Looking for something inspiring this weekend? Across the Middle East, exciting exhibitions are bringing bold ideas, immersive experiences, and contemporary reflections to life. From the streets of Riyadh to the galleries of Abu Dhabi, here’s a snapshot of what you can explore and why these shows are worth visiting.
In the Blink of an Eye – Riyadh
Location: Citywide & Riyadh Metro | Dates: Nov. 20 – Dec. 6, 2025
This year’s Noor Riyadh festival turns the city into a luminous playground. In the historic center, light installations interact with ancient architecture, creating a dialogue between past and present. Along Riyadh’s metro stations, kinetic sculptures and responsive lights track human movement, reflecting the city’s energy and speed.
The exhibition isn’t just decorative—it’s about connection, transformation, and how technology and art can make a city feel alive. Expect to see works that literally react to your presence, turning your walk through Riyadh into a living, visual experience.
we refuse_d – Doha
Location: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art | Dates: Until Feb. 6, 2026
we refuse_d is a politically and socially charged exhibition examining endurance, refusal, and resilience. Fifteen artists explore what it means to persist and create under conditions of censorship, displacement, or social pressure.
The works include installations, videos, and performative pieces that question authority, highlight struggles, and celebrate creative persistence. It’s both a collective statement of solidarity and a reflection on how art can confront adversity—think of it as an exhibition where every piece is a form of protest, resistance, or survival.
In That Same Hour – Amman
Location: Darat al Funun, Jordan | Dates: Nov. 18, 2025 – May 31, 2026
This art exhibition is a meditation on sudden, life-altering events and their aftermath. Artists from Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond explore moments when neighborhoods vanish, families are displaced, or histories are erased.
Through photography, sculpture, video, and mixed media, the works preserve fragments of memory while reflecting on the global and local consequences of conflict. The show spans several spaces in Darat al Funun, creating a layered experience that moves between intimate testimony and broader social reflection—showing both personal grief and collective memory.
slow burn – Beirut
Location: Beirut Art Center | Dates: Nov. 13, 2025 – Feb. 28, 2026
slow burn focuses on process over final product. Emerging artists were invited to work on-site at Beirut Art Center, allowing viewers to witness art being created and transformed in real time. The theme of fire underpins the exhibition—not as spectacle, but as a metaphor for latent energy, tension, and potential.
The works range from intimate, tactile pieces to larger installations, exploring transformation, endurance, and response to social and political pressures in Lebanon. Visiting this show is an invitation to engage with the act of making art as a living, evolving process.
Art Here: Shadows – Abu Dhabi
Location: Louvre Abu Dhabi| Dates: Oct. 11 – Dec. 28, 2025
Art Here 2025 invites artists from the GCC, MENA region, and Japan to respond to the theme of Shadows. The exhibition explores identity, memory, and transformation, highlighting how absence, concealment, and subtlety can be as expressive as bold gestures.
Visitors will see paintings, sculptures, and installations that play with light and perception—some immersive, some contemplative. This edition emphasizes how contemporary artists from the region and beyond interpret personal and collective histories, making it a compelling showcase of regional creativity in dialogue with global art trends.
Salah Abdel Kerim – Philosopher of Form, Cairo
Location: Safarkhan Gallery | Dates: Nov. 19 – Dec. 10, 2025
This exhibition marks the centennial of Salah Abdel Kerim, a pioneering force in Egyptian modernism known for his versatility across painting, sculpture, ceramics, and design. The show highlights his bold approach to form and material, especially his groundbreaking “sculpting from emptiness” technique, where negative space becomes part of the artwork itself.
Blending influences from ancient Egyptian art with modern ideas, Abdel Kerim explored themes of transformation, identity, and the human condition. The exhibition offers a rare chance to see key works and personal pieces that reveal how he helped redefine what modern Egyptian art could be.
Conclusion
This weekend, the Middle East is alive with art that challenges, inspires, and captivates. Whether you’re drawn to immersive light displays, socially engaged works, or reflections on memory and identity, there’s something to spark curiosity and conversation in every city. These exhibitions offer more than just a visual experience—they’re opportunities to witness creativity in action and engage with the stories and ideas shaping the region today.
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