Abu Dhabi Art announces dates and visual campaign artist for this year's fair

Abu Dhabi Art will return to Manarat Al Saadiyat in November for its 17th year

The annual fair, which is organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, will take place between November 19 and 23. The event is a staple in the emirate's cultural calendar. Last year, more than 100 galleries from around the world took part.

DCT – Abu Dhabi has also named the visual campaign artist for this year’s Abu Dhabi Art. Shaikha Al Mazrou will define the fair’s visual identity and her work will inform its marketing campaign.

The Emirati artist is a notable figure in the country’s contemporary art scene. Her sculptural works are often large and use painted metal to explore form, space and abstraction. Her 2022 work Red Stack, for example, was displayed in Regent’s Park as part of London's contemporary art fair Frieze. Eight large cushions, cast in metal, were piled several metres into the sky. Between the pillowy forms of the cushions and the rigidity of the cast metal, the structure appears hard yet soft at the same time.

“Shaikha participated in our 2017 edition of Abu Dhabi Art as a Beyond Emerging Artist and we are thrilled to see the progression in her work at this stage in her career,” Dyala Nusseibeh, director Abu Dhabi Art, said.

“Shaikha has become one of the most successful artists of her generation in the UAE. The series we have chosen to work with for the visual campaign and visual feel of the fair offers an exploration of materiality and a repurposing of discarded matter from fabrication sites in the UAE.”

Al Mazrou's 2023 work Beyond All Measures will be among the highlights at the fair. The artwork, using oxidised brass, depicts the horizon while exploring its symbolism as a threshold and point of transformation.

“Like the material itself, which is inherently unstable, its colours forged by heat and oxygen, Beyond All Measures metaphorically invites us to explore new ways of perceiving the world around us and to question our position in it,” Nusseibeh said.

Al Mazrou, who is represented by Lawrie Shabibi Gallery in Dubai, has works in several major collections around the world, including the RMZ Foundation, Art Jameel and The Farjam Foundation. In 2022, she won the prestigious Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize and was shortlisted for the Louvre Abu Dhabi Richard Mille Art Prize. Al Mazrou is also an assistant arts professor of visual arts at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi Art is also accepting gallery applications for its 2025 fair. The deadline to apply is April 30.