Dubai: Art Dubai today reveals the first details of its 20th anniversary edition. Looking ahead to its third decade, Art Dubai stands as the pre-eminent art fair for the region, championing the artists, galleries and collectors whose ideas and practices are shaping the art world’s future. Honouring both its legacy and anticipating new futures, Art Dubai 2026 features five reconfigured sections that reflect the fair’s 20th anniversary edition framework ‘Future, Past, Present’.

Welcoming more than 100 modern, contemporary and digital presentations from over 35 countries, Art Dubai’s 2026 edition features a multidisciplinary and multicultural line-up that reflects the momentum and character of Dubai: dynamic, diverse and future-focused. Returning to Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai and taking place from 17 – 19 April (with previews on 15 and 16 April), the 2026 edition is the first under the leadership of new Fair Director Dunja Gottweis.

Art Dubai Galleries focuses on contemporary and modern practices that contribute to global discourse and globally relevant themes and is complemented by four curated sections, developed in close collaboration with leading international curators and academics: Zamaniyyat, curated by Dr. Sarah A. Rifky; Bawwaba, curated by Amal Khalaf; Art Dubai Digital, curated by Ulrich Schrauth and Nadine Khalil; and the newly introduced Bawwaba Extended, curated by Amal Khalaf and Alexie Glass-Kantor.

Rooted in Dubai and deeply connected across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, Art Dubai continues to highlight the city’s status as the region’s commercial art capital and reflects the fair’s role as an important catalyst for the region’s cultural ecosystem. The 2026 edition welcomes 36 first-time exhibitors including eight in Galleries, two in Zamaniyyat, seven in Bawwaba, and 19 in Art Dubai Digital, from Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America and the African continent, alongside notable galleries returning after hiatus from Morocco, Turkey, Jordan and India. Participation from Africa has more than doubled, and there is increased presence from Latin America, including participants from Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Grounded in the region’s unique diversity and reflecting the fair’s commitment to bridging regional practices and global contexts, over half of the 2026 participants hail from MENASA, including 25 exhibitors with physical spaces in Dubai.

In keeping with Art Dubai’s longstanding commitment to thought-leadership and professional development, the gallery programme will be accompanied by institutional collaborations and artist commissions and the most extensive talks and conference programme of any international art fair. This includes a special edition of Art Dubai’s flagship transdisciplinary summit, the Global Art Forum, reflecting Art Dubai’s role as convener and meeting point for the global art world each spring.

Dunja Gottweis, Fair Director, Art Dubai commented:
“For 20 years Art Dubai has been instrumental in shaping Dubai’s creative identity and it now stands as one of the world’s most distinctive art fairs in one of the world’s most dynamic and global cities. Culture and creativity are shaping a vibrant and enduring art scene in Dubai, supporting a global network of artists, gallerists, collectors and curators. They, in turn, are shaping a locally grounded and year-round living cultural ecosystem.
“This year’s revamped gallery sections and Future, Past, Present framework continues our commitment to this region’s unique historical context, to ultra contemporary and evolving practices, as well as to innovative and future-facing approaches. Dubai is the long-established centre of the region’s expanding art market, and the range and quality of applications we received for next year’s 20th anniversary edition fully reflects the excitement, opportunity and positive energy of the current moment. We are particularly pleased to welcome to welcome so many first-time participants to the Art Dubai family.”

Art Dubai is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The fair is held in partnership with A.R.M. Holding. It is sponsored by Swiss Wealth Manager Julius Baer. Art Dubai’s exclusive Watch and Jewellery partner is Piaget. Culturally driven lifestyle developer HUNA is a partner of Art Dubai. The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is the strategic partner of Art Dubai and Art Dubai Digital. Madinat Jumeirah is the home of Art Dubai.

Further details of Art Dubai’s 20th anniversary programme will be announced in January 2026. A full list of confirmed Art Dubai participants can be found here.

ART DUBAI GALLERIES 2026: 

Spanning a range of contemporary and modern practices, Art Dubai Galleries spotlights exhibitors whose programmes set benchmarks for creativity, curatorial excellence, and cultural dialogue. This year’s line-up reflects Art Dubai’s commitment to bridging regional practices with global contexts and the continued strengthening of Dubai as the centre of the region’s art market. The increasing presence of Dubai-based exhibitors reflects Art Dubai’s strong roots in the UAE and role of the fair in supporting and nurturing the local cultural ecosystem.

Notable first-time exhibitors include: Galerie Frank Elbaz (France), ChertLüdde (Germany), Labor (Mexico), and Galerie Peter Kilchmann (Switzerland) and several significant galleries return after hiatus including: Selma Feriani Gallery (Tunisia), Gajah Gallery (Singapore), Ab-Anbar Gallery (London), Loft Art Gallery (Morocco), and Galerie Atiss Dakar (Senegal) who are presenting a joint booth with first-time-exhibitor Space Un (Japan).

