Application deadline: September 12, 2015
Art Dubai invites galleries to apply for its tenth edition (March 16–19, 2016). Art Dubai is known as a particularly innovative fair, and one that takes a truly global approach to today’s art world. The leading international fair in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, Art Dubai places an emphasis on maintaining an intimate, human scale while foregrounding quality and diversity. Selected galleries range from world-renowned dealers to upcoming artspaces.
Art Dubai has a particularly close relationship with its galleries: the artists they represent, and the works they select, reconfirm year-on-year the fair’s role as a site of discovery and diversity.
Art Dubai 2015, the largest and most international edition to date, welcomed 92 participating galleries from 40 countries, 400 leading museum directors and institutional curators, and featured the work of more than 500 artists. Galleries reported healthy sales to local, regional and international collectors and institutions.
Art Dubai features three gallery programmes—Contemporary, Modern and Marker:
Galleries will be selected to participate in the largest of the fair’s gallery programmes, Art Dubai Contemporary, via a proposal and selection process. Artists presented in the Contemporary halls range from emerging and upcoming practitioners from lesser-known art capitals to household names. The works they present cover all artistic media—including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance.
Applications are accepted from galleries working in the primary market, established for at least two years, and will be reviewed by Art Dubai’s Selection Committee, comprised of gallerists and guest curators. The Committee discusses each application, basing their final selection on the submitted proposal, curatorial strength of the gallery exhibition programme and congruity with Art Dubai’s identity. Art Dubai is a global fair with its roots in the Middle East. The fair aims to foreground a gallery system that is rigorous and highly supportive of artists and innovative projects.
Art Dubai Modern is the only programme, worldwide, devoted to masters from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, presented by regionally and internationally based galleries. Each exhibitor curates a solo or two-person show featuring works created up until the year 2000.
Galleries are invited to submit proposals now for booth exhibitions at Art Dubai Modern 2016, focusing on artists whose work has proven highly influential during the 20th century and on later generations of artists; galleries are encouraged to focus on a particular period or thematic within an artist’s practice.
Proposals are then reviewed by a curatorial committee, made up of renowned curators and historians with a particular interest in modernist practices of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Marker is a curated programme within the Contemporary halls, focusing each year on a particular theme or geography. By invitation only, the theme and curator for Marker 2016 will be announced shortly.
The application form is available here.
For further information, email Bettina Klein and Lea Chikhani from the exhibitions team.
About Art Dubai 2016
The tenth edition of Art Dubai runs March 16–19, 2016.
Art Dubai is held in partnership with The Abraaj Group and is sponsored by Emaar and Julius Baer. Madinat Jumeirah is home to the event. Mashreq Private Banking is the exclusive partner of Art Dubai Modern.
The Dubai Culture and Arts Authority is a strategic partner of Art Dubai, and supports the fair’s year-round education programme.
Art Dubai’s extensive not-for-profit programme includes Art Dubai Projects; an exhibition of works by winners of the annual The Abraaj Group Art Prize; a range of educational programmes including The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program and the community school Campus Art Dubai; and the critically acclaimed Global Art Forum.
