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The new Art Basel Qatar fair is a chance for dealers to make inroads with wealthy residents. It’s an alluring alternative to saturated markets elsewhere.
By SCOTT REYBURN
When it comes to soft power, the tiny, but fabulously gas-rich Persian Gulf state of Qatar continues to punch above its weight. It was the unlikely, but ultimately successful, host of the 2022 soccer World Cup. Its Grand Prix has become a Formula One fixture. And this week it will premiere a new event from Art Basel, the world’s biggest, most prestigious art fair franchise.
The inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar is set to open on Tuesday in Doha, Qatar’s capital. Featuring 87 exhibitors from 31 countries and territories, the event begins with two V.I.P. preview days, with public access from Thursday through Saturday. The new fair comes as the art trade is suffering a sales slump that for some dealers, particularly in the middle and lower price segments, has lasted for more than two years. Increasingly, the industry is viewing the Persian Gulf region, with its clusters of enormously wealthy residents and expats, as an alluring alternative to the saturated markets of the United States and Europe. Abu Dhabi has become a wealth haven of choice for many billionaires, according to Bloomberg, and Dubai has recently been described by Forbes as an “international springboard” for business expansion.
“The art market in the last couple of years has been a bit slow,” said Elisabeth Lalouschek, artistic director of the London-based October Gallery, which has been a regular exhibitor at smaller fairs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but is a first-time exhibitor at any Art Basel event. “Rather than circulating around the same places with a clientele that’s getting smaller,” she added, “it makes sense to go somewhere where there’s hope of new business, new collections.”
Unlike neighbouring Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which have populations about four times the size, Doha hasn’t hosted a major art fair before. Art Dubai and Abu Dhabi Art were both founded in 2007, and the Abu Dhabi event was recently acquired by the Frieze group. It will be rebranded as Frieze Abu Dhabi in November, setting up regional competition between the two biggest international fair organizers. The auction houses are also eyeing the Gulf as a growth area. In December, Sotheby’s, which is now part-owned by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, held a glitzy “Collectors’ Week” of luxury and art sales in Abu Dhabi. And on Saturday, Sotheby’s held its second annual “Origins” auction of modern and contemporary Western and Middle Eastern art at Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, which set a new high for a Saudi artist. Unlike the top auction houses, which have set up regional offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading dealers have yet to establish galleries in the region. Spectacular one-off auction purchases, such as the world record $450.3 million given in 2017 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” haven’t, as yet, persuaded major Western dealers that there is a wider collecting base in the Gulf.
“The Middle East has always been a bit of a blind spot for us,” said the New York-based dealer David Zwirner, who will be exhibiting at Art Basel Qatar. Until now, he added, “there hasn’t been a major fair where the top galleries can congregate and bring their art to the region.” “Our hope is that we meet folks who live in that region. Dubai is right next door and a city with lots of international wealth,” Zwirner said. “We already know some great collectors in the region. We just hope there are some more.” Hugo Nathan, a co-founder of the London-based art advisers Beaumont Nathan, who will be attending Art Basel Qatar with clients, said the Gulf was now home to “a wealthy population that enjoys spending on luxury items — they’ve just been a little slower to collect art in a meaningful way. We believe this appetite is increasing.” This was a change, he said, from earlier attitudes, adding that “it used to be that collecting was seen to be something done by the state.”
Qatar, for example, has been spending big on art for over 20 years under the guidance of the ruling Emir’s sister, Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is also the chairwoman of Qatar Museums. The emirate has spent billions buying and commissioning major-name modern and contemporary artworks and building destination museums that enhance the kingdom’s cultural prestige. Qatar’s stellar acquisitions will be showcased in its new 23,000 square-meter Art Mill Museum in Doha, set to open in 2030.
Yet Qatar’s art market infrastructure is limited. There are no more than five contemporary art dealerships active in Doha, which has a population of about 1 million, according to Anas Kutit, the managing director of Al Markhiya, the oldest contemporary gallery in Qatar and the only one exhibiting at Art Basel. “We hope the fair will build a more sustainable art market in Doha,” Kutit said. “It can bring international visibility, more collectors from our region and internationally,” he added. Art Basel’s formidable V.I.P. program has been key to building interest from a global clientele of serious collectors.
“There is a huge contingent going from India to Doha,” said the Mumbai-based collector Saloni Doshi, who, along with many other international visitors, will attend the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennial in Saudi Arabia, which opened on Friday, before arriving in Qatar. Doshi said she had been impressed by Art Basel Qatar’s decision to ask galleries to present works by just one artist, who would respond to the event’s designated theme, “Becoming.” This fresh, biennial-style take on a commercial art fair has been devised by Art Basel Qatar’s artistic director, the artist Wael Shawky, who represented Egypt at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
Shireen Gandhy, the director of the Mumbai-based gallery Chemould Prescott Road, said she was pleased with the vision and said it encouraged galleries to bring art that engaged with the difficult issues of our time. “The art world needs to speak out,” said Gandhy, who is presenting a work at Art Basel Qatar by the Pakistani artist Rashid Rana consisting of C.C.T.V. images of an air raid lighting up the night sky over Gaza. Shawky said the fair would not be subject to Qatar’s strict rules curbing freedom of expression. The emirate’s laws prohibit criticizing the ruler and includes several vague provisions that human rights activists say criminalise dissent and foster a culture of self-censorship.
“Art Basel Qatar is curatorially and operationally independent, and we applied the same standards used across all Basel fairs,” Shawky said in an email. But he added that artists and exhibitors had adapted their approaches for the Qatari environment. “Every cultural context has its own social frameworks,” he said, “and artists and institutions everywhere work within these realities.” The security situation in the Gulf also creates its own set of worries. President Trump has been threatening military strikes on Iran, which, if implemented, could trigger retaliatory attacks on U.S. bases in the region. The biggest of these bases is in Qatar.
“Wherever Art Basel operates globally, the safety, security and well-being of our community is our absolute priority,” Art Basel said in a statement on Friday. “We are, of course, closely monitoring regional developments in the Gulf in coordination with our Qatari organising partners, and are proceeding with the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar as planned.”
Many exhibitors and visitors are already in the region or are on their way, and are nervously monitoring news channels. “My artist has already arrived in Qatar for the install,” said Gandhy, the Mumbai gallerist. “I don’t have a contingency plan, as such,” she added. “Being Indian, I think we are more fatalistic. We hope for the best and leave the rest to divine forces.”