Curatorial Ethos
Jameel Arts Centre, which opened on 11 November 2018 in Jaddaf Waterfront on Dubai Creek, is one of the first independent, not-for-profit contemporary art institutions in the city — and the first non-governmental contemporary arts institution of its kind in the Gulf. It is founded and funded by Art Jameel, the independent organisation backed by the Jameel family philanthropies that fosters contemporary art, cultural heritage protection and creative entrepreneurship across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. The 10,000-square-metre, three-storey building was designed by UK practice Serie Architects under principal Christopher Lee, with Dubai studio ibda design as consultant architects; its form draws on two regional traditions — the Emirati sha'abi house of rooms around a courtyard, and the medina's accumulation of courtyard houses — producing a low, tessellated complex of galleries and gardens. Across more than 1,000 square metres of gallery space, the Centre presents curated solo and group exhibitions, commissions and projects, drawn both from the Art Jameel Collection and through regional and international collaborations. It is complemented by the Jameel Library, an open-access research centre on artists and cultural movements of the Gulf and beyond; project and commissions spaces; a writer's studio; a rooftop terrace; a restaurant and shop; and the adjacent Jaddaf Waterfront Sculpture Park, the first open-air art park in the Gulf. Entry is free; the Centre is open daily except Tuesdays.
Why this gallery matters
Exhibo editorial
When Jameel Arts Centre opened in 2018, its architect described it as deliberately "un-Dubai" — a low, understated white building conceived as a backdrop for art rather than another statement on the skyline. That choice tells you what the institution is for. It runs on a kunsthalle model: not a collection to file past, but a flexible space built around what artists and audiences actually need, free to enter and open to everyone from school groups to specialists. The galleries scale from intimate rooms for a single body of work to halls high enough for large installation, and the program moves between artists of the region and international names without treating either as a guest. What gives the Centre its particular weight is the apparatus around the exhibitions. The Jameel Library is a serious open-access research centre on Gulf and regional art; a writer's studio puts criticism and scholarship inside the building; the Art Jameel Collection gives it a deepening institutional memory to draw on; and the sculpture park extends the program into public space along the Creek. It is, in other words, built not just to show contemporary art but to produce the knowledge around it — commissions, research, residencies, publishing. For a city whose gallery scene grew up around the commercial engine of Alserkal and DIFC, the Jameel added something different: a permanent, non-commercial institution committed to the long, unglamorous work of building an art ecosystem from the ground up. That is why it is consistently named among the anchors of the UAE's cultural infrastructure.
Visit
Hours, directions, and direct contact. For programme or press enquiries, use the contact form below.
Address
Jaddaf Waterfront, Dubai, UAE
Opening hours
- Monday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- Closed
- Friday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- 10:00 – 18:00
Contact
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Artists & People
Full directory →Artists
Represented and guest artists exhibiting with the gallery.
