By late November, the art world had another reason to look towards Abu Dhabi. The 17th edition of Abu Dhabi Art brought 142 galleries from 34 countries to Manarat Al Saadiyat, 53 of them exhibiting at the fair for the first time. The numbers show its reach. The story sat around them: artists from the Gulf and far beyond, commissions that left the fair hall for the desert and the oasis, and a cultural district still taking shape on Saadiyat Island. Held from 19 to 23 November 2025 and organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, the fair brought together modern and contemporary galleries, collectors, curators and artists. Manarat Al Saadiyat sits within the Saadiyat Cultural District, alongside Louvre Abu Dhabi, where museums, public art and new institutions are changing the way visitors meet the city.
A FAIR WITH A WIDER REACH Abu Dhabi Art began in 2007 at Emirates Palace under the name ArtParis Abu Dhabi, and took its present name in 2009. Since then it has grown well beyond an annual sales event, with exhibitions, commissions, talks, performances and public programmes that run through much of the year. The 2025 line-up mixed returning international names — Pace, Mennour, Richard Saltoun Gallery and Hanart TZ Gallery among them — with houses such as Almine Rech and Perrotin, and specialists in rare books, maps and antiques. Aldar Hall gathered galleries from the Gulf and the wider West Asia and North Africa region. The curated sections gave the week its shape. A Nigeria Spotlight presented seven galleries under the Nigeria Everywhere initiative, in partnership with the country's ministry of art and culture. Modern Türkiye, curated by Doris Benhalegua Karako, brought works by artists including Fahrelnissa Zeid and Burhan Doğançay. A Gulf focus showed Khaleeji artists such as Hassan Sharif and Mohammed Kazem, and a Collectors' Salon curated by Roxane Zand rounded out the programme. For galleries, the fair opens a market shaped by Gulf collectors, international visitors and the cultural investment under way across the UAE. As at every serious fair, the real business happened in the conversations around the booths.
ARTISTS IN THE LANDSCAPE The most distinctive part of Abu Dhabi Art is the work presented away from the gallery booths. Its Beyond Emerging Artists programme commissions young artists to make new work, and in 2025 it was curated and mentored by the Syrian-born artist Issam Kourbaj. Three artists responded to Al Ain, the oasis city and UNESCO World Heritage site east of the capital. Salmah Almansoori placed her work in Al Ain Oasis, reflecting on disappearing spaces and memory. Alla Abdunabi, who explores the afterlives of objects, worked at Al Jahili Fort. Maktoum Al Maktoum, who builds symbolic worlds around belief and the human psyche, took Jebel Hafit, the mountain that rises above the city. The programme treated Al Ain as a real place and a metaphor at once, a landscape where memory lives in earth, water and plants. The works were shown at Aleph Hall during the fair, and the Al Ain commissions remain on view until 26 April 2026, which makes them one of the season's better reasons to drive inland. This is how Abu Dhabi is building a cultural identity of its own. The museums bring international collections to the region. The commissions keep local artists at the centre of the conversation.
SAADIYAT AS A CULTURAL DESTINATION Manarat Al Saadiyat works as an exhibition venue and as a gateway to the wider district, where a visitor can build a day around museums, public spaces and the waterfront. Louvre Abu Dhabi remains the defining presence. Stand beneath Jean Nouvel's dome at midday and the sun falls through it in thousands of small beams, a rain of light moving slowly across the stone and the water below. Its collection sets works from different periods and regions side by side, showing how objects, ideas and techniques have travelled between cultures. The dome is 180 metres across, built from 7,850 "stars" in eight layers. The museum opened in November 2017, and eight years on it is no longer alone.
A DISTRICT COMING OF AGE The fair landed in the busiest season Saadiyat has known. The Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, designed by Mecanoo, opened on 22 November, in the middle of fair week. Its 35,000 square metres cover 13.8 billion years, from the Murchison Meteorite to Stan, a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, and a 25-metre blue whale. Eleven days later, on 3 December, came the Zayed National Museum by Foster + Partners, its roof shaped like a falcon's wings. Its six galleries hold more than 3,000 objects, among them a stone tool found in Al Ain that is some 300,000 years old. Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, with its cluster of cones and a collection focused on modern and contemporary art from West Asia, North Africa and South Asia, is still to come. Take it slowly: a morning at a museum, an afternoon at the fair, dinner on Saadiyat. During fair week, plan the route between venues before you set out.
A CITY WORTH RETURNING TO The Gulf's art market has drawn growing international attention, and Abu Dhabi's model is distinct: museums and public investment on one side, an annual fair connecting local artists to international galleries on the other. The two have grown up side by side. Established international galleries bring recognition and market experience. Galleries from the region bring artists still unfamiliar to collectors in Europe, Asia and the United States. The best meetings happen where those worlds overlap. The fair's numbers are a snapshot. The real measure comes later: which artists find new audiences, which galleries come back, which works enter collections. For the traveller, the best visit takes in both halves: the fair's concentrated view of the market, and the museums and desert commissions that explain the place around it. The Al Ain works stay on view until 26 April 2026. The fair was one week of the story. Saadiyat Island is where it keeps being written.