Frieze opens its first art fair in the wealthy emirate of Abu Dhabi next week, amid an accelerated cultural drive in the region — as well as plenty of geopolitical uncertainty.
On the ground in Abu Dhabi, people feel safe, says Maryam Al Falasi, founder of the contemporary art gallery Iris Projects, which opened in Abu Dhabi’s MiZa cultural zone in 2024. She is something of a rarity. To date Dubai has housed most of the region’s commercial galleries, though the arrival of Frieze, plus the entrance of the auction houses, are stimulating the Abu Dhabi market, she says.
Al Falasi, who grew up in the UAE, says that the dramatic changes over the past 20 years, including in its cultural scene, are more significant to today’s artists. “Artists are looking at the impact of rapid change, especially the fast adoption of AI,” she says.
The backdrop has changed since the US-Iran war, Al Falasi concedes. “What we’ve experienced are mostly [new] sounds, so for us it’s all in our heads rather than our bodies.” This is beginning to impact contemporary art: in her current exhibition of work by the Sharjah and Abu Dhabi-based Eman Al Hashemi, who also features in Iris’s Frieze booth, is an embroidered print with motifs of fighter jets (“Protecting the Suns to the Roundabouts”, 2026).
Her booth at the Frieze fair is titled Fields after the Digital Flood, with many works looking to preserve traditions in a new world, such as Emirati artist Dhabia Al Qubaisi’s delicate “Henna from My Mother’s Hands” (2026).