The art season continues across the UAE following the successful conclusion of Art Dubai 2026, with galleries and institutions across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah presenting a range of exhibitions.
Current highlights include the final weeks of Picasso, The Figure at Louvre Abu Dhabi, a focused examination of Pablo Picasso’s reinvention of the human body; and From the Perspective of Language at The Third Line, where Sara Naim brings together painting and performance to examine how meaning is constructed through language and images.
Major institutional shows and gallery exhibitions continue to take stock of artistic practice in the region through photography, landscape-led works, reflective group exhibitions and landmark solo presentations.
Here are 11 exhibitions to see now in the UAE before the summer slowdown.
1. Move, pause, return at Gallery Isabelle
Marking Gallery Isabelle’s 20th anniversary, Move, pause, return unfolds over 20 days, with one work unveiled each day in the lead-up to a full exhibition bringing the pieces together. The show features works by artists including Hassan Sharif, Bahman Jalali, Mohammed Kazem, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Bita Fayyazi, Lara Baladi, Fereydoun Ave, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Manal Al Dowayan and Jumairy.
Each work is paired with a short text by an emerging curator, independent writer or practitioner from across the region, creating a parallel layer of reflection.
Presented both in the gallery and online, the project takes shape as a gradual, cumulative exhibition, while also serving as a moment of gathering for the Dubai art community.
The original show culminates in a reception on April 11, before remaining on view through late May.
Until May 28; Dubai
2. From the Perspective of Language at The Third Line
Sara Naim’s latest exhibition brings together painting and performance to examine how meaning is constructed through language and images.
The Syrian artist, who lives in London, moves between figuration and abstraction in a series of large-scale canvases where fragments of anatomical, botanical and digital imagery are layered across softly shifting colour fields.
Alongside the paintings, the video work <i>Mother Practices Her Tongue</i> reduces speech to its physical components, with repeated sounds breaking down into gesture and noise. Across the exhibition, Naim questions the stability of both language and visual representation, suggesting that what we perceive is always partial and mediated.
Until May 31; Dubai
3. Picasso, The Figure at Louvre Abu Dhabi
The Picasso, The Figure exhibition offers a focused examination of how Pablo Picasso transformed representations of the human body in modern art.
Drawn largely from the collection of the Musee National Picasso–Paris, the exhibition traces Picasso’s engagement with the figure across seven decades, shaped by formal experimentation, political upheaval and personal experience.
It advances a central argument that Picasso remained fundamentally committed to the human figure, even when his work appeared to dismantle representation.
Rather than following a chronological structure, the exhibition is organised around recurring approaches that defined his treatment of the body, including schematisation, hybridisation, petrification and stylisation.
These themes chart the evolution of his figures from early Cubist symbols to the monumental bodies of the 1920s, the hybrid forms of Surrealism and the fractured, urgent figures of his later years.
Until May 31; Abu Dhabi
4. Reflections: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Villain Collection at Bassam Freiha Art Foundation
The exhibition draws from the private collection of Abu Dhabi-based patrons Fairouz and Jean-Paul Villain.
Organised into three sections, the show brings together modern and contemporary works from across the Arab world, encouraging connections beyond geography and chronology.
The Levant-focused opening explores themes of conflict, displacement and intimacy through artists such as Etel Adnan and Paul Guiragossian.
A North African section highlights continuity in artistic traditions, while the final section celebrates Emirati pioneers and contemporary voices, reflecting the collectors’ long-standing ties to Abu Dhabi and the local art scene.
Until May 31; Abu Dhabi
5. Of Land and Water at Kalba Ice Factory
Of Land and Water marks the first presentation of works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection in the emirate's east coast.
The exhibition presents large-scale works by nine international artists and collectives. The works ponder upon how borders sever stretches of open land and sea, dividing inhabitants and impacting their daily lives.
Until May 31; Sharjah
6. Spectra of the Beautiful Past at Bait Sheikh Saeed bin Hamad Al Qasimi
Taking place in the heritage house in Kalba, Sharjah, the exhibition brings together works by prominent Emirati artists, including Abdulrahim Salem and Najat Makki. The works on display are meant to evoke nostalgia and an appreciation for a bygone era.
The exhibition’s venue underscores its themes. The venue was built at the turn of the 20th century by Saeed bin Hamad Al Qasimi, the ruler of Kalba, and named after him.
Until May 31; Sharjah
7. Jorge Tacla: Time the destroyer is time the preserver at Sharjah Art Foundation
This major solo exhibition by Chilean artist Jorge Tacla brings together works spanning more than four decades of a practice shaped by political upheaval and questions of representation.
Tacla has worked between Santiago and New York since the early 1980s and draws on personal and historical memory, informed in part by the legacy of Chile’s 1973 coup, to examine how violence and human rights are understood and recorded.