Abel Barroso Arencibia
Hanna Tuulikki
Prabhakar Pachpute
Mirna Bamieh
Ana Amorim
Bani Abidi
Madiha Aijaz
Fatma Al Ali
Mahmoud Alhaj
Lulua Alyahya
Nazgol Ansarinia
Fayçal Baghriche
Heman Chong
Tiger Tateishi
Tatyana Zambrano
Driant Zeneli
Saodat Ismailova
Jumana Emil Abboud
Todd Reisz
Ila Bêka
Louise Lemoin
Antoine Chapon
Rhea Storr
Jocelyn Saab
Olivier Sednaoui
Daniel Soares
Lu Yang
D. A. Pennebaker
Suneil Sanzgiri
Francisco Dias
Zazie Ray-Trapido
Moe Elhossieny
Ahmed Ellabad
Kasper Bosmans
Annika Eriksson
Lawrence Lek
Seher Naveed
Walid Siti
Angela Detanico
Rafael Lain
Harun Farocki
Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq
Devadeep Gupta
Hylozoic/Desires
Mohammed Kazem
Dora Longo Bahia
Cinthia Marcelle
Şener Özmen
Erkan Özgen
Fazal Rizvi
Hassan Sharif
Vishwa Shroff
Dima Srouji
Do Ho Suh
T. Vinoja
Subas Tamang
Bo Wang
Hind Mezaina
Rouzbeh Akhbari
Hiwa K
Yto Barrada
Mati Jhurry
Harilay Rabenjamina
Rayane Mcirdi
Sara Sadik
Mawena Yehouessi
Josèfa Ntjam
Franziska Pierwoss
Zina Saro-Wiwa
Michael Rakowitz
Cecilia Vicuña
Florence Lazar
Suha Shoman
Satoshi Fujiwara
Stéphanie Saadé
Yuri Pattison
Trevor Paglen
NVIDIA Research
Vocal Synthesis
Sara Cwynar
Jenna Sutela
Victoria Sin
Craig Green
Agnieszka Kurant
Amalia Ulman
Amnesia Scanner
Ana Nicolaescu
Ania Soliman
Anna Uddenberg
Anne Imhof
Asad Raza
Barry Doupé
Bogosi Sekhukhuni
Cao Fei
Carsten Höller
Cécile B Evans
Chen Zhou
Christine Sun Kim
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Emmanuel Iduma
Farah Al Qasimi
Moza Almatrooshi
Fatima Al Qadiri
GCC
Goshka Macuga
Ian Cheng
Isabel Lewis
Jarvis Cocker
Johannes Paul Raether
John Menick
Jürgen Klauke
Koo Jeong A
Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Liam Gillick
Liam Young
Lorraine O'Grady
Lucy Raven
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Michael Stipe
Miles Gertler
Miranda July
Momus
Pamela Rosenkranz
Pan Daijing
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Peter Saville
Yoso Mouri
Philippe Parreno
Pierre Huyghe
Precious Okoyomon
Rachel Rose
Raja'a Khalid
Samuel Fosso
Simon Denny
Sissel Tolaas
Sophia Al-Maria
Stephanie Comilang
Suzanne Treister
Thomas Dozol
Thomas Hirschhorn
Urs Lüthi
Wang Haiyang
Yaeji
Yazan Khalili
Yu Honglei
Dana Amro
Tamara Barrage
Christopher Benton
Dania Darra
Saba Besiso
Bwader Elhassan
Nuhayr
FMD / Film My Designs
Yara Habib
Abdhul Hazeeb
Adnan Ihsan
Leen Kahaleh
Rimsha Kidwai
Mohamed Rowaizak
Sense Studio
Eman Shafiq
Sanaz Yahyaabadi
Adel Abdessemed
Haig Aivazian
Abbas Akhavan
Diana Al-Hadid
Doa Aly
Walead Beshty
Vikram Divecha
Jason Dodge
Zahrah Al-Ghamdi
Bita Ghezelayagh
Azade Köker
Keita Miyazaki
Slavs and Tatars
Moffat Takadiwa
Mario García Torres
Louis Henderson
François Knoetze
Erin Espelie
Geocinema
Sarah Meyohas
Tabita Rezaire
Tekla Aslanishvili
Shezad Dawood
Kamruzzaman Shadhin
Noor Alwan
Abdulla Buhijji
Noush Anand
Nadim Choufi
Nadine Khalil
Nadine Khalil is a Lebanese, Dubai-based art critic, editor and independent curator, and one of the more established critical voices working in the Gulf. Her path into art came through the social sciences — her academic background is in anthropology — followed by nearly two decades in arts publishing. She was editor of the Dubai contemporary-art magazine Canvas (2017–2020) and earlier held senior editorial roles at the Beirut magazines A mag and Bespoke (2010–2016), and her criticism appears across the field's leading titles: Artforum, ArtReview Asia, The Art Newspaper, art-agenda, Ocula, The Brooklyn Rail, Artsy, FT and the Women's Review of Books. Beyond journalism she works as a curator and researcher, currently focused on the body as an expanded site of performance and labour, and collaborates with artists engaging performance, technology and the non-human world. She has authored a series of artist monographs (Paroles d'Artistes) on Lebanese artists including Samir Sayegh and Hanibal Srouji and the late filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, edited The Arts Center: Building a Performing Arts Community on Saadiyat Island (NYU Abu Dhabi, 2023), and contributed to volumes such as Evaporating Suns: Contemporary Myths from the Arabian Gulf (Hatje Cantz, 2023). She advises institutions including the Ishara Art Foundation, Goethe-Institut and the NYUAD Arts Center on editorial strategy, mentors artists in Tashkeel's Critical Practice Programme, and previously served as communications strategist for Ishara Art Foundation (2020–2022). At NIKA Project Space she curated the group exhibition I Can No Longer Produce the Limits of My Own Body.
