Frieze Abu Dhabi : 2026

In welcoming the inaugural edition of Frieze Abu Dhabi, Elmarsa Gallery presents a selection of masterpieces by leading modern and contemporary artists from North Africa, the Levant and the Mashriq diaspora. This year's stand will highlight three presentations: The explorations of resilience through pictorial representation and documentation, a solo presentation on a pioneer of Algerian modern art, and a group focus on the regions Women of Modernism. The presentation will feature key pieces by Hamed Abdulla, Huguette Caland, Abdul Rahman Al-Muzayen, Ismail Shammout, Lorna Selim, Gouider Triki, Inji Efflatoun, and Abdelkader Guermaz, to name a few. Each artist’s practice — whether through Mustafa Al Hallaj’s signature graphic fan al-muqawama work, Bayas Women or Omar Beys self-assured contrastivist tendencies— contributes to a dynamic dialogue within this year's edition of our participation.

The stand reveals a shared ambition of these artists to step away from imposed categorisation, in a move to reclaim power and autonomy within their lives and for their communities. The presentation highlights key artistic movements, from explorations into Liberation and Resistance art and experimentations with the Hurufiyya Movement to body-based abstraction that would be previously categorised as Art-brut or naïve, now re-analysed with more nuance. The focus on Algeria’s modernist pioneer Abdelkader Guermaz will also take centre stage; a selection of paintings spanning from the start of his association with founding members of the Second Paris School, in the early 1960’s onwards will be shown. His body of work interrogates the pictorial and spiritual search for light, often having been referred to as the painter of silence and light, painting compositions perceived as abstract landscapes.