Art Dubai announces list of galleries for 2021 fair: Who is taking part from the Middle East, Africa and Asia?

Owing to travel restrictions, the fair’s gallery list is predominantly from the Global South

A rendering of the Art Dubai tents that will be erected at DIFC from March 29 to April 3. Art Dubai  

Art Dubai has announced the galleries that will take part in its 2021 fair, which has been delayed, extended to six days and moved to DIFC.

Organisers have said that the bespoke structure at DIFC will allow for greater safety measures than the regular venue at the Madinat Jumeirah. The three tents installed will have better ventilation, more outdoor facilities for amenities such as information booths, and the fair will offer daily testing for all galleries and staff.

"Remote booths" – in which trained staff from Art Dubai will liaise between on-the-ground collectors and galleries abroad – will be put in place to aid galleries that are unable to travel. Out of an announced 50 galleries, six have taken up this remote option.

Because travel restrictions are mostly in place for European countries and the US, the fair’s gallery list is predominantly from the Global South – accelerating the position shift that the fair itself has attempted over the past few years, with new curated programmes meant to capitalise on Dubai’s location between East and West and historic links to Africa.

Ten Dubai galleries will be at the fair, in addition to galleries from the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Palestine), from Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and Tunisia), and from further east, in India, Vietnam and the Philippines.

These include Gallery 1957 from Accra, Ghana; Addis Fine Art from Addis Ababa and London; Experimenter from Kolkata; Sfeir-Semler Gallery from Beirut and Hamburg; Galerie Nathalie Obadia from Paris; and Mono Gallery from Riyadh, the first gallery from the Saudi Arabian capital to show at the fair.

Galleries from Dubai include Ayyam Gallery, Lawrie Shabibi, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde and The Third Line.

You can read the full list here.

Art Dubai will be held in-person from Monday, March 29 to Saturday, April 3