands-on professional development experience and mentoring each year for a group of arts professionals. We have the most extensive talks programme of any international art fair, with more than 50 sessions during the fair, and have developed platforms like Art Salon, which is a year-round collector and patron programme. We also work with Dubai Culture on major initiatives like Dubai Collection – the first institutional collection for the city of Dubai and Dubai Public Art, which works with UAE-based artists on a unique public art programme across the city. This commitment to building sustainable infrastructure is what makes Art Dubai Group unique; its combined market and institutional role is crucial in supporting the growth of the scene and, in turn, the market.
“As with any rapidly developing city, there’s a need to constantly reinforce and support the wider cultural ecosystem, and we take our responsibility to work with the city’s other cultural institutions, businesses, and government very seriously.”
— Benedetta Ghione
The 2025 edition will feature recurring curated sections like Bawwaba, Art Dubai Modern, and Art Dubai Digital, which aim to highlight the “stories of migrations and exchanges that are shaping the future world”. How do these curated sections, with their expanded geographic remit, address the increasingly complex and intersectional realities of our time in unexpected and innovative ways? What makes Art Dubai the ideal space to amplify these stories?
It’s always been important to us to spotlight what’s happening in art centres beyond the traditional West, and by working with different curators on these sections each year – each expert in their specific field – we are able to bring fresh voices to the fair each year. Bawwaba is perhaps the best expression of this. Mirjam Varadinis is the curator this year, and she has established the most ambitious edition of the section to date. It features 10 solo presentations of all new work drawn from 10 nations under a tight and highly topical curatorial framework. There will be some familiar names like Tomas Saraceno and Kate Newby, who both have a profile, presented alongside new work by less-familiar names – such as Kaimurai, who began his career in design, or Mexico-based visual artist Jorge Rosano Gamboa, who blends traditional Mexican crafts with contemporary media. In an era of such social, political and environmental turbulence, the presentations in the section work in harmony, encouraging notions of socio-ecological cohesion.
It’s also important, of course, that we reflect our own context, which means the city of Dubai and its communities, but also under-explored art histories. Sections like Art Dubai Modern – this year co-curated by Magalí Arriola and Nada Shabout – act as both commercial platforms and academic research opportunities to explore these untold stories in context. Art Dubai Digital is another expression of this, too. We launched the first edition in 2022 to provide an annual snapshot of the digital art scene, the artists who are shaping it and the technologies they are working with. This year, under Gonzalo Herrero Delicado’s direction, there’s a clear focus on AI, perhaps the force that is shaping our world most today. The aim is to present a varied, intersectional and unique art fair experience for visitors, collectors and curators, whether they’re from the region or further afield.
The idea of exchange is also extremely important, and each section of the fair is supported by dedicated talks programming, from the Global Art Forum, which has been an important ever-present of our programming, to intimate conversations with artists and a new Digital Summit expanding on Gonzalo Herreo Delicado’s curatorial theme for Art Dubai Digital, ‘After the Technological Sublime’.
“The aim is to present a varied, intersectional and unique art fair experience for visitors, collectors and curators, whether they’re from the region or further afield.”
— Benedetta Ghione
With over 20 first-time exhibitors joining Art Dubai in 2025, what excites you most about these new voices? How do you envision their fresh perspectives enhancing the dialogue at the fair and contributing to its evolving narrative?
We are welcoming many new galleries this year, including 10 first-time exhibitors in Art Dubai Digital, reflecting the dynamic nature of the scene and Gonzalo’s curatorial framework. Many of these are international exhibitors, drawn from cities such as Seoul (ArtToken-Artcube2R2), New York (Nguyen Wahed, BREAKFAST Studio x Ace Art Advisory), and Tehran (Parallel Circuit). The newcomers also include some new additions to the international art world, reflecting the continued growth of the scene, including Abu-Dhabi-based Iris Projects, presenting a solo booth by Saudi artist Abdullah Al-Othman.
I’ve been part of the Art Dubai team for nearly a decade now, and can say that we are experiencing a clear and perceptible shift. The cultural scenes in Dubai and the GCC are developing incredibly quickly and attracting a lot of interest. As a centre of finance, business, and innovation that is attracting HNWIs and UHNWIs from all over the world, Dubai has an opportunity to cement its position as the art market capital of the region.
You bring nearly two decades of experience in international art businesses to your role at Art Dubai, including your time at Sotheby’s, Bonhams, and Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery. How has this diverse background shaped your vision for Art Dubai, particularly in positioning it as a vibrant hub for contemporary art in the Middle East? How does your experience inform your approach to identifying and showcasing art from underrepresented geographies?
