Editorial from Exhibo and official announcements from Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.
Editorial coverage on Exhibo
Curatorial shifts, high participant turnover, and new financial safeguards shape the second edition
The fair confirms 82 galleries, a new thematic framework, and enhanced logistical backing amid regional uncertainty.
A caliph drew his capital in fire, the Mongols erased it, and a video game rebuilt it out of Isfahan and Samarkand. What actually survives of Abbasid Baghdad, where it is, and who else has tried to put it back.
Climb a viewpoint in Assassin's Creed Mirage and you see the Round City whole — double walls, four gates, the green dome at the centre. Nobody has ever seen that view. No excavated remains have been securely identified as any of it. This is what is actually left of ninth-century Baghdad, where you would have to go to stand in it, and why Ubisoft was the second team to rebuild a city that no longer exists.
How Hassan Sharif and the artists known as "the Five" built conceptual art in the UAE from nothing
Before the Louvre came to Abu Dhabi and Alserkal filled with galleries, a small group of artists made conceptual art in the UAE with almost no audience and a great deal of ridicule. This is the story of Hassan Sharif and the pioneers who built a scene from nothing — and why their work still anchors Emirati art today.
A field guide to collecting Arab and Middle Eastern art — who buys, what it costs, why prices lag cultural significance, and where collectors are looking now.
How the Arab world went from selling its art history to the West to building the fastest-growing market for Middle Eastern art on earth — who buys, why, what it costs, and where the smart money is looking now
