People & Lifestyle

Gulf’s art race heats up as Art Basel lands in Doha

May 23, 2025, 2:38 PM

Art Basel heads to Doha, Qatar, marking a significant shift in the global art market and cementing the Gulf's rising influence

Global art heads east
Doha wins Art Basel
Qatar’s cultural coup

For months speculation has been swirling as to where Art Basel, the world’s largest organiser of art fairs, would pick as its next new international location for its fairs.

After starting in the Swiss border town of Basel of 1970, and then expanding to Miami, Hong Kong and Paris, the oil producing Gulf was seen as an attractive region to tap. Dubai’s name was high up on the list.

There were also suggestions that the Swiss organisers were keen to link up with the organisers of the Abu Dhabi Art annual fair, now in its 18th year.

This last week, however, the wait was over and it was confirmed that the fair’s next international location would be the Qatari capital, Doha. The inaugural edition in the Gulf Arab oil and gas producer, and former World Cup host, would be February next year.

The announcement comes at a time when the global art market has been shrinking for the last two years. Sales fell to less than $60 billion last year, down 12 percent year on year, according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2025.

As the market slides, art fair organisers are keen to turn their eyes to new markets. Art Basel’s new location in – consistently among – one of the world’s five-richest countries is the latest sign of a shift towards the Gulf states.

This first edition in Qatar will present a selection of 50 participating galleries, “smaller than other current Art Basel fairs,” said Noah Horowitz, CEO of Art Basel, but presenting a mix of both international and regional galleries from the Middle East and North Africa.

It will be staged in the capital’s M7 creative hub and the Doha Design District, close to the National Museum of Qatar.

Among the Gulf Arab states, Qatar was arguably one of the first to invest in international contemporary art at scale.

Driven by Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the sister of the present emir, the state-backed Qatar Museums entity has started several museums and cultural initiatives since 2005.

Though later comers, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are now at the centre of the art market in the region. Art Dubai, first known as the Gulf Art Fair, was in 2007 the first such fair in the city. The UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, is home to Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the upcoming Guggenheim and Zayed National Museum.

Saudi Arabia, a new player to the region’s art scene, does not have a fair yet but could have one soon. Its inaugural Riyadh Art Week in April functioned very much like a commercial art fair.

But the regional centre of gravity could shift a little with Art Basel in Doha.

“The art scene across the Mena region has undergone exponential growth in recent decades, and we believe there is huge potential to continue to grow the regional art ecosystem,” Horowitz said.

Outside its Swiss home town, Art Basel has organised an annual fair in Miami since 2002, Hong Kong since 2013 and Paris in 2022.

There are plans for the new Qatar fair to go beyond just booths selling art.

Art Basel will form partnerships with Qatar Sports Investments and QC+, a strategic enterprises wing of Qatar Museums, which, Horowitz said aims to “unlock new opportunities for Art Basel beyond the operation of an art fair.”

“Qatar has been successful in building and maintaining a robust and dynamic art infrastructure and ecology that has been growing systematically,” said Dr. Nada Shabout, Regents professor of art history, University of North Texas.

“Art Basel will allow it to activate its progress on a wider scale and provide further exposure to the rest of the world to experience it,” said Shahbout. “In many ways what is happening in each of the Gulf states contributes to a more diverse and complementary regional art scene.”

An art fair is something Qatar has lacked for a long time, said Lebanese-American collector Basel Dalloul, founder of the Dalloul Art Foundation.

“For the past year and a half, we have heard rumours of Art Basel going to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, but no one saw the clever Qataris going after the most venerable name in art fairs,” he said.

“The introduction of Art Basel Doha will force both [Dubai and Abu Dhabi] to keep upping their game, which is good for the art market.”