ZAMANIYYAT 2026: 

Zamaniyyat (from zaman, the Arabic word for ‘time’), features solo and group presentations that revisit the work of artists who shaped and reshaped modernisms globally throughout the 20th century and into the present. Curated by Dr. Sarah A. Rifky, Zamaniyyat 2026 traces modernism’s movement through art schools, publications, and institutions showing how it unfolded across uneven global histories rather than a single shared timeline.

Focusing on practices from the 1950s to the 1990s, Zamaniyyat brings together 11 galleries and 45 artists from over 20 countries. Highlights include Gallery One (Palestine), exploring a Cairo-schooled Palestinian lineage; AA Gallery (Morocco), presenting two generations shaped by the Casablanca Art School; Dhoomimal Gallery (India), with a retrospective of Bimal DasGupta, one of India’s early abstractionists; Agial Art Gallery (Lebanon), mapping the 1960s-70s development of abstraction across Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad; Art Exposure (India), charting the evolution of Bengal modernism from the 1960s–90s; Zamalek Art Gallery (Egypt), offering a five-decade arc of Gazbia Sirry (1925-2021); Richard Saltoun Gallery (UK), exploring exilic modernism across North Africa and the Levant; and Galerie Mueller (Switzerland), offering a transnational survey of postwar abstraction from Switzerland, Germany, the U.S, and Japan.

BAWWABA 2026: 

Bawwaba is a portal for discovery, dedicated to solo presentations of newly produced works by emerging to mid-career artists. Curated by Amal Khalaf, Bawwaba 2026 champions artists who experiment across media, engage deeply with research, or work through the interwoven textures of diasporic experience, reflecting the city of Dubai as a site of convergence, dialogue and exchange. In a moment of contraction in global art markets, Bawwaba proposes an alternate approach focusing on long-term relationships and collective ways of working.

Bawwaba 2026 galleries reveal shared concerns around belonging, movement, resilience, and the production of knowledge. The galleries invited, both returning and newly introduced, have built ecosystems that sustain experimentation even when conditions are uncertain. This relational approach underscores Bawwaba’s belief in artistic experimentation that grows out of interconnectedness, not isolation.

Highlights include solo presentations by Senegalese artist Arébénor Basséne (Selebe Yoon, Senegal), Nahla Tabbaa (Wadi Finan, Jordan), Katia Kameli (Traits Libres, France), Mohammed Al Hawajri (Iyad Qanazea Gallery, UAE), and Adrian Pepe (Solo Gallery, Romania).

For the first time, all Bawwaba galleries will benefit from the Bawwaba Gallery Support Programme, a new initiative designed to encourage sustainable growth for young galleries looking to establish themselves in the region’s art market. Developed with the aim of encouraging new models of art fair participation and shared risk, participants pay 50% of the booth fee in advance, with the remainder contingent on fair sales.

ART DUBAI DIGITAL 2026: 

Art Dubai Digital is a one-of-a-kind section that champions new models for market development in digital art, supporting practices that often exist outside traditional frameworks, offering a space to rethink how digital practices intersect with the art market and broader cultural production. Now in its fifth year, it features presentations by galleries, independent artists, studios, and collectives, foregrounding installation-led and multi-sensory practices.

Set against a backdrop of a cultural landscape increasingly shaped by technology, this year’s edition offers an expanded curatorial framework that bridges immersive technology with experimental art practices, placing digital art at the heart of urgent cultural and societal conversations. Curated by Ulrich Schrauth and Nadine Khalil, Art Dubai Digital 2026 is titled ‘Myth of the Digital’ and affirms that digital and immersive art is not a marginal or future-oriented genre, but a vital, present force in contemporary discourse.

Art Dubai Digital 2026 brings together international and regional voices with highlights featuring globally recognised artists including Six N Five (Plan X, Italy), Marina Abramović (Nature Morte, India & Taex, UK), Rachel Rossin (Albion Jeune, UK), Morehshin Allahyari (Gazelli Art House, UK and Azerbaijan), and Daniel Iregui (Iregular, Canada), alongside emerging voices including Ecem Dilan Köse (Art On Istanbul, Turkey), Sulaiman Al Salem (Iris Projects, UAE), Sara Niroobakhsh (Next Chapter by IRIS Contemporary Space, Iran), Fatma Lootah (Rarares, UAE), and Solienne (Automata, USA).

BAWWABA EXTENDED: 

The gallery programme is accompanied by a newly created platform for immersive installations – Bawwaba Extended. A new initiative open to galleries regardless of participation in the fair, Bawwaba Extended will bring forward ideas that might not fit in the conventional format, creating space to support expanded ways of working and connect directly with the city, the site and the public. The platform is curated by Amal Khalaf and Alexie Glass-Kantor and inspired by the concept of thresholds, showcasing large-scale public artworks that transform the Madinat Jumeirah campus into a dynamic site of encounter and experimentation. Full details of the inaugural edition of Bawwaba Extended will be announced in January 2026.