NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery has launched its first Gulf Quinquennial, titled "Between the Tides," featuring around 30 artists from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The exhibition presents a coherent selection of videos, installations, paintings, and traditional record-keeping practices, aiming to deepen and complicate the cultural narrative of the Arabian Peninsula by highlighting its diversity, linguistic interactions, and migrant labor.
The exhibition matters because it captures a five-year snapshot of creative practice in a region undergoing rapid transformation, where skylines and alliances shift quickly. Curators Maya Allison and Duygu Demir focus on "past-making" and supporting the creation of accessible archives, arguing that without such institutional interventions, indigenous knowledge and oral traditions tied to the Gulf's maritime history are at risk of being lost amidst technological and climatic upheaval.