While art markets in Europe and the United States continue to struggle, a dramatically different narrative is emerging along the Persian Gulf. Art dealers, gallery owners, and auction house executives speak with genuine excitement about the energy flowing through major cities like Doha, Dubai, and Riyadh. The region appears poised to become the art world's next major hub, with Sotheby's recent expansion into Saudi Arabia, upcoming December auction week in Abu Dhabi, and Art Basel's announcement of a new fair in Qatar for 2026.
Noah Horowitz, CEO of Art Basel, describes the Gulf region as "a hyperconnected, multi-hyphenate global mechanism" – essentially meaning there's substantial money circulating in the area. The Art Dubai fair held earlier this year in Madinat Jumeirah successfully attracted 120 galleries from 65 cities worldwide. However, industry veterans question whether Western art businesses moving into the region automatically guarantees the development of a fully functioning, sustainable art market.
Charles Pocock, who has been selling art in Dubai since 2007 and is often called "the mastermind of the Middle Eastern market," offers a starkly different perspective. He points to concerning signs, including Sotheby's February auction in Riyadh, which sold only 67 percent of its lots – a result he describes as "a disaster" by any industry standard. From his Meem Gallery in Dubai's Al Quoz Industrial Area 3, housed in a warehouse building backing onto an eight-lane highway, Pocock expresses deep skepticism about the Middle East's potential as the art market's savior.
"The client base is less now than it was 10, 15 years ago," Pocock explains. He opened his gallery in 2007 with Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, a member of the Sharjah ruling family, during a time when Dubai's small art market was driven by real estate investors capitalizing on the city's rapid expansion. Now, however, he observes that the region's wealthy have shifted their interests toward different luxury goods and investments.
"They want to spend $10,000 in a nightclub on a Saturday and have some Richard Mille watch that cost $200,000 and have a Lamborghini," Pocock notes. "They're not interested in art at all. They're all into Bitcoin." This shift in spending patterns represents a significant challenge for galleries hoping to build a sustainable collector base in the region.
Georgina Adam, editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, who has been visiting the Gulf region for decades, shares similar concerns about the market's foundation. She believes the region lacks the everyday collectors that any thriving art market requires for long-term success. "There are one or two major individual buyers," she mentions, citing Qatar's Sheikha Al-Mayassa and the House of Nahyan, a ruling royal family in the UAE, "but you can't build an art market on the basis of two major buyers."
To outside observers, the deep financial resources of Middle Eastern governments certainly suggest a booming market environment. Abu Dhabi's massive $27 billion Saadiyat Island development project will house both a Louvre and a Guggenheim museum. In Saudi Arabia, high-profile partnerships with the Smithsonian Institution and Centre Pompidou form central components of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious Saudi Vision 2030 project. Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," reportedly purchased by the prince for $450 million in 2017, is expected to anchor a soon-to-open cultural center.
However, outside of state-sponsored purchasing, there's considerably less market activity and encouragement. "You don't have White Cubes and Gagosianos – there's no place for them here, not yet," explains one art world insider. "Probably, we'll grow into it – but nobody knows." An auction house source reveals that much of the commercial art ecosystem is "either state-funded or funded by sovereign wealth," creating an unusual blurring of lines between public and private art sectors.
This confusion becomes evident in recent major announcements. Sotheby's first Abu Dhabi auctions, announced last week, come less than a year after the company received a $1 billion investment from a sovereign wealth fund based in the emirate. ARTnews described this investment as "a lifeline for the auction house," which has struggled with significant debt since its 2019 acquisition by Patrick Drahi.
Similarly, Art Basel Qatar is being launched through a partnership with QC, an arm of the government entity Qatar Museums, and the government-operated Qatar Sports Investments. This entity's diverse portfolio includes the French soccer team Paris Saint-Germain and the World Padel Tour. When asked about these unusual partnerships, Horowitz suggests that Qatar's "hybrid setup" of working with "a leading cultural entity and a leading sports-and-entertainment investment business is by its nature unique."
Reem Fadda, director of Abu Dhabi's Cultural Foundation and overseer of the Abu Dhabi Art Fair, dismisses concerns about the market's heavy reliance on state funding. After witnessing two decades of state-backed cultural development, Fadda believes the momentum can only continue growing. "You can't go backwards. You don't backtrack from that. It becomes like a wheel that spirals," she argues.
Vilma Jurkute, executive director of Dubai's Alserkal Avenue gallery district, agrees they're experiencing "a history-making moment, not only for the region, for the world." William Lawrie, an art dealer who operates as one of her tenants, adds that "it's probably the best time we've had in our 15 years of operating," attributing some of this success to economic difficulties elsewhere driving wealthy individuals to Dubai. When Pocock's pessimistic views were shared with these industry optimists, responses were mixed, with one commenting, "He has no filter."
Critical questions remain about the long-term sustainability of Gulf rulers continuing to subsidize Western art businesses. Saudi Vision 2030, the massively ambitious plan to diversify the oil-dominated economy through entertainment, tourism, and finance, has an explicit end date built into its name. If, as some critics suggest, the governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia are primarily interested in using art initiatives to improve their human rights records, what kind of market can truly thrive without ongoing state backing?
Reliance on government goodwill has already created significant challenges and setbacks. Major projects frequently face delays and cancellations – the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi was originally scheduled to open in 2012. Saudi Arabia's ambitious "The Line" project, a 105-mile-long linear city, has faced serious questions about its feasibility. In some cases, government clients have been known to simply disappear, leaving galleries expecting business commitments unfulfilled. "Maybe they should just expect a bit more of that," one dealer observes.
With oil prices remaining uncertain and Saudi Arabia increasingly focusing resources on hosting the 2034 World Cup, this hardly seems like a solid foundation for building a healthy, independent art market. When asked why he doesn't share his colleagues' confidence about the region's prospects, Pocock shows a surgical scar on his neck from cancer surgery in 2006. "One should approach it like a doctor," he explains. "Instead of saying, 'That tumor looks great. Maybe you can accessorize it with an Hermès scarf,' it's better to say, 'It's not great. We need to do this, we need to do that.'"
Unlike the region's enthusiastic boosters, Pocock believes the Middle Eastern art market requires more structured government support specifically for dealers "to help make business flow better." He worries that "a lot of people are quite happy being part of this little bubble, which I think is, long-term, very problematic." It's unusual for any art dealer to suggest that business is anything but thriving, making Pocock's candid assessment particularly noteworthy.
If Pocock's analysis proves correct – that the Gulf's art market is simply an unsustainable bubble of government spending – the eventual signs will be unmistakable. The region will likely see closed galleries, abandoned art fairs, and dealers and auctioneers moving on to seek their next apparent market savior. Whether the Gulf can transition from government-funded cultural initiatives to a self-sustaining art market ecosystem remains the crucial question facing this glittering but potentially fragile boom.