I have been fortunate to work in many organisations over the past two decades across the commercial art world. One thing that’s common across them all is the importance of building relationships – here at Art Dubai, we have the honour of working on a wide range of partnerships, from the local and regional arts ecosystem to working with major brands and government agencies. The key to this is creating a sense of gravity – something that is even greater than the sum of its constituent parts. Longevity is important, too, and many of our partners are celebrating significant milestones this year. Sfeir-Semler is celebrating 40 years, Green Art Gallery 30, The Third Line is 20; BMW – 50 years of their Art Car programme, one of the longest such initiatives in the world. Julius Baer is celebrating 10 years of partnership with Art Dubai (and 20 years in Dubai), and A.R.M. Holding has the fifth edition of the Children’s Programme.
When you layer this with all the incredible new initiatives, it’s a rich and super interesting mix. As the city continues to grow, and we along with it, new opportunities to collaborate are rapidly unfolding. We can look at our relationship with the Dubai Collection – the first institutional art collection for Dubai which has many layers of support, from patrons to stellar steering and advisory committees, as well as some of the most committed patrons and art collectors. The Collection supports two talks programmes at the Fair – our Modern and Collector talks but underpinning this is a huge web of interconnected stakeholders and champions. It’s a lot of work from a relatively small team to hold this together, but when it does – for example, in a series of Dubai Collection Nights events bringing our communities together during Ramadan – it’s incredibly special.
Art Dubai emphasises contemporary art that engages with issues of migration, displacement, and international exchange. How do you ensure these urgent conversations remain rooted in local experiences while resonating on a global scale?
I believe that the location of the Fair gives it unique capacity to hold a range of different conversations – balancing both local perspectives and global interpretations. Not just in terms of geography, although Dubai is an advantageous choice for many artists, galleries, and collectors in the region, but also thematically. You’ll see an emphasis on discovery throughout our curated sections in Modern and Bawwaba, championing lesser-represented voices, global contemporary concerns, and exploring shared histories. Themes of ecology are also consistent across sections of the Fair, including Digital, spotlighting questions about ethics, promoting cross-cultural collaboration, and sharing a sensitivity to changing patterns of human behaviour.
Our commissions programme this year will take this one stage further, featuring performances and site-specific installations from the most humble and universal materials like clay to the most cutting-edge technology like robotics and AI. Dubai is the perfect place to have these conversations.
“It’s a lot of work from a relatively small team to hold this together, but when it does – for example, in a series of Dubai Collection Nights events bringing our communities together during Ramadan – it’s incredibly special.”
—Benedetta Ghione
Speaking of which. As mentioned, Art Dubai’s commitment to digital art is reflected in the curated section Art Dubai Digital. But what innovations or challenges are you most excited about for this year’s digital exhibitions?
Art Dubai’s contribution to the digital scene continues to grow from strength to strength. As well as 20 exhibitors on what visitors will recognise as traditional gallery booths, we have the second edition of our Digital Summit, which in the span of two days will bring together the artists and creative minds, shaping the digital landscape of today and tomorrow. The essence of live and/or experience is also vital to us, and visitors this year will see an expanded presence of interactive and site-specific installations at this year’s Fair. The section evolves each year as the digital landscape develops. The first year was heavy on NFTs, while the last year had a lot of robotics and VR. This year’s programme reflects the current preoccupation with AI and how it will affect and impact our lives.
How do you see the artworks engaging with the environmental, social, and political issues shaping our world today then?
Environmental concerns are also high on the artistic agenda, including Jacopo Di Cera’s impactful work, RETREAT. The installation, which focuses on one of the most imposing formations on Mont Blanc, Brenva Glacier, tells an urgent story of our current climate emergency. The piece, powered by CIFRA, a global digital art streaming platform, is intended to challenge viewers – we are physically immersed by the digital display, which has been crafted from sustainably sourced materials, and forced to reckon with the fate of our planet’s finite resources. What are we, as individuals or communities, doing to exacerbate or alleviate these issues?
This question is also posed by Ouchhh Studio. Returning to Art Dubai, Ouchhh will present a large-scale AI-driven data sculpture entitled MotherEarth, transforming raw climate data into a vivid sensory experience. Overall, the section will host a range of emerging talent and the return of industry pioneers, such as Krista Kim, who is known for her innovations in the realm of digital consciousness. Digital artworks and artists have an amazing ability to heighten our awareness and help us explore concepts that might otherwise feel impersonal or abstract. It’s exciting to know that Art Dubai’s platform encourages this level of innovation and storytelling.
Contemporary Lynx is a proud media partner of Art Dubai 2025.
Art Dubai
18-20 April 2025
