By Katya Marletta
From 19 to 22 November 2026, Frieze arrives in Abu Dhabi for its inaugural edition, bringing more than 80 galleries from 36 countries and regions to Manarat Al Saadiyat — and placing artists, dialogue and the Gulf’s cultural environment at the heart of its programme.
Frieze Abu Dhabi arrives this November as another pearl in a cultural strand the UAE capital has been shaping for years. Abu Dhabi is playing an increasingly prominent role in the international conversation around art, with Saadiyat Island as one of its most compelling settings. The Louvre Abu Dhabi, with Jean Nouvel’s unmistakable dome and a collection conceived through cultures and centuries, has already given the island a powerful artistic identity. On 11 December 2026, just weeks after Frieze, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will open its doors, adding another major institution dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Around these museums, exhibitions, commissions, galleries, collectors and artists continue to strengthen the capital’s presence on the international art scene. Frieze Abu Dhabi also carries forward an important legacy. The new fair evolves from Abu Dhabi Art, which over 17 years helped foster relationships between artists, galleries, collectors and institutions across the region. Its transition into Frieze Abu Dhabi brings that experience into a wider international network while retaining a strong connection to the artistic community from which it emerged.
The inaugural edition will take place from 19 to 22 November 2026 at Manarat Al Saadiyat. Beyond its scale, the fair’s character comes from its commitment to engaging closely with the region’s artistic histories and contemporary methods, bringing together different generations and geographies. Memory, material and landscape recur throughout the programme: traces of place become part of artworks, images are reconsidered through time, and sculpture moves beyond the fair to encounter the sea.
At the centre of the programme is Dala Nasser, recipient of the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi Artist Award. Selected by curator and art historian Nabila Abdel Nabi, Nasser will create Qubbat Duris for the atrium of Manarat Al Saadiyat. The work draws on a 13th-century monument near Baalbek, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where fragments of Roman limestone sarcophagi rest on granite columns dating from earlier centuries. Rather than reconstructing the monument, Nasser works through the traces it holds. A timber structure evokes its form, while paintings on textile incorporate charcoal rubbings from the ruins alongside ash, raw clay, and terracotta. The landscape isn’t just represented; it physically enters the work. Qubbat Duris reflects on the ways materials and places can carry history and preserve its traces across generations.
Another key element of the programme is In Dialogue, a new annual exhibition pairing an established UAE artist with an emerging voice. For its first edition, curator Munira Al Sayegh and Dirwaza Curatorial Lab, alongside Hessa Al Nuaimi and Dania Al Tamimi, bring together Mohammed Kazem and Alia Zaal in At Another Meeting Point. The generational exchange is only one aspect of the encounter. Kazem, an important figure in the development of conceptual art in the Emirates, often works with elements that are difficult to capture — sound, light, movement and orientation. Zaal moves between painting and photography, frequently returning to archival or personal images to explore what they reveal, conceal or retain over time. Their practices meet through questions of perception and experience, despite emerging from different moments in the UAE’s artistic history.
Frieze Abu Dhabi will also span beyond Manarat Al Saadiyat. From 16 November to 16 December, Frieze Sculpture Abu Dhabi will unfold at Mamsha Beach, with works by Zeinab Alhashemi, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Imran Qureshi and Kamran Samimi entering the public realm.
Mamsha Beach offers the sculptures a different setting, opening them to changing light, architecture, sea and everyday life. Visitors may seek out the works or encounter them while walking along the shore, allowing art to become part of the place’s rhythm. Zeinab Alhashemi’s The Nut and Bolt transforms an ordinary component of urban construction through a dramatic shift in scale. Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim’s The Form expresses a practice intimately connected to Khorfakkan’s landscape, while Kamran Samimi’s Voyagers (Travelling Stones), made from green basalt, brings an almost geological sense of time. Together, the works create a journey between natural and constructed forms, the urban environment and the coastline.
The talks programme will bring together artists, curators, museum leaders and patrons. Announced sessions include Building the Global Museum, with Michael Govan and Eugene Tan, and Curating Across Knowledge Systems, with Cosmin Costinaș, Kelli Cole and Claudia Segura. These subjects resonate particularly in Abu Dhabi. Questions about how museums are built, how collections take shape, and how artistic knowledge travels across regions are already part of the wider cultural conversation unfolding on Saadiyat Island.
Frieze Abu Dhabi arrives at a remarkable moment for the city’s art scene, entering a dynamic network of institutions, galleries, collectors and creative voices while drawing on almost two decades of initiatives established by Abu Dhabi Art. It brings the energy of the international art market and, above all, the encounters and exchanges a major fair can generate.
Dala Nasser brings traces of a Lebanese landscape inside the heart of Manarat Al Saadiyat. Mohammed Kazem and Alia Zaal connect two moments in the artistic history of the Emirates. At Mamsha Beach, sculpture meets architecture, shoreline and everyday life. Together, these elements are already giving Frieze Abu Dhabi a character of its own.
With Abu Dhabi, Frieze’s international geography expands further. The city joins a network that includes London — home to Frieze London and Frieze Masters — New York, Los Angeles, Seoul and Chicago, each fair inevitably defined by the artistic community and cultural context in which it takes place. Abu Dhabi adds to that constellation a perspective rooted in the Gulf and in a region whose presence within international contemporary art continues to grow. Perhaps Frieze is another pearl in Abu Dhabi’s cultural strand — bringing new encounters, ideas and connections while, in turn, taking on something of the place in which it has arrived. November will offer the first glimpse of the character this new Frieze will make its own.