The UAE Art Exhibitions to Know This Autumn

The art season is back. As temperatures drop, galleries and cultural spaces across the UAE are filling their calendars with new exhibitions, while Abu Dhabi prepares for the arrival of Frieze this November. From Alserkal Avenue's packed autumn programme to artist-led projects and major institutional exhibitions, these are the UAE shows to know this season.

Dubai

Alserkal Avenue: 19 new exhibitions

Alserkal Avenue opens the 2026–27 art season with 19 exhibitions across 16 galleries and art spaces. Highlights include Rana Begum's Taking Form at The Third Line, featuring new works in textile, wood and paper; Bernar Venet's Sculptures, Furniture and Works on Paper at Waddington Custot; and The sky held it, the earth remembered at Ishara Art Foundation, a group exhibition exploring land, water and the cosmos as living archives.

Elsewhere, Emirati artists Azza Al Qubaisi and Karima Al Shomely present new work at Leila Heller Gallery, while Efie Gallery hosts Maggie Otieno's first solo exhibition, featuring sculptures made from reclaimed railway sleepers.

Where: Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz, Dubai

When: Most exhibitions run until late October or November, with selected shows continuing into December.

Kutubna Cultural Center: A Way Through: Archive of Resilience

Kutubna Cultural Center presents A Way Through: Archive of Resilience, an exhibition emerging from its oral-history initiative Documenting Culture in the Gulf in a Time of War. Curated by Nora Qudah, the exhibition asks how this period will be remembered and who will tell the stories of those who lived through it.

More than 40 artists and contributors from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE take part, representing more than 20 nationalities. Across more than 70 works, journals, poetry, embroidery, crochet, collage, painting, digital art and photography document personal responses to a shared period of uncertainty, with themes of resilience, home, family, faith and hope.

When: 3 October – 7 December 2026

Where: Kutubna Cultural Center, Nadd Al Hamar, Dubai

Dom Art Projects: Studio, Wounds, and Battles

Dom Art Projects concludes its first Studio Support Programme with two exhibitions featuring seven emerging UAE-based artists. The group show, Studio, Wounds, and Battles, brings together finished, unfinished and evolving works by Joumana Mortada, Meher Afroz Vahid, Rabila Kidwai, Aisha Alhammadi, Divyaaunshi Purohit, Teng Miras and Sara Masinaei, offering a glimpse into the research, experimentation and processes that usually remain behind the scenes.

Alongside it, Masinaei presents Boundaries and Breaches, a solo exhibition exploring how urban spaces shape memory, movement and lived experience through found objects, monoprints and sculpture.

When: Group exhibition, 23 September – 11 October; solo exhibition, 23 September – 18 Where: Dom Art Projects, Warehouse 40, Al Khayat Avenue, Dubai

Tashkeel: Precarious Beings, an artist-led tour

Tashkeel in Nad Al Sheba is starting in October with Kuwaiti architect and designer Hamad Al Muzaini, whose Precarious Beings looks at overlooked objects, everyday behaviours and urban life through photography, drawing and sculpture. Join Al Muzaini for an artist-led tour and conversation at Tashkeel on 3 October, followed by an evening photography walkthrough through Old Dubai the next day, exploring the city through observation and the everyday details that often go unnoticed.

When: Artist-led tour: Saturday 3 October, 6–8pm. Old Dubai photo walkthrough: Sunday 4 October, 6–8pm

Where: Tashkeel Nad Al Sheba; Old Dubai for the photo walkthrough

Book: tashkeel.org

Abu Dhabi

Frieze Abu Dhabi: The inaugural edition

Frieze Abu Dhabi makes its debut at Manarat Al Saadiyat this November, bringing together more than 80 galleries from 36 countries and regions. The inaugural programme centres on artists and artistic practices connected to the region, with several new projects beyond the main gallery presentations.

The Frieze Abu Dhabi Artist Award, curated by Nabila Abdel Nabi, goes to Beirut- and London-based artist Dala Nasser. Her new commission, Qubbat Duris, will feature paintings on textile made with charcoal, ash, raw clay and terracotta, exploring how materials carry memory across generations.

The fair also introduces In Dialogue, an annual exhibition pairing an established UAE artist with an emerging one. The inaugural edition, At Another Meeting Point, brings Mohammed Kazem and Alia Zaal into conversation, curated by Dirwaza Curatorial Lab.

Outside the fair, Frieze Sculpture Abu Dhabi will bring works by Zeinab Alhashemi, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Imran Qureshi and Kamran Samimi to Mamsha Beach, extending the programme into the public realm.

When: Fair, 19–22 November 2026; Frieze Sculpture, 16 November–16 December

Where: Manarat Al Saadiyat and Mamsha Beach, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi

Tickets: Early bird tickets on sale now at friezeabudhabi.com

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi: Network of Answers

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens on 11 December, but its first public artwork is already underway. At Manarat Al Saadiyat, artist Agatha Gothe-Snape's Network of Answers, commissioned by Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, invites visitors into a phone booth installation to respond to questions about life in the city. Their reflections, memories and perspectives contribute to a collective archive of voices from Abu Dhabi.

The artwork is part of the museum's public programme leading up to its opening. No registration is required.

When: Until 22 October 2026

Where: Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi

More: guggenheimabudhabi.ae