Alserkal’s New Art Season Starts This Wednesday

Alserkal Avenue is switching the gallery lights back on.

The new season starts with a free collective opening on Wednesday 23 September, bringing more than 15 new exhibitions into one night of gallery-hopping. Across September, 19 exhibitions will run across 16 galleries and art spaces.

That is a lot of art for one evening. Wear comfortable shoes and accept that you will not see everything.

Start With The Living Archive

At Firetti Contemporary, Syrian artist Ahmad Tallaa makes his Dubai solo debut with The Living Archive.

His large-scale portraits use UAE sand, chalk powder, pigment and acrylic, creating surfaces that feel excavated rather than painted. Handmade books, sculptures, studies and an installation build on the idea of the face as a record of memory, displacement and life quietly giving the game away.

The Living Archive runs until 11 November. Entry is free.

What Else Is Opening?

At Ayyam Gallery, Hisham Sharif’s Allusive Veil explores private life, tradition and memory through autobiographical paintings.

Green Art Gallery brings together Lulua Alyahya, Rami Farook, Sohrab Hura and Khaled Jarada for Private World, a group show focused on solitude and looking inward.

Lawrie Shabibi presents Nada Elkalaawy’s The Butterfly’s Burden, while Leila Heller Gallery opens three exhibitions spanning Emirati identity, cultural memory and material experimentation.

Across the programme, expect painting, sculpture, film, textiles and multidisciplinary work by artists from the UAE, Syria, Egypt, India, Pakistan and beyond.

In short, this is not 16 rooms of slightly different beige canvases.

How Should You Do It?

Don't speed-run all 19 exhibitions. Nobody wins a prize for finishing contemporary art before dinner.

Pick four or five galleries, follow whatever catches your eye and come back for the rest. Most shows continue into October or November.

Opening night is for atmosphere. A quieter return visit is for actually seeing the art.