Structured across eight chapters, the exhibition presents large-scale paintings and works on paper that reflect on the shifting nature of witnessing.
Tacla’s compositions often depict architecture and landscapes in the negative, with forms defined through absence rather than presence, foregrounding the role of perception and memory in constructing meaning.
The title, drawn from a line by TS Eliot, frames a broader inquiry into destruction and preservation, as the works consider the afterlife of traumatic events and the hierarchies that shape how suffering is remembered.
Until June 7; Sharjah
8. All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
Curated by Nada Shabout, the exhibition explores the Baghdad Modern Art Group, founded in 1951 by Jewad Selim and Shakir Hassan Al Said, and its artistic significance in mid-20th century Iraq.
Working in the aftermath of independence, these artists sought a new visual language that balanced global modernism with Iraq’s deep cultural and historical roots. The exhibition brings together key figures in this important chapter of Arab modern art and the later generations they influenced.
Until June 7; Abu Dhabi
9. Urdu Worlds at Ishara Art Foundation
Urdu Worlds is the UAE’s first contemporary art exhibition dedicated to the Urdu language.
Curated by Hammad Nasar, the exhibition stages a visual and conceptual dialogue between the late Indian-American printmaker Zarina and the Pakistani artist Ali Kazim.
Replace “It” with a specific noun (for example: “The exhibition marks the first comprehensive presentation of Kazim’s work in the Gulf and brings his practice into conversation with Zarina’s long-standing engagement with language, memory and abstraction.”) marks the first comprehensive presentation of Kazim’s work in the Gulf and brings his practice into conversation with Zarina’s long-standing engagement with language, memory and abstraction.
Although shaped by different generations and geographies, both artists draw deeply on Urdu literature and thought. Zarina frequently incorporates Urdu poetry and text into her prints, while Kazim’s paintings are informed by Urdu fiction and verse, shaping his reflections on landscape, history and everyday life.
Until June 13; Dubai
10. The UAE is Beautiful at Cultural Foundation
The UAE is Beautiful brings together the works of locally based photographers in a wide-ranging exhibition exploring the country’s landscapes, people and sense of identity.
Inspired by a quote from President Sheikh Mohamed that describes the country as “beautiful” and “a role model”, the exhibition is led by artist Khalid Al Hammadi and presents a collective portrait of the nation through themes of resilience, belonging and human connection.
Participating artists include Hamid Badr Musharbek, Ola Ibrahim Allouz, Reem Ali Abdullah, Abdulla Ibrahim Alhattawi, Yousuf Ahmed Al Qasimi, Salem Sarhan Al Sawafi, Rami Escandar Abboud, Shoaib Ahmed, Alia Sultan Al Joker, Mohammed Khaled Almessabi, Aisha Alhammadi and Noora Alhammadi.
Together, the photographs move between heritage and modernity, capturing personal and shared experiences across the Emirates.
Alongside the exhibition, visitors are invited to contribute their own photographs through a community initiative developed with Emirates Post. A dedicated postbox installed at the venue allows residents and visitors to submit images reflecting their own connection to the UAE, expanding the exhibition into a broader public archive of memory and place.
Until July 14; Abu Dhabi
11. Under the Same Sky at Rizq Art Initiative
Under the Same Sky brings together 20 artists in the UAE in an exhibition reflecting on the experience of living, observing and creating within the country. The show considers how artists from different cultural backgrounds respond to the UAE through memory, material, landscape and everyday life.
The exhibition features both Emirati artists and long-term residents whose practices have been shaped by their time in the country. Works range from Maitha Al Omaira’s cyanotypes of the ghaf tree and Shamsa Al Mansoori’s mixed-media reflections on contemporary Emirati identity, to Tala Atrouni’s explorations of Palestinian tatreez and Simrin Mehra-Agarwal’s research-driven works examining ecology in the UAE.
Rather than presenting a singular narrative, the exhibition approaches the UAE as a layered and evolving space shaped by movement, coexistence and personal histories. Many of the participating artists draw from architecture, textiles, poetry and urban transformation, creating works that reflect both rootedness and constant change.
Conceptualised by chief curator Meena Vari, the exhibition positions the UAE’s cultural landscape as one defined by convergence and exchange.
Participating artists include Adrian Scicluna, Ahmad Al Areef, Anne Marie Lacroix, Dina Nazmi Khorchid, Elham Shafaei, Farah Soltani, Hala El Abora, Karine Roche, Mouza Almheiri, Nikolay Koshelev, Nour Hage, Rabila Kidwai, Sara Al Sulaimani, Shamma Al Mazrouie, Sophiya Khwaja, Zahra Shafie and others.
Until July 31; Abu Dhabi
