Alserkal Avenue Opens Its 2026-27 Art Season With 19 New Exhibitions
Alserkal Avenue has opened its 2026-27 art season, with 19 exhibitions rolling out across 16 galleries throughout September. It's the moment Dubai's gallery calendar switches back on after summer and starts building towards Alserkal Art Week and Art Dubai and this year's line-up spans UAE, regional and international artists working across painting, sculpture, textile, film and archive.
A few names to flag before you scroll: UK-based, Bangladesh-born minimalist Rana Begum lands at The Third Line with new textile, wood and paper work; French sculptor Bernar Venet brings a career survey of his steel work to Waddington Custot and Ishara Art Foundation, the UAE's only nonprofit dedicated to South Asian contemporary art – opens a group show featuring World Press Photo-honoured Sarker Protick. Here's the full breakdown, organised by opening date.
Ishara Art Foundation - September 1
The sky held it, the earth remembered | Rohini Devasher, Sarker Protick and Shahana Rajani (Sept 11 – Dec 15)
A group show treating land, water and the cosmos as living archives, holding onto memory, history and ecological change the way soil holds a record.
Zawyeh Gallery - September 19
The Field of Dreams | Bashar Khalaf (Sept 19 – Nov 8)
Two new series that use steel in public space as shorthand for protection, control and power.
Firetti Contemporary - September 21
The Living Archive | Ahmad Tallaa (Sept 21 – Nov 11)
A presentation treating the face itself as an archive, every feature holding onto accumulated experience and identity.
1x1 Art Gallery - September 23
Locacola (2000–ongoing) | Sharmila Samant (Sept 23 – Oct 24)
A long-running project sitting in the tension between global consumer culture and local identity.
Aisha Alabbar Gallery - September 23
What We Carry Becomes the Terrain | Bénédicte Gimonnet (Sept 23 – Nov 7)
Paintings, drawings and textiles exploring landscape, cultural inheritance and identity.
Ayyam Gallery - September 23
Allusive Veil | Hisham Sharif (Sept 23 – Oct 30)
Autobiographical paintings turning intimacy, tradition, memory and private life inside out.
Carbon 12 - September 23
May the Tree No Longer Burn When I Wake | Amir Khojasteh (Sept 23 – Nov 5)
Work built around departure, distance and renewal, using ash and the Persian garden as recurring motifs.
Efie Gallery - September 23
Sojourner: The Difference is the Same | Maggie Otieno (Sept 23 – Nov 13)
Otieno's first solo exhibition, sculptures built from reclaimed railway sleepers and found materials.
Gallery Isabelle September 23
I Bloom Where You Hold Me | Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian (Sept 23 – Nov 4)
Works centred on love, intimacy, care and resilience.
Green Art - September 23
Private World | Lulua Alyahya, Rami Farook, Sohrab Hura and Khaled Jarada (Sept 23 – Oct 24)
A group show on solitude, inward attention and what personal experience looks like when it's finally put on show.
Grey Noise - September 23
The importance of staying quiet: 6. Open Forms | Iqra Tanveer and Faheem Abbas (Sept 23 – Dec 30)
A group show built around conceptual and material practices shaped by stillness and abstraction.
Lawrie Shabibi - September 23
The Butterfly's Burden | Nada Elkalaawy (opens Sept 23)
Layered paintings dealing with memory, loss, regeneration and the passage of time.
Leila Heller Gallery - September 23
Three shows, all running Sept 23 – Nov 10
Between Land and Sea | Azza Al Qubaisi: Emirati identity, heritage and nature, filtered through Al Qubaisi's multidisciplinary practice.
In Search of Material within Material | Manish Nai: a minimalist study of form, space, material and repetition.
Between a Fold and a Memory | Karima Al Shomely: memory, identity, place and cultural heritage.
Taymour Grahne Projects - September 23
Two solo shows, both running Sept 23 – Nov 11
The Canticle of the Birds | Katia Kameli, the Paris-based French-Algerian artist and filmmaker.
Frogs, Jazz & Blisters | Dalal Al-Obaidi, the Kuwaiti artist.
The Third Line - September 23
Taking Form | Rana Begum (Sept 23 – Nov 10)
New work across textile, wood and paper from the UK-based, Bangladesh-born minimalist, built around light, colour, material and geometry.
Waddington Custot - September 26
Sculptures, Furniture and Works on Paper | Bernar Venet (Sept 26 – Oct 31)
A survey of the French sculptor's steel sculptures, furniture and works on paper, closing out the opening wave.
