[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2_DB-Alserkal-5322.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tAlserkal will stretch its usual Art Week into a five-week \u201cArt Month\u201d from April 18 to May 18, adding grants, temporary warehouse space for collectives, and a commercially focused group show organized with 12 galleries from around the United Arab Emirates. The extension is an effort to keep exhibitions and sales moving at a moment when pressure is building across the market and the global stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe initiative broadens what was once a tightly packed week of openings into a more distributed model: 16 gallery exhibitions, public art commissions, and more than 100 talks, performances, and events unfolding over five weekends. Among the opening shows are Green Art Gallery\u2019s\u00a0group exhibition \u201cAll the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset\u201d\u00a0that examines the persistence of imperial power through work by artists like Michael Rakowitz, while Efie Gallery will debut a public-facing viewing room with art by El Anatsui and A\u00efda Muluneh, among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAt The Third Line, Sara Naim\u2019s\u00a0solo exhibition will feature paintings that move between figuration and abstraction and will be paired with a video work that breaks language down into gesture and sound. At Leila Heller Gallery, Douglas White\u2019s\u00a0The Great Wave<\/em>\u00a0translates Hokusai\u2019s iconic print into monumental sculpture made from discarded tires, capturing a moment of suspended force that mirrors a period of ecological and geopolitical strain.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe expanded Alserkal Avenue calendar leads into a rescheduled Art Dubai in mid-May, after the fair was\u00a0pushed back\u00a0with plans to shift it to an \u201cadapted format\u201d amid ongoing conflict in the region, as organizers adjust to changing conditions.<\/p>\n \n\tAlserkal\u2019s role here is not incidental. Over the past decade, the Avenue has grown from a handful of galleries into\u00a0one of the central nodes\u00a0of Dubai\u2019s cultural infrastructure, now housing around 90 creative businesses across repurposed industrial spaces. The month-long format is meant to serve as a sustained platform to counteract the volatility surrounding the fair.<\/p>\n \n\tThe broader context is hard to ignore. The US and Israel\u2019s airstrikes against Iran have also led to strikes against the UAE, and Iran has restricted use of the Strait of Hormuz, which as of Monday was under a blockade against Iranian ships by the US. The UAE has a\u00a0direct economic stake\u00a0in keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, a narrow but vital corridor through which about 20 percent of the world\u2019s oil shipments pass as well as other regional trade. These disruptions have led to increases in gas and energy prices, changes to airline routes, and, by extension, interrupted the movement of artworks and people that sustain the art market\u2019s Gulf ambitions.\u00a0In that light, Alserkal\u2019s expanded programming seems to be a way to make sure the ecosystem keeps working even as conditions around it remain uncertain<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/alserkal-art-month-dubai-art-week-expansion-art-dubai-2026-1234781142\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2_DB-Alserkal-5322.jpg?w=1024″] Alserkal will stretch its usual Art Week into a five-week \u201cArt Month\u201d from April 18 to May 18, adding grants, temporary warehouse space for collectives, and a commercially focused group show organized with 12 galleries from around the United Arab Emirates. The extension is an effort to keep exhibitions and sales moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1883455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1883455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1883455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1883455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1883455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}