Middle Eastern & North African art

Video: Abu Dhabi Art opens as the world watches

Is the UAE now the art capital of the Middle East?

Podcastsfeature

Abu Dhabi Focus podcast, episode one: Louvre Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi Art

With all eyes on Abu Dhabi this week, we speak to the architect Jean Nouvel on designing the Arab world's first universal museum. Plus: a preview of Abu Dhabi Art fair

Abu Dhabi Art set to benefit from Louvre opening

This year’s fair has 13 new exhibitors and is hoping for more international visitors

Collectors tackle rise in fake Modern Middle Eastern art

Dalloul Art Foundation investigates authenticity of some Middle Eastern works before museum opening

Tim Cornwell. , additional reporting by Anna Brady

Sotheby’s to hold first sale in Dubai

Christie’s moves October auction to London as rival plans first sale in the UAE

Saudi Arabian artist’s first US solo show escapes shadow of 9/11

Abdulnasser Gharem says the US show allows him more freedom than he may have in Saudi Arabia

Interest in Middle Eastern art is on the rise in China

Guggenheim show in Shanghai was abruptly cancelled but curiosity about the region continues to grow

Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem to have first solo US show at Lacma

Former lieutenant colonel in the Saudi Arabian army is known for his politically and socially engaged works that draw on his Muslim heritage

Saudi women artists make their mark at 21,39 festival in Jeddah

New works draw attention to destruction of Islamic heritage and female car crash victims

A bright spot in an otherwise darkened Egypt

Mohamed Abla's show of new works in Cairo is on amid a moment of prolonged political agony in the country

Basrah Museum opens against the odds in Iraq

New museum is housed in a converted former palace of Saddam Hussein

Arab artists hit the US campaign trail

Culture bus heads to Washington in bid to change attitudes to the Middle East

Iranian artists look forward to the day when sanctions are finally lifted

Interest grows in younger generation active in Tehran’s lively art scene and the Iranian diaspora

Arabian art space moves east

Gentrification in Battersea forces Middle Eastern arts foundation to look for another home

Artnews

Age of enlightenment: the religious power of Hagia Sophia

Lyn Rodley considers the relationship between Byzantine theology and the Great Church

Iraq’s ancient holy sites lost forever

The country’s monasteries and mosques have no place in the Caliphate

Dubai archive

Ramin Salsali's new private museum opens in Dubai with tongue-in-cheek 'Show Off'

The space is based on a former warehouse and will exhibit works biannually from his own collection as well as from other private collections around the world

Art marketarchive

Collectors pay top prices for the highest quality work of Islamic classics

Christie’s totals higher, but Sotheby’s had the standout individual piece

Are we colonialising Middle Eastern art?

As the Middle East increasingly becomes a producer and consumer of contemporary art, the role of the West as 'tastemaker' grows progressively more troubling

Art fairsarchive

Dubai fair reaps reward of focus on Indian contemporary art

British collectors Charles Saatchi and Frank Cohen were among those who bought

Iranarchive

London and Paris markets flooded with Iranian antiquities looted from newly discovered site at Jiroft

Before police intervened, thousands of objects were plundered by locals and sold on to Europe

Roger Benjamin's study into the colonial relationship between Modernism and Orientalism

This study investigates how North African artists were influenced by French artists—and vice versa