Frieze Abu Dhabi Sets the Stage for Its Inaugural Edition With a Program Rooted in the Region

Installation view, Dala Nasser: Adonis River, 2023, Renaissance Society, Chicago. Courtesy of the artist, Renaissance Society and Commonwealth and Council. Photo: Bob

Frieze Abu Dhabi is set to make its debut this November, bringing an international art fair into conversation with the artistic histories, landscapes and contemporary practices of the United Arab Emirates. Taking place November 19–22, 2026 at Manarat Al Saadiyat, the inaugural edition will bring together more than 80 galleries from 36 countries and regions, alongside a curated program designed to connect artists across generations and geographies.

Rather than limiting the experience to the gallery floor, Frieze Abu Dhabi extends its first edition across commissions, exhibitions, public sculpture and talks. At the center is the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi Artist Award, curated by Nabila Abdel Nabi, Senior Curator of International Art at Tate Modern and Head of the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational. Abdel Nabi has selected Beirut- and London-based artist Dala Nasser for the award, which supports a new site-responsive commission titled Qubbat Duris.

Nasser’s installation takes its name from a 13th-century monument near Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The historical structure itself reflects the region’s layered cultural history, incorporating fragments of Roman limestone sarcophagi alongside granite columns from earlier centuries. For Frieze Abu Dhabi, Nasser will reinterpret that architectural reference through a timber framework in the Atrium, draped with paintings on textile bearing traces of the surrounding landscape. Charcoal rubbings of remaining ruins will be painted with ash, raw clay and terracotta.

The resulting work considers how materials can carry memory across generations while pointing toward a collective responsibility for landscapes facing destruction. It is a fitting conceptual anchor for a fair whose inaugural program is deeply interested in the relationship between place, history and contemporary artistic practice.

“Frieze Abu Dhabi takes shape within a rich and evolving cultural landscape, and the programme for our first edition responds to that context,” says Dyala Nusseibeh, Director of Frieze Abu Dhabi. “Spanning generations and geographies, it reflects the artistic histories, ideas and practices that connect Abu Dhabi to a wider scene.”

That generational exchange becomes more explicit through In Dialogue, a new annual flagship exhibition curated for its inaugural presentation by Dirwaza Curatorial Lab. Founded in Abu Dhabi by curator Munira Al Sayegh, alongside co-curators Hessa Al Nuaimi and Dania Al Tamimi, the creative incubator has developed At Another Meeting Point, pairing established Emirati artist Mohammed Kazem with emerging artist Alia Zaal. Their works will be brought into direct conversation, creating new points of connection across generations.

Kazem, a member of the generation of Emirati artists that helped shape the UAE’s contemporary art landscape in the late 1980s, has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning video, photography and performance. Zaal, meanwhile, works across painting and photography, examining the emotional weight of images and how memory, translation and time alter perception. Their pairing places two distinct approaches to environment, image and experience within the same curatorial framework.

Outside the fair, Frieze Sculpture Abu Dhabi will bring large-scale works into the public realm at Mamsha Beach on Saadiyat Island from November 16 through December 16. Presented by Aldar, the exhibition will explore form, material and time through works by Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Zeinab Alhashemi, Imran Qureshi and Kamran Samimi.

Among the works on view are Ibrahim’s The Form (2024), Alhashemi’s The Nut and Bolt (2026), Qureshi’s Water Bodies (2026) and Samimi’s Voyagers (Traveling Stones) (2025). The selection moves between the natural and constructed, giving familiar materials and objects new contexts while inviting audiences to encounter contemporary sculpture beyond the conventional confines of an art fair.

The public program continues inside Manarat Al Saadiyat with talks bringing together artists, curators, museum leaders and patrons. Among the announced sessions are Building the Global Museum, featuring art historian Michael Govan and Eugene Tan, Director of the National Gallery Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum, moderated by Kate Fowle; and Curating Across Knowledge Systems, with curators Cosmin Costinaș and Kelli Cole alongside Claudia Segura, Head of Collection at MACBA.

For Abu Dhabi, the arrival of Frieze adds another international platform to a cultural ecosystem already grounded in a longstanding commitment to art and culture. For Frieze, the inaugural edition offers an opportunity to build its global network around the artists, histories and ideas of the region rather than treating geography as a backdrop.

From Nasser’s materially charged Qubbat Duris to a cross-generational UAE dialogue and a sculpture program unfolding along Mamsha Beach, Frieze Abu Dhabi’s first edition is structured around exchange. As Nusseibeh puts it, the program “puts artists and their ideas at the centre of Frieze Abu Dhabi.”