Despite Uncertainty, Gulf Art World Projects Normalcy
Many museums and galleries remain open and Art Dubai is rescheduled with cautious optimism, but experts warn of threats to cultural heritage.
As the US-Israel war on Iran enters its fourth week, neighboring Gulf states, a hub of much of the region’s contemporary art production, are projecting an image of normalcy, with many galleries and museums reopening. It’s a sharp contrast to the sheer scale of destruction in Iran and Lebanon, where American and Israeli strikes have devastated cultural heritage sites.
But wartime art preservation experts say that cultural workers and the art they care for could come in the line of fire in the Gulf states, seven Arab countries on the Persian Gulf with strong political and economic ties.
"The longer the conflict drags on and there is additional incentive on Iran not to show any kind of restraint, the greater likelihood that I would say any of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries will experience a hit on cultural infrastructure," Penn Cultural Heritage Center Director Brian Daniels told Hyperallergic.
Since the United States and Israel first attacked Iran on February 28, Iran has targeted American-aligned states in the GCC with missiles and drones. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, which host American military bases, have made significant investments in cultural institutions as part of a pivot away from oil and toward tourism and finance, initiatives critics have decried as attempts to artwash a brutal human rights record.
On March 19, the 20th annual Art Dubai Fair announced it was postponing its show by a month, to mid-May, in an “adapted format,” amid reports of exhibitors dropping out and logistical problems due to the war.
“We believe it remains important to create space for artists, galleries, and audiences to come together at this time,” Art Dubai spokesperson Dave Field said in an email.
New York University’s Abu Dhabi gallery is still closed, and the Sharjah Art Foundation — which organizes one of the region’s major contemporary art events, the Sharjah Biennial — said its annual “March Meeting” gathering is postponed indefinitely due to “the ongoing situation in the region.”
On March 1, Iran struck an Abu Dhabi port near the cultural district where the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the forthcoming Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museums are located. The attack on the port likely wasn’t close enough to the museums to cause damage, according to Daniels, but the incident was a reminder of the risk that strikes on urban areas pose to cultural institutions.
The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by the late Frank Gehry, is expected to open in 2026 after 20 years under construction. A spokesperson for the museum told Hyperallergic that “progress remains steady and on time.”
Maliha Tabari, the founder of the Tabari Artspace gallery in Dubai, said people in the UAE feel safe and that most galleries and museums in the country are now open after initial disruptions. But she also said that the situation is in flux.
“It depends on how much Trump wants to escalate this,” she said. “He dragged us all into this war. I don’t know what he was thinking. But I think right now he’s backtracking.”
On March 13, debris from an intercepted drone struck the Dubai International Finance Center just a block away from Tabari Artspace. For now, the gallery is open by appointment.
Some art institutions and museums are also opening. The Jameel Arts Center in Dubai is open with “full safety protocols” in place, and the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar reopened on March 21.
But the outward appearance of business as usual may mask a more serious reality. Daniels said he worries that the Gulf states’ reliance on tourism incentivizes governments to downplay the threat of war and delay implementing emergency plans.
Gulf governments are suppressing speech to limit public perception of wartime chaos. In the UAE, authorities have arrested more than 100 people for filming and sharing images online depicting missile and drone strikes.
On March 21, President Donald Trump said the US would attack Iranian power plants if Iran did not open the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping lane, within 48 hours. Iranian leaders responded by threatening to target energy and desalination facilities that GCC states rely on for drinking water. Trump extended his ultimatum on Monday.
In Iran and Lebanon, the scale of the damage to cultural patrimony is staggering. Iranian officials said US and Israeli airstrikes have damaged 114 cultural and historic sites since the start of the war, including Iran’s historic Golestan Palace. Israeli bombing in Lebanon has also put local galleries and other cultural institutions at risk.
Cori Wegener, the founder of the US Committee of the Blue Shield, a group that works to protect cultural sites in warzones, told Hyperallergic that every cultural institution should have a disaster preparedness plan to protect its staff and artwork should the conflict escalate.
A disaster plan entails digitally documenting art in case it’s destroyed, moving collections away from windows, establishing protocols to move art underground or to deploy sandbags to protect against shockwaves, and, for a worst-case scenario, planning to evacuate art to a less vulnerable location.
Should the conflict worsen for the UAE, Tabari said she would focus on moving some of her projects online to continue her mission of documenting Middle Eastern history and culture. The gallery has financed artists whose lives have been uprooted by war before, and recently sponsored residencies in Zurich for Palestinian artists.
The imperative to protect artists and to help them share their experiences with the world can go hand in hand, Tabari believes.
“We're trying to preserve a time capsule. And it all reflects onto the situation of where the artist is, how the artist is, what he's going through,” she said. “Art changes mindsets.”
