The emirate’s long-running art fair returns under a new name and in partnership with Frieze

A New Name for an Established Fixture

The Gulf continues to draw attention from the international art world, and it’s just getting started. Following in its lead, 2026 has brought two leading fairs to meet it, with Art Basel Qatar and now Frieze Abu Dhabi. In the capital, this fair builds on seventeen years of Abu Dhabi Art, a cornerstone of the region’s cultural landscape and a defining moment in its calendar.

 The change follows a partnership between the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and Frieze, announced in October 2025, and it is Frieze’s first fair in the West Asia, North Africa and South Asia region. The inaugural edition brings together 84 galleries from 63 cities across 36 countries, with the main galleries section having more than 60 works, including Gagosian, Pace Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac and Victoria Miro alongside regional names such as Carbon 12, Lawrie Shabibi and The Third Line.

Three Sections, Two Curators

Alongside the main galleries, the fair introduces three sections. Focus has younger international galleries presenting experimental solo or dual exhibitions, with bursaries from Frieze supporting their presentations. Frieze Masters Abu Dhabi, curated by Marika Sardar, looks further into the past, presenting objects and artefacts from antiquity to the early twentieth century. It also takes the Indian Ocean and the movement of people, objects and ideas through trade, collecting and cultural exchange as its inaugural theme. Global Futures, led by independent curator and writer Tarini Malik, offers solo presentations by artists from different generations whose work engages with cultural histories connected to the UAE and the wider region.

The Dala Nasser Commission

At the centre of the opening programme is a new work by Lebanese artist Dala Nasser, who has also been named the first recipient of the Frieze Abu Dhabi Artist Award. Titled Qubbat Duris, the installation takes its name from a thirteenth-century monument near Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and occupies the atrium of Manarat Al Saadiyat as a timber framework draped with paintings on textile.

The textiles carry charcoal rubbings taken from the ruins and are painted with ash, raw clay and terracotta, materials that allow the work to explore memory across generations and collective responsibility towards landscapes facing destruction. Nasser has exhibited at the Sharjah Biennial, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale.

In Dialogue: Two Generations of Emirati Practice

The fair also introduces In Dialogue, a new annual exhibition that pairs an established UAE artist with an emerging one. The first edition, titled At Another Meeting Point, brings together Mohammed Kazem and Alia Zaal. Kazem works across video, photography and performance, often giving tangible form to sound and light, while Zaal works in painting and photography, drawing on archives and personal images to examine memory and perception.

The exhibition is curated by Abu Dhabi’s Dirwaza Curatorial Lab, founded by Munira Al Sayegh, together with co-curators Hessa Al Nuaimi and Dania Al Tamimi.

Sculpture at Mamsha Beach

Beyond the fair itself, Frieze Sculpture Abu Dhabi, presented by Aldar, places large-scale works at Mamsha Beach on Saadiyat Island from 16 November to 16 December, a period that begins before the fair opens and continues after it closes. Its focus is on material, ecology, place and the relationship between the natural and built environments, with works by Zeinab Alhashemi, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Imran Qureshi and Kamran Samimi, which include Alhashemi’s The Nut and Bolt, drawing on an everyday component of construction, Ibrahim’s The Form, Qureshi’s Water Bodies and Samimi’s Voyagers (Travelling Stones). The programme is free to visit.

Conversations on Museums and Curating

A three-day programme of talks accompanies the fair. On 19 November, Building the Global Museum brings Michael Govan together with Eugene Tan in a discussion moderated by Kate Fowle. On 20 November, Curating Across Knowledge Systems gathers the curators Cosmin Costinaș and Kelli Cole with Claudia Segura, head of collection at MACBA in Barcelona. Both sessions take place in the theatre at Manarat Al Saadiyat.

Planning a Visit

The fair opens with an invitation-only preview on 19 November, and public admission follows from 20 to 22 November, 2026.