Art Dubai, the leading international art fair for the Middle East, announces the full programme taking place at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, from 3rd to 5th march 2023.
What sets this year’s fair apart is that it was developed in collaboration with a wide range of local and international cultural partners to be the most extensive and ambitious programme to date, celebrating Art Dubai’s growing importance as the meeting point for the Global South’s creative communities.
Art Dubai 2023’s edition will feature over 130 presentations from more than 40 countries and six continents and will include more than 30 first-time participants.
Further highlights of the 2023 programme include artwork premières by some of the art world’s most exciting names and a series of 10 newly commissioned performance works by artists from across South Asia.
The new site-specific works are produced in partnership with Art Dubai’s galleries and several leading South Asian cultural organisations.
Continuing the fair’s long-standing commitments to dialogue, diverse voices and development of Dubai’s cultural infrastructure, the 2023 programme will feature more than 50 sessions in an ambitious daily conference, talks and education programme. Highlights include the 16th edition of Art Dubai’s flagship Global Art Forum, the first Dubai edition of Christie’s Art+Tech summit, a series of Modern and Collector talks developed in partnership with Dubai Collection, and a new event in partnership with the Art Business Conference, focusing on sustainability.
Art Dubai is held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The fair is sponsored by Swiss Wealth Management Group Julius Baer. The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is the fair’s strategic partner. Madinat Jumeirah is the home of Art Dubai.
Art Dubai’s Executive Director Benedetta Ghione pointed out that this year’s expanded programme fully reflects their essential role as a meeting point for the region’s creative industries, both commercial and not-for-profit. She stresses that the fair is an incubator of talent, a catalyst for the creative economy in Dubai, a convener of great minds, and an entry point to this vibrant ecosystem for the wider cultural sector.”
Art Dubai’s Artistic Director, Pablo del Val, commented that Art Dubai continues to play an important role profiling and supporting the cultural ecosystems of the Global South and the programme this year fully reflects this region’s growing importance, energy and vibrancy. It also highlights the breadth of discourse that is happening and offers a glimpse into the past, present and future of this important region.”
Not-for-profit Programming
At the centre of the fair’s not-for-profit programme is Art Dubai Commissions, a platform that invites artists to produce site-specific works at the fair, supporting artistic production by local and international artists.
Taking place in a purpose-built space, the 2023 Commissions programme will comprise daily performances and food-based experiences that will explore themes of community, celebration, hope, and connection. Featured artists will include Prajakta Potnis, Rathin Barman, Gunjan Kumar, Anoli Perera and, Tayeba Begum Lipi, + other five. The programme is developed in close collaboration with several of Art Dubai’s exhibiting galleries and leading institutions that are playing a key role in supporting artists and artistic production in South Asia. Partners on this ambitious project include Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation in collaboration with Britto Arts Trust, Ishara Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Kochi-Muziris Biennale and Samdani Art Foundation.
The expanded 2023 edition of Art Dubai Digital welcomes a selection of participants with innovative new media programmes, a range of digital platforms building virtual art spaces alongside artist collectives, new institutional models and more traditional bricks and mortar galleries.
Conferences and Entrepreneurship Program
Each year, Art Dubai invites leading artists, curators, technologists and thinkers to the city to exchange ideas, and this year’s programme will expand significantly to include more than 50 sessions across the five days of the fair.
Art Dubai’s celebrated transdisciplinary conference Global Art Forum, commissioned by Shumon Basar, will explore the theme “Predicting the Present” and consider the central question: if it’s the end of history and the end of the future, what happens next? Speakers will include Lukas Amacher, Head of Art, Dialectic and 1of1 works; Sumayya Vally, Principle of Counterspace, Architect of the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion and Curator of the 1st Islamic Biennale in Jeddah; and Chiara Costa, Head of Programmes at Fondazione Prada.
Sessions will focus on emerging trends in both traditional and digital collecting across the region and what it means to be an arts patron in a place that is developing and implementing new institutional models.
Accompanying Art Dubai’s Modern section will be a series of Modern Talks that will invite guest speakers to explore topics of 20th Century artists and art forms from the Middle East and North Africa, hold critical discussions on current trends in collecting across the region and the decolonisation of our art-historical canon.
Art Dubai Week
Sikka Art and Design Festival, a highlight of Dubai Art Season, returns to Al Fahidi for its 11th edition and at galleries across the city, there will be a range of solo exhibition highlights, including Hayv Kahraman at The Third Line, Chafa Ghaddar at Tabari Artspace, Amba Sayal-Bennett at Carbon.12. Sadik Kwaish Alfraji at Ayyam Gallery, Daniel Buren at Gallery Continua.
The Art season begins early in Sharjah this year with the highly anticipated 15th edition of the Sharjah Biennial. Thinking Historically in the present, conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor, the biennial includes over 300 works by 150 artists and collectives installed in 5 cities.
In Abu Dhabi, the Louvre Abu Dhabi puts Bollywood centre stage with their latest exhibition in partnership with the Musée du quai Branly. Maya Allison curates an exhibition at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery.
For any inquiries, please contact
+971 4 366 8888
www.artdubai.ae/
info@artdubai.ae
