Sixteen of UAE's most memorable exhibitions this year, ranging from intricate tatreez to colossal chandeliers

The year has been strong for the local art scene, with a steady run of thoughtful and well-curated exhibitions.

As 2025 draws to a close and prompts reflection, here are 16 of the most memorable exhibitions, from those that underscored the urgency of art in the face of cultural erasure to those that traced new connections in the region’s art history.

1. Vestiges at Ayyam Gallery

The stone sculptures bear the weight of a conflict-ridden world. Victor Besa / The National

Iraqi-Dutch artist Athar Jaber marked his first solo exhibition in Dubai earlier this year, with a series of stone sculptures that bear the weight of the modern world.

The busts show human faces with features that have been pummeled in or twisted out of place. Limbs, torsos and heads emerge with Hellenistic grace and detail from marble blocks that have otherwise been left coarse and unfinished. The body parts in Jaber’s sculptures are severed, almost writhing.

The sculptures in Vestiges were not new, with some having been produced in 2014. However, their themes and concerns within the works remain topical.

Jaber created the works after witnessing from afar the turmoil that has affected Iraq and the wider Middle East. It left an indelible mark on his perception of the world – a mark he sought to transpose in stone.

“People are sometimes disturbed or shocked by my work,” he told The National in March. “But then look at what we have been fed through the media. Seeing what we've seen, I can't make beautiful things that just embellish and adorn.”

The exhibition concluded in April

2. Kings and Queens of Africa: Forms and Figures of Power at Louvre Abu Dhabi

The exhibition showed the artistic diversity of sub-Saharan Africa. Victor Besa / The National

Louvre Abu Dhabi began its annual slate of exhibitions by exploring 1,000 years of African history through the lens of the continent’s royalty.

Kings and Queens of Africa: Forms and Figures of Power was organised in collaboration with Musee du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, and featured loans from several notable African institutions. It brought together more than 350 historical artefacts and contemporary artworks, which collectively showed the diversity of sub-Saharan Africa.

The exhibition delved into the rich traditions and mythologies of the region, while also showing how their stories continue to inspire and inform artists from Africa and its diaspora. In that way, it dismantled monolithic conceptions of the continent, to instead show how Africa has been a birthplace to several ancient kingdoms, empires and states, each with their own unique set of customs and beliefs.

The exhibition concluded in June

3. Layered Medium at Manarat Al Saadiyat

The exhibition brought together works by more than two dozen South Korean artists. Ryan Lim for The National

Layered Medium: We are in Open Circuits examined the beginnings of the contemporary art movement in South Korea in the mid-20th century, charting its development until the present day.

It was the first major showcase of Korean contemporary art in the Gulf and comes as the inaugural project of a three-year collaboration between Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (Admaf) and Seoul Museum of Art (Sema).

The exhibition brought together works by more than two dozen South Korean artists, from pioneers including Nam June Paik and Park Hyunki to renowned contemporary figures such as Lee Bul, Haegue Yang and Moka Lee. Layered Medium was not intended as a comprehensive survey of contemporary South Korean art, but it still presented a healthy breadth of works that showed the diversity of practices that shaped the country’s avant-garde scene.

The exhibition concluded in June

4. Nadia Saikali and Her Contemporaries at Maraya Art Centre

The exhibition used Saikali’s work to explore Beirut as a hub for other female Arab artists. Photo: Maraya Art Centre

Nadia Saikali and Her Contemporaries was organised in collaboration with Maraya Art Centre and Barjeel Art Foundation. The show shone a long-overdue light on Saikali, a Lebanese artist born in 1936. It brought together artworks from the 1960s that demonstrated the artist’s striking range.

The exhibition also used Saikali’s work as a point of departure to explore how, in the latter half of the 20th century, Beirut was a hub for several female Arab artists, many of whom had a keen sense for abstraction. These include renowned Lebanese figures such as Saloua Raouda Choucair, Huguette Caland, Etel Adnan and Helen Khal, as well as Kuwaiti artist Munira Al-Kazi, Iraqi abstract artist Madiha Umar, Jordanian sculptor Mona Saudi, Syrian painter Asma Fayoumi, and Palestinian mixed-media artist Maliheh Afnan.

As such, the exhibition deftly captured the impact of modern women artists from the region, while also showing how Beirut as a city was instrumental in producing seminal works of Arab abstraction.

The exhibition concluded in July

5. Time Heals, Just Not Quick Enough… at Efie Gallery

Time Heals, Just Not Quick Enough… was a group exhibition that featured work by five diverse contemporary artists. Photo: Efie Gallery

Time Heals, Just Not Quick Enough… was a group exhibition curated by Ose Ekore. It featured works by five contemporary artists: Samuel Fosso, Aida Muluneh, Kelani Abass, Abeer Sultan and Su