On Wednesday, Art Dubai released information about its upcoming schedule, which runs from March 3 to 5. The event’s role as a meeting place for creative communities and industries from the Global South was highlighted.
According to Benedetta Ghione, executive director of Art Dubai, the occasion has always sought to “reframe what an art show can be” while offering “amazing” changes to the region’s young artists and creatives.
“This year’s expanded program reflects our role as a meeting point for the region’s creative industries, both commercial and not-for-profit,” Ghione continues. “As an innovative public-private partnership, we have been an incubator of talent, a catalyst for the creative economy here in Dubai, a convener of great minds, and an entry point to this vibrant ecosystem for outsiders.
We play a role that is more than an art fair because we are an institution in our own right, and we want to be the occasion that brings all the essential players together, says Ghione to The National. Partnerships and collaboration have always been central to Art Dubai’s activity.
“At the core of what we do is working with our colleagues and friends in Dubai, but we also want to reflect our broader role as a convener of great minds and thinkers across the Global South, which is why we have partnered with some of the major South Asian organizations on our commissions program for the upcoming fair.”
Several new site-specific commissions and world premieres by well-known international artists will be included in Art Dubai 2023. Alongside this, there is a conference, a series of talks, and an instructional program to assist the growth of Dubai’s cultural infrastructure.
Refik Anadol will also unveil his newest commission as part of an initiative from Art Dubai’s partner, Swiss wealth management company Julius Baer, to examine interdisciplinary trends in the arts, science, and technology. Refik Anadol’s work focuses on the aesthetics of data and artificial intelligence.
UAE First Immersion, a display of recent works from a group of digital artists, will also be unveiled at Art Dubai. These works were produced following a visit to the UAE in November. UAE First Immersion forms part of an enlarged second edition of Art Dubai Digital, which also includes cooperation with organizations pioneering new institutional structures, such as the Lian Foundation and the Open Metaverse project from NFT collector Punk6529.
As part of the celebration, Campus Art Dubai, Art Dubai’s professional development program, will celebrate its tenth anniversary and extend to offer placements with regional partners like Alserkal Avenue and Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai and Warehouse421 in Abu Dhabi. A fresh group show organized by artist and scholar Dania Al Tamimi will also be featured during the fair.
According to Ghione, the fair has also been paying attention to what visitors desire in the wake of the pandemic. “We have expanded our thought leadership programming this year to include a two-day edition of the Global Art Forum, our flagship talks program, and in addition, we will also be hosting the first Dubai edition of Christie’s Art+Tech summit because there is a genuine desire to bring people together in both the general public and the art world.”
Pablo del Val, the fair’s artistic director, claims that the program features one of its strongest gallery lineups. He adds that the expanded commissioning and thought leadership programs “highlight the breadth of discourse that is happening here and offer a glimpse into the past, present, and future of this important region.”
Del Val continues, “As the landscape of international art fairs changes, Art Dubai continues to play a significant role in highlighting and assisting the cultural ecosystems of the Global South, and the program this year completely represents this region’s increasing importance, vitality, and vibrancy.”