Art Basel Qatar: Highlights
By Naso Art Journal and Global Art Daily
Global Art Daily: Picks
Christo, Gagosian
For Gagosian to present early sculptural works by Christo from the late 1950s and early 60s, alongside one of the Gulf’s most recognizable public art proposals (Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s unrealized The Mastaba) makes perfect sense for Art Basel’s first edition in the region. As wrapped museum pieces are piling up in air-conditioned storage, “a vision, about to materialize” is a common denominator in the Gulf’s art consciousness. The Mastaba would indeed be Christo and Jeanne Claude’s largest work to date, conceived in 1977 for the Abu Dhabi desert. If realized one day, it would be the largest contemporary sculpture (in volume) in the world.
Meriem Bennani, Lodovico Corsini, Francois Ghebaly
A strategic choice to showcase a highly photogenic, kinetic sculpture from rising star Meriem Bennani in the middle of a commercial art fair - a statement that the market reflects the local institutional tendency to anchor large-scale exhibitions with interactive artworks: moving at the speed of Instagram cameras, interactive with time and space, speaking of larger-than-life themes in an accessible way.
Halit Altindere, Pilot
Political choice, regionally relevant, and pushing boundaries, the entire booth felt like a solo exhibition by Turkish artist Halit Altindere rather than a solo booth. Different media were used to speak of surveillance to war anxiety, testing the limits of what can be showcased in an art environment so reliant on sovereignty and cultural diplomacy.
Shigeko Kubota, Fergus McCaffrey
A museum-worthy installation by Japanese artist Shigeko Kubota, “Duchampiana: Video Chess” (1968-1975) comprised of moving image, sound, archival object, and photography documenting a historical chess game between Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. In an institutional context, the presence of such a conceptual work from the 1960s New York and Japan context dialogues with Qatar’s cultural aspirations and global affiliations – an interesting moment in positioning the Gulf’s’ growing interest in new media art with early new media art centers from the West and from the East. As far as the connection might seem geographically distant, it does not seem so conceptually far-fetched.
Sophia Al Maria, The Third Line
A must-see at the fair, Sophia Al Maria’s scroll paintings feel fresh and extremely timely. It is as if these canvases needed to exist in their current format: their raw edges give a breath of fresh air to the meticulous framing of Basquiats and Picassos nearby. This is art in the making - Gulf Futurism, 3.0. Art Basel Doha 2026.
— Sophie Mayuko Arni, Founder
Naso Art Journal: Picks
Marwan, Sfeir-Semler Gallery
Ahmed Mater, ATHR Gallery
Caline Aoun, Marfa’ Projects
Farida El Gazzar, Kalfayan Galleries
Farid Belkahia, Violon Bleu
Our picks from the inaugural Art Basel Qatar reflect what felt most resonant in Doha: booths that treated the region not as a backdrop, but as a context for sustained artistic thinking.
At Sfeir-Semler Gallery, the presentation of Marwan returned attention to painting as a space of prolonged looking - works built through layered surfaces and intense concentration on the human head. At ATHR Gallery, Ahmed Mater brought together image-making and research-based practice, engaging histories, archives, and contemporary visual culture from Saudi Arabia. Marfa’ Projects’ booth with Caline Aoun introduced a striking sense of innovation: paintings evoking sheets of ice that produced a perceptual chill as viewers approached, without any literal melting - a subtle sensory disruption that expanded the fair’s spatial and experiential diversity. Kalfayan Galleries’ presentation of Farida El Gazzar foregrounded narrative and figuration through a distinctly personal visual language, while Violon Bleu’s focus on Farid Belkahia highlighted a practice rooted in material experimentation and abstraction shaped by North African artistic traditions.
What these booths shared was precision rather than spectacle. In a city often discussed through scale and architecture, they emphasized attention, material intelligence, and continuity across generations, suggesting that this first edition is not simply hosting an international fair, but entering an ongoing artistic conversation.
As the art world gathers in Doha, the fair becomes an opportunity to reposition MENA practices within the global art discourse - not as peripheral voices, but as producers of frameworks, histories, and formal innovations that reshape how contemporary art is read internationally. The strongest presentations embraced this shift, allowing regional specificity to operate as a point of influence rather than translation.
— Nayla & Soraya, Co-Founders
All images and writing copyright of Naso Art Journal and Global Art Daily.