From the arrival of international museum franchises, to dedicated art fairs and biennales, to record-breaking auction results for modern and contemporary artists, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have been painting their cultural scenes in glorious technicolour to distinguish their identities and attract global audience. To name a few, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art fair in Marrakech, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Dalloul Art Collection in Beirut, AlUla Arts Festival in Saudi Arabia, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, Sharjah Art Foundation, Tehran Auctions in Iran, and many more. Head-spinningly exciting as this multi-faceted development can be, what does this mean to collectors and artists? And what challenges and opportunities lie ahead against the ongoing socio-political turbulence?

“With this greater visibility on the region’s art scene, artists are looking at the region as a viable place to build their careers, more than ever,” comments Sunny Rahbar, Co-Founder of The Third Line, a gallery based in Dubai. “In the past, many felt the need to move abroad to gain recognition, but now we’re seeing artists choosing to stay, or even return, because of the opportunities available here.” It is no small feat to assert this level of confidence, particularly in the face of a softening global art market and crunching budgets for arts and culture elsewhere in the world. According to ArtTactic, the MENA auction market fell by 20.5% year-on-year in 2024, performing slightly better than the 27% decline in the overall auction market last year. Of which, Tehran Auctions showed real strength in selling within the region, witnessing a 78.6% climb in total sales to $9.5 million and in the number of lots sold from 210 to 321. Tantamount to this is Sotheby’s inaugural sales Origins in Saudi Arabia in February this year, in which Mohammed Al Saleem’s O' God, Honor Them and Do Not Honor an Enemy Over Them and Samia Halaby’s Blue Trap (in a Railroad Station) were sold for 206% and 113% above pre-sale low estimate respectively. “When you look at the price point for your best of the best Arab artists, it’s a fraction of European or American counterparts. I think there’s a lot of room for growth in terms of price benchmarks and new records being achieved for a lot of these artists,” explains Ashkan Baghestani, SVP, Head of Contemporary Day Sale, Contemporary Art, New York & Middle East at Sotheby’s, who led the Origins sales.

Curiosity abounds, reflected not just in market potentials, but also in creative experimentations. While art in the region has a long tradition of blending aesthetics into everyday functions, such as calligraphy, ceramics and carpets, a new generation of artists embrace a uniquely 21st-century material form, digital technologies, to translate heritage into the vernacular of our times, pushing boundaries and bringing people closer together. For instance, Lebanese artist Mohamed Choucair records the humming noise of surveillance drones and turn them into downloadable sonic compositions as a form of resistance; British-Tunisian artist Rayane Jemaa uses digital rendering to challenge the stereotypical representations of MENA landscapes in video game imageries; and Egyptian-American artist VJ Um Amel (Laila Shereen Sakr) employs the proprietary R-Shief archive software to collect, analyse and visualise social media data to explore the concept of glitch in the Middle Eastern context. “It is really energising because the (digital) content is more provocative, more challenging, more layered and more nuanced than it's ever been,” exclaims Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director, Curatorial at Art Dubai Group. Over on the receiving end of the spectrum, technology assumes another capacity, as an instrument for greater accessibility and exploration (albeit not without its downside). Social media and online platforms enable art enthusiasts to discover talents, build their knowledge, and increasingly, make acquisitions. ArtTactic observes that online sales in the MENA auction market made a strong comeback in 2024, with total sales value surging by 234.5%. Ultimately, using technology to predict what the future holds is not as powerful as recognising what we have missed yesterday, and to bring that awareness into present-day conversations for more understanding and support.

To that end, education and meaningful participation from people of all backgrounds need to be prioritised and nurtured in tandem with the plentiful physical infrastructures in the region. One such undertaking is Art Jameel, an independent organisation headquartered in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supporting emerging artists, creative communities and refugees through a wide array of programmes. Others include artist residencies in various locations like the Gulf states, Tunisia and Morocco; public commissions by state-funded and private efforts alike; learning initiatives from for-profit and non-profit institutions; and working with international entities like Tate Modern and LACMA to further contextualise MENA art in the global discourse. In essence, the coming-of-age art eco-system booms and dazzles the boundless desert sky. However, the key to sustaining its blazing trails relies on a sense of open-mindedness, mutual respect and intellectual exchange, which remains up in the air under the current economic and political climate in the US, and the rest of the world.

Still, there are plenty of places to start if you are keen to dip your toe in the subject-matter. “Dive into the Barjeel Art collection in Sharjah, the Dalloul Art Collection in Lebanon, and The Afkhami collection in Dubai. They give you a comprehensive idea of the key artists of the region, when they were producing, and in what context.” Baghestani adds. Sometimes, it is easy to forget the rich history and heritage running through the vein beneath shiny new builds and conflict-ridden devastations. “The cultural capitals of the Arab world were once Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. In the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), a wealth of investment in creative infrastructure is being rolled out to steer away from hydrocarbons towards tourism and the establishment of prosperous creative economies,” concludes Rebecca Anne Proctor, Independent Journalist, Editor, Author, and Broadcaster. “And that has garnered more attention and visibility from the global art scene, especially over the past five years, than ever before.” That being said, the cultural space in the MENA region will only continue to expand and evolve, carving out living territory where complexity thrives between the reductive binaries of old and new, past and present, traditions and modernity, and the Global North and South.

^{Cover image credit: Details of Mohammed Al Saleem’s O' God, Honor Them and Do Not Honor an Enemy Over Them, sold at Sotheby's Origins sales in February 2025}