New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery has launched an exhibition titled Between the Tides: A Gulf Quinquennial, to mark the gallery’s tenth anniversary. Running from 1 October to 8 December 2024, the exhibition features 21 artists and collectives from across the region, including the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.

The exhibition will recur every five years and aims to highlight key moments in the GCC’s arts scene since 2019, showcasing architecture, paintings, videos, and installations and sculptures that reflect the region’s unique cultural and environmental landscapes.

Since its opening in 2014, NYUAD Art Gallery has played a key role in NYUAD’s emergence as a cultural destination on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. By spotlighting both emerging and established voices shaping the region's arts scene, alongside artists from across the globe, the gallery aims to foster a rich and diverse cultural dialogue on the global stage.

Between the Tides: A Gulf Quinquennial is co-curated by Maya Allison, Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery, and Duygu Demir, Art Gallery Curator and Research Assistant Professor. Their work evolved out of dialogues with artists and curators from across the region, in particular four that became their curatorial interlocutors: Abdullah Al Mutairi, Ali Ismail Karimi, Aseel AlYaqoub, and Ayman Zedani. The exhibition reflects on significant moments within the field of visual production over the last five years.

Featured in the exhibition are works by Alia Ahmad, Abdulrahim Alkendi, Mohammad Alfaraj, Noor Al-Fayez, Afra Al Dhaheri, Mohamed Almubarak, Sophia Al Maria, Mariam M. Alnoaimi, Christopher Joshua Benton, Sarah Brahim, Vikram Divecha, Faissal El-Malak, Hazem Harb, Aziz Motawa, Mohammad Sharaf, Shaima Al-Tamimi, Ayman Zedani, and Bu Yousuf, as well as collaborative work, including Civil Architecture by Hamed Bukhamseen and Ali Ismail Karimi; Aseel AlYaqoub, Asaiel Al Saeed, Saphiya Abu Al-Maati, and Yousef Awaad Hussein; and by Camille Zakharia and Ali Ismail Karimi.

Maya Allison, Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery, said: “In the first decade of the NYUAD Art Gallery and Project Space, alongside our own development as a cultural institution, we have seen a proliferation of artists—thanks in part to the support of new initiatives across the Gulf—who are producing complex, nuanced, and provocative work, alongside their more seasoned peers. Expanded beyond a national arts landscape, this exhibition brings together and makes visible a larger shared ecosystem.  A distinct chapter has opened in the region, and on the global stage.”

Duygu Demir, Art Gallery Curator and Research Assistant Professor, said: “The title of the first iteration, Between the Tides, reflects the Gulf’s deep connection to lunar rhythms and a sense of time shaped by natural patterns. The exhibition showcases a wide variety of artistic styles, from emerging voices to well-known figures, and explores important themes like urban growth, environmental change, heritage, identity, and representation. During the research phase of this show, our conversations with the curatorial interlocutors, as well as the exchanges with the artists, were immensely educational.”

Over the past 10 years, NYUAD Art Gallery has presented a diverse programme, including exhibitions featuring global artists alternating with explorations of the art and art history of the Gulf. Notable past exhibitions that focused on the Gulf included But We Cannot See Them (2017), a twenty-year survey of the UAE’s avant-garde art scene; Speculative Landscapes (2019), featuring four rising UAE-based artists; and Khaleej Modern (2022), which surveyed the emergence of modern art in the GCC.