When Frieze first pitched its tent in Regent’s Park in 2003, London was creatively flourishing but still lacked a major contemporary art fair that matched the city’s international standing.
In the previous decade, the likes of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst had upended notions of what art was and could be, and young artists were reacting to their ideas – building upon them or rejecting them, often through pop-up exhibitions organised in abandoned warehouses and factories. Yet the community remained tightly knit, even insular.
Then, two events helped to consolidate London’s place in the global contemporary art conversation: the opening of Tate Modern in 2000 and the start of Frieze three years later. The former gave modern and contemporary art a major new institutional focal point in the city; the latter helped to connect galleries and artists more directly with the international market.
With the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi around the corner, there are some loose parallels to consider.
The museums in Saadiyat Cultural District have brought major international institutions and collections into conversation with artists from the UAE and wider region, while Abu Dhabi is also strengthening its position as a meeting point for the art market across West Asia, North Africa and South Asia.
“When Frieze started in London, it was about the community getting together and thinking about what that fair could be,” Dyala Nusseibeh, director of Frieze Abu Dhabi, tells The National. “Look at the impact it has had on London … on galleries, artists and arts professionals.
“It was really a transformational project and in some ways, you’ll find something similar happening here.”
Unlike in London, however, Frieze Abu Dhabi isn’t starting from scratch. October was a nondescript month in London’s art calendar before the fair rallied local galleries and institutions to host art events and exhibitions around what became known as Frieze Week.
Frieze Abu Dhabi, running from November 19 to 22 at Manarat Al Saadiyat, will take the place of Abu Dhabi Art, which had been a staple in the capital’s annual cultural calendar and was helmed by Nusseibeh. Abu Dhabi Art's swansong took place last year after 17 editions, but its spirit will be palpable at Frieze Abu Dhabi, she says.
“Abu Dhabi Art was very community-centred and was very much about serving the local and regional art communities as a platform,” says Nusseibeh.
“This is really at the heart of what's now happening with Frieze Abu Dhabi. It is thinking about what is that next step for us, in terms of global integration for our market and in terms of the distribution of knowledge which is coming out of the UAE and out of the region. There's a lot of knowledge production happening, but how [does that get] circulated and distributed globally.”
Abu Dhabi is the sixth city to join the Frieze network. Like the events taking place in New York or Seoul, the fair remains “cognisant” of the specificity of its host city.
“For example, Frieze Seoul, which just ended, was very much speaking to the arts' histories, artists and institutions in Seoul, while bringing that kind of global engagement there,” Nusseibeh says.
Initial programming details give a glimpse of what that may look like in Abu Dhabi. There are 84 galleries taking part in the inaugural event. Many of them hail from the Global South, which isn’t surprising given that this is the first Frieze fair in the region.
UAE galleries taking part include Carbon 12, Lawrie Shabibi, The Third Line, Tabari Artspace and Iris Projects. They will be joined by Saudi Arabia’s Athr and Hafez Gallery; Lebanon's Saleh Barakat Gallery, Mark Hachem and Galerie Tanit; Cairo's Gypsum and ArtTalks | Kanafani Gallery; and Tunisia's A. Gorgi Gallery, Elmarsa Gallery, Selma Feriani and Le Violon Bleu Gallery.
India will also have a significant presence through galleries including Experimenter, Galerie Isa, Jhaveri Contemporary, Nature Morte and Project 88.
Major international names including Gagosian, Pace Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac, Timothy Taylor and Vito Schnabel Gallery will also take part.
The number of participating galleries seems modest when considering that more than 140 took part in the final Abu Dhabi Art, but the selection process, Nusseibeh says, was more stringent and had to make space for the constellation of sections.
“We’ve had to cut down. The fair is a lot airier,” she says. Spaces previously allotted to gallery booths will now instead present special highlights.
Established regional names such as Ibrahim El-Salahi, Farideh Lashai, Mounirah Mosly and Samir Rafi will have solo presentations, as will international figures including Emily Kam Kngwarray, Francesco Clemente and Sheila Hicks. These will be peppered across the event, alongside group exhibitions.
“We really looked at every gallery presentation,” Nusseibeh says. “They are all very carefully conceived. We are working closely with the galleries to ensure that everyone is really thinking about what they're showing at the fair and why they're showing that particular thing. It's definitely not a sort of jumbled, soup display.”
Several aspects of the event are still under wraps, but there are hints of what to expect through the different sections. The Focus section will be dedicated to younger international galleries.
“It supports emerging galleries and artists through subsidised participation,” Nusseibeh says. “It recognises that smaller galleries with interesting programmes need that kind of support, and though they don’t have the resources of mega galleries, they have really important voices.”
Among the artists featured will be Kenyan-born, New York-based Tahir Karmali, whose textile and installation works address migration and systems of exploitation, as well as Chonon Bensho, Marigold Santos, Jawad Al Malhi, Dala Nasser and Thuy Tien Nguyen.
Another highlight will be Frieze Masters Abu Dhabi, curated by Marika Sardar. This section will present objects and artefacts from antiquity through to the early 20th century, focusing on the historic movement of people, objects and ideas across the Indian Ocean. Specialists in rare books, manuscripts and antiquities will participate, including ArtAncient, David Aaron, Daniel Crouch Rare Books, Peter Finer and Peter Harrington.
“The section looks at how trade and cultural trade shaped the cultural production of the region,” Nusseibeh says. “Very often, when you think about the region, you think about it in its present context, in the relationships it has built recently, whether economically or politically, and don’t prioritise the historic depth of these relationships. The exchange between India and the UAE, for instance, is hundreds of years old. There are important gaps in our knowledge simply because we haven’t looked at the history of these exchanges.”
In Global Futures, led by curator and writer Tarini Malik, artists from around of the world will reflect on cultural histories and ideas connected to the UAE and wider region. They include Ala Younis, Abdullah Al Saadi, Tania Candiani, Mohammed Joha, Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai and Seta Manoukian.
“Tarini has done many important, interesting projects, such as the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale,” Nusseibeh says. “She’s bringing together eight galleries that are looking at how different cultural production intersects with practices in the UAE. It is a very global outlook.”
Frieze Abu Dhabi is, in many ways, looking to build upon what its predecessor established over almost two decades. The cultural ecosystem in the capital has significantly changed in that time.
The institutions that have opened, whether entirely local or branches of international organisations, are building collections with works that represent the wider region and challenge West-centric narratives. A dedicated collector base has also emerged, including a younger generation looking for works that are relevant to them.
“Part of the journey of Abu Dhabi Art was expanding the collector base, bringing in a younger generation that had disposable income but maybe didn’t have established collections,” Nusseibeh says. “And what we’ve seen in the Middle East, although we are a small part of the global market, is we have a lot of growth in the younger demographic, especially in the Gulf, especially in the UAE. In 2025, UAE buyers accounted for just over 45 per cent of Mena buyers.”
Frieze arrives, then, at a very different point in Abu Dhabi’s cultural development from the one at which its London fair began more than two decades ago.
The question is not whether it can recreate what happened in Regent’s Park. Its more immediate challenge is to preserve the community Abu Dhabi Art spent 17 editions building while connecting it more firmly with the international market.
Whether that changes Abu Dhabi’s place in the global art world as profoundly as Frieze once helped change London’s will take years to judge.
Frieze Abu Dhabi runs from November 19 to 22 at Manarat Al Saadiyat