Isaac Sullivan
Nidhi Mahajan
Deepak Unnikrishnan
Sree
Katie Paterson
Nujoom Alghanem
Ana Escobar Saavedra
Dalia Khalife
Joseph Kai
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Bady Dalloul
Salah Elmur
Prabhakar Baspote
Clemens von Wedemeyer
Michael Almereyda
Courtney Stephens
Ruba Al-Sweel
the Rice Brewing Sisters Club
Youssef Chahine
Faten Hamama
Omar Sharif
Damien Hauser
Amirah Tajdin
Rebecca Crookshank
Kevin B. Lee
Kevin Jones
Nader Akoum
Karine Baidoun
Zahra Mansoor
Adithya Suresh
Lana Daher
Yalda Bidshahari
Ahmed Bilal
Andres Ugartechea
Dina Barqawi
Mahasin Ismail
Poorvaja Subramanian
Rei Co
Saiki Padhy
Saina Bidshahri
Vaishnavi Pramodh
Kesang Chuki
Majlis KaramAllah
Abhirami Suresh
Jared Jimenez Maxilom
Founders
Gallery founders and founding directors.
Curators & programme
Curatorial team and exhibition programming.
Indranjan Banerjee
Lucas Morin
Hind Mezaina
Uns Kattan
Murtaza Vali
Rahul Gudipudi
Danielle Burrows
Shumon Basar
Douglas Coupland
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Janine Randerson
Nadine Khalil
Nadine Khalil is a Lebanese, Dubai-based art critic, editor and independent curator, and one of the more established critical voices working in the Gulf. Her path into art came through the social sciences — her academic background is in anthropology — followed by nearly two decades in arts publishing. She was editor of the Dubai contemporary-art magazine Canvas (2017–2020) and earlier held senior editorial roles at the Beirut magazines A mag and Bespoke (2010–2016), and her criticism appears across the field's leading titles: Artforum, ArtReview Asia, The Art Newspaper, art-agenda, Ocula, The Brooklyn Rail, Artsy, FT and the Women's Review of Books. Beyond journalism she works as a curator and researcher, currently focused on the body as an expanded site of performance and labour, and collaborates with artists engaging performance, technology and the non-human world. She has authored a series of artist monographs (Paroles d'Artistes) on Lebanese artists including Samir Sayegh and Hanibal Srouji and the late filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, edited The Arts Center: Building a Performing Arts Community on Saadiyat Island (NYU Abu Dhabi, 2023), and contributed to volumes such as Evaporating Suns: Contemporary Myths from the Arabian Gulf (Hatje Cantz, 2023). She advises institutions including the Ishara Art Foundation, Goethe-Institut and the NYUAD Arts Center on editorial strategy, mentors artists in Tashkeel's Critical Practice Programme, and previously served as communications strategist for Ishara Art Foundation (2020–2022). At NIKA Project Space she curated the group exhibition I Can No Longer Produce the Limits of My Own Body.
Kittima Chareeprasit
Roger Nelson
Zain Al Saie
Qutouf Elobaid
Daniya Jawwad
Yalda Bidshahari
Sanjushrree Subash
Jared Maxilom
Abhirami Suresh
Advisors
Patrons, advisors, and independent contributors.
Partners
Institutional partners, collaborators, and allied organisations.
