Abu Dhabi is poised as a capital of culture for the region. Only this year, one of the world’s great modern masters, Pablo Picasso, found himself hanging in Emirates Palace. With the upcoming Louvre and the Guggenheim, the rumblings of a mass cultural overhaul is drawing closer.
But November sees the return of an event that compounds so much of the main objectives in these huge cultural projects. For the second year running, ArtParis-Abu Dhabi will haul the world’s artistic greats to the heart of the capital. Cezanne to Matisse, Warhol to Hirst – they’ll all be meeting under the gilded roof of Emirates Palace.
In its Gallic heartland, ArtParis is one of Europe’s largest and most lucrative art fairs. The event brings together, in the centre of Paris, the cream of France’s gallery crop. Last year saw the fair venture forth from its French base and into the UAE, altering its set-up to include a number of international galleries and ensure that the collections on show are more suited to the international platform of art that Abu Dhabi has poised itself to be.
Over three days in 2007, an incredible 9,200 art lovers and collectors perused the event. But as Laura d’Hauteville, project manager of ArtParis-Abu Dhabi, told Time Out, they’re looking to attract 15,000 in 2008. ‘The fair will host 57 art galleries, coming from 22 countries,’ she reveals. ‘Forty per cent of these galleries will be brand new ones, and our selection has come from slightly further afield this time. It has meant that when we were choosing the galleries from Paris, we could only pick the best.’
A more international streak is evident in the line-up. From 57 galleries, only 16 of those have been plucked out of Paris, and the portfolio of exhibitors has certainly taken a step up in terms of diversity. Highlights from the non-European galleries this year include Pundole Gallery, a Mumbai-based operation that places the contemporary Indian art scene at its heart. This year they’re exhibiting works by the massively successful MF Hussain, dubbed the Picasso of India. Quite a few local galleries are also on board this year, including Contempo Corporate Art from Abu Dhabi, The Third Line and B21 (established hooks in Dubai’s art scene), along with a new addition to Dubai’s art line-up, Artsawa, who showcase works from around the region with an interesting focus on North Africa.
Back on French soil in March of this year, the ArtParis organisers reserved a special pavilion to showcase the wares they’d discovered during their foray into Middle Eastern contemporary art. ‘The collectors just went crazy,’ d’Hauteville explains. ‘Nobody could imagine that Arab art would be like that, people thought it would be modern orientalist works, but they saw that it just wasn’t that at all.’
Taking local finds back to the Paris event could prove to be one of the best ways for artists in the region to break into the European collectors’ market. This commitment to getting more local operations involved, along with galleries from Tunisia (El Marsa), Syria (Atassi Gallery), Lebanon (Galerie Agial) and others, makes the event contribute some way to the spirit of what Abu Dhabi intends itself to be – a globally connected hub, bringing in and exporting culture through its living channels.
ArtParis-Abu Dubai, Emirates Palace, November 17-21. www.artparis-abudhabi.com
