Art Basel Qatar concluded Monday with the closing of the “آرت بازل قطر” exhibition at the Arab Museum of Modern Art. The inaugural edition of the main fair, held in the Msheireb Cultural District, wrapped up two days prior, after a five-day run from February 3 to 7. This year’s Art Basel Qatar was titled “Becoming,” which organizers describe as a reflection on the ongoing transformation of humanity and the changing systems that shape our ways of life and beliefs.
The significance of التظاهرة lies in its status as a global art event featuring galleries from six continents, offering platforms for showcasing and selling work, and serving as an international destination for artists. Art Basel is held annually in three cities: Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach, USA; and Hong Kong. Prior to 2022, it had never been held outside of those three cities, until a special edition in Paris, and this year in Doha, adding both cities to the annual roster.
Works participating in Art Basel Qatar were distributed across seven locations within the Msheireb district in central Doha, including two main sites in “M7,” a platform for innovation and startups run by Qatar Museums, alongside the Design Doha district. A series of commissioned site-specific projects were similarly featured throughout the locations, selected by Wael Shawky, director of Mathaf Gallery, and Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s global director and head of exhibitions, evoking the idea of the void as a space for encounter in Middle Eastern cultures.
The exhibition featured 87 galleries, though Art Basel Qatar was smaller in scale than other editions of the fair in other cities. Organizers aimed to accommodate as many artists represented by global galleries as possible, requesting that each gallery participate with only one artist, unlike the usual format of showcasing a collection of works by different artists. The traditional separation between galleries was also removed.
The fair drew a large audience, but exhibitors’ hopes weren’t solely reliant on art enthusiasts for sales. They also anticipated that works would be acquired by museums in Doha, largely managed by Qatar Museums, which is a partner of the exhibition, or by other local and international institutions. The event underscores Qatar’s growing prominence as a hub for international art and culture.
The exhibition showcased a strong presence of artists from the Arab region, representing 80% of the participants. Notable names included Pablo Picasso, Marwan Kassab Bashi, Farid Belkahia, Idris Khan, Mona Hatoum, Wassif Boutros Ghali, Philippe Gaston, Etel Adnan, Simon Fattal, Maha Mallouh, Suad Abdul Rasool, Allegro Boyti, and others. Galleries included Mendes Wood DM from Brussels, Justine Hauer from Zurich, Green Grt Gallery from Dubai, Lehmann Maupin from London, and Luxembourg+co from New York, balancing major international galleries like “Gagosian” and “Hauser & Wirth” with art from the Arab region, Southwest Asia, and North Africa.
David Dwirner Gallery presented four key paintings from Marlene Dumas’s series, Against the wall (2009-2010), based on images circulating in the media of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, exploring contested meanings and addressing the transformations of borders and the fragility of identity reshaped by conflict and memory.
From Cairo, Galerie Jamila Abdel Razeq showcased the work of young artist Mohamed Moneir through the series “I am the tame lion,” which explores themes of control, invasion, and domination, and how they are integrated into play-like forms, based on a childlike imagination, using scraps of fabric once used to cover tanks.
Galerie Al Markhiya from Doha presented a single work by Qatari artist Bothaina Al Muftah, a conceptual installation titled “Life: Architecture of Memory.” The work portrays memory as a tangible state that can be tested and experienced, through a contemporary reading of the traditional Qatari dress made of braids, hand-woven with natural materials, and elements inspired by traditional jewelry, transforming a disassembled women’s garment into an architectural space, laden with poetic texts and decorative elements reflecting the artistic composition of family traditions and bonds, becoming a living archive where personal and collective histories intertwine, highlighting forms of cultural identity continuity.
Evoking the idea of the void as a space for encounter in the Arab region
Pakistani artist Rashid Rana participated with his work “Black Sky” 2025, a large-scale photographic mural in the form of a grid, composed of still shots taken from an open-source surveillance camera in Gaza, documenting a night of shelling by Israeli rockets, with proceeds from the sale of the massive work dedicated to supporting a number of relief organizations in Gaza.
Gaza was also present in the collective exhibition “Refuse,” which addressed the tensions between rejection, resilience, and artistic freedom, through works by 15 contemporary artists from the region, representing four generations, including Samia Halaby with her work “Six Golden Warriors,” created during an escape from Israeli prisons in 1979.
Art Basel Qatar benefits from its timing, immediately following the opening of the Diriyah Biennale for Contemporary Art in Riyadh. Art Dubai, one of the remaining independent international art fairs, will celebrate its 20th edition in April. This comes amid a period of accelerated museum construction in the Gulf and a growing attraction for high-net-worth individuals seeking lower tax environments.
