Dubai art week to honour women modernists from the Arab world, 15–22 November

Alserkal Art Week returns to Dubai from 15 to 22 November. This time, its main exhibition is given over to women modernists from the Arab world.

The week spreads across Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz, with gallery openings, talks, performances and film. Organisers have titled this edition “Smouldering”, an idea they link to the quiet, long-burning resilience of the present.

Women who shaped Arab modernism

The exhibition curated by Suheyla Takesh and Rémi Homs, is housed in Concrete. It includes work by Fahrelnissa Zeid, Samia Halaby, Inji Aflatoun and Etel Adnan, among others, all from the collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation.

These artists worked across the 20th century and lived through decolonisation, political change, changing cities and shifting roles for women, and their work responded to all of it. Many also brought local materials and ways of making into modern art.

Kevin Jones, Artistic Director of Alserkal, said the exhibition “sheds light on the practices of the women who shaped Arab modernism.”

Suheyla Takesh, Director of the Barjeel Art Foundation, said: “While often sidelined by art history, these artists were active participants in the region’s cultural life, developing new visual languages and engaging with the social and political transformations of their time.”

Majlis Talks and guest projects

Moataz Nasr, the Egyptian painter and sculptor who also curates the Alexandria Biennial, is curating this year’s Majlis Talks.

The session, Sharing the Sensitive, is a round table with Simon Njami, Julie Banatre and Jenny Mbaye. They will talk about art, memory, resistance and community as they play out day to day, away from Western-centred views of the art world. It runs in The Yard on the afternoon of Sunday, 15 November.

In Warehouse 46, Promises and Scars gathers five decades of work by Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, who died in August. George Al Ama and Fann À Porter are presenting the show, which closes on 22 November.

The Barbados Museum is showing The Temple Manuscripts – Selected Works by Russell Watson to mark 60 years of Barbados’ independence, with the Embassy of Barbados in the UAE. The Alserkal Arts Foundation is hosting it.

In Warehouse 50B, The Art Circle is exhibiting work by the artists shortlisted for this year’s Art Circle Award, from 11 to 22 November.

What else is on at Alserkal Art Week

The Avenue’s galleries are opening 17 new exhibitions over the week.

On The Yard screens, the Chanel Culture Fund is showing Fracture: The Window, a programme of moving image works, from 9 to 29 November.

The final weekend, 21 and 22 November, has film screenings by Cinema Akil, slow art walks and gallery tours for children.

The full programme is at alserkal.